Again, our experience this past weekend in sport morphed into our business life. It was Olympic trials and we saw Resilience on stage. One athlete who lost the first race of the best 2 of 3 came back to win both race 2 and 3 under severe pressure. This earned them the right to go to Rio. The other lost the first race as "the favorite" and went on to lose the second race and actually finished a surprising third. That person now has an extremely difficult route to qualify. If we could have stepped inside their heads I know what the conversation would have been:

Athlete 1:
"It's not you; they had a great race. I'm good at what I do, and I just need to execute my race plan better."

Athlete 2:
"I lost because I am not good under pressure. I am not cut out for this. I am going to quit."

These two athletes stand on opposite ends of the continuum of reactions to failure. The first athlete bounces back after a brief period of malaise. The other goes from sadness to depression to a paralyzing fear of the future. Yet failure is an inevitable part of sports (and work); and one of life's most common traumas. Companies full of the second athletes are doomed to fail. It is people like the first athlete who organizations must recruit and retain. A company we recently consulted with here in Halifax now includes resiliency screening in their interviews. 

The US military implements resiliency training throughout their organization. Its members may struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, but thousands experience post-traumatic growth. Their goal is to reduce the number who struggle and increase the number who grow. A very good colleague of ours who works with women's rugby did a camp in the US with the navy seals recently. He said "what an experience, it made such a difference." Their performance shows it.

So at Vendura we believe in a high performance model. Assess - intervene - assess. So in this two part series we start with an assessment. This assessment comes from our Incite platform done in partnership with Dr Bill Howatt, Dave Veale and a few others. There are over a 100 screens and individualized programming. We will be conducting studies within our platform soon to look at topics like this. So answer these questions below, look at the reflections and watch for the next article on how to build resilience in yourself and staff.

Join our list to get the resiliency assessment tool and see where you sit!

Here is an example reflection based on a low score from the assessment: 

This score suggests that you have low coping skills and often feel overwhelmed and stressed by work and life. There is a path to feeling better and more in control. People with low resiliency are more at risk for developing mental health issues such as depression. The good news is, as Dr. Russ Newman reported, “Research has shown that resilience is not an extraordinary thing but is rather ordinary and can be learned by most anyone." If you are not sure where to start, talk to a professional counsellor through EAFP.

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Darren and Jesse