Embrace Your Resilience

​When life knocks you down, what do you do? Do you let it and give up or do you get back up and keep going?

How do you react when things do go as planned?
 
This quarter this is a topic I am thinking about - something that I am inviting you to think about as well.

"Embracing our resilience"

Why is that you may ask? I am presently in Jamaica and hearing the news regarding the collapse of Thomas Cook, the world’s oldest tour operator. This news had me thinking about how challenging it is to stay relevant in business with our goals and aspirations in today's market.  What is the impact on the people who were stranded abroad? This company was started in 1841, meaning that its collapse ended 178 years of holiday-making. Lots to think about for anyone in business today.

Resilience isn’t about floating through life on a breeze, or skating by all of life’s many challenges unscathed; rather, it’s about experiencing all of the negative, difficult, and distressing events that life throws at you and staying on track optimistic, and high-functioning. Just imagine If we never ran into disappointment in the first place, we would never learn how to deal with it. 

The story below demonstrate there is power in embracing change and our resilience - Bad luck? Good Luck? Who knows?

"There was once a farmer who used an old horse to till his fields. One day, the horse escaped into the hills. When the farmer’s neighbours sympathized with the old man over his bad luck, the farmer replied, “Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?”

A week later, the horse returned with a herd of horses from the hills. This time the neighbours congratulated the farmer on his good luck. His reply was “Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?”

Then when the farmer’s son was attempting to tame one of the wild horses, he fell off its back and broke his leg. Everyone thought this was very bad luck. The farmer’s reaction: “Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?”

Some weeks later, the army marched into the village and conscripted every able-bodied youth they found there. When they saw the farmer’s son with his broken leg, they let him off. Was that Good luck or Bad luck? Who knows!

Who knows? Invite acceptance. Great leaders accept the idea that in chaos there is order, and that sometimes you have to work with what you’ve got, accept what happens, and move on. When it appears there are more questions than answers, more trouble than solutions, more failures than successes, more bad then good, to lead with greatness is to sometimes say, “Who knows!”  When everything seems to be bad luck -  it may just be good luck in disguise - and when not everything has an answer, and not everything can be figured out - that is when true leadership emerges.