Resilience - Now more than ever!
What kicked off this online community wilm&a, is a book club! I wanted to continue my learning journey after completing an online programme about women in leadership.
Resilient came as a recommendation by Kathryn Bishop an Associate Fellow from our leadership programme and an author herself. We both agree that books are personal and they will resonate depending on the timing and reason you choose to read the book, specifically the genre ‘self help’.
Rick Hanson knows wellness inside and out! He has a PhD in psychology, specialises in positive neuroplasticity and is the founder of a wellness institute. In addition, he is a New York Times best–selling author, has lectured at NASA, Google and Oxford and loves hanging out in nature.
The book title itself is a powerful statement. The author frames the concepts in an easy to digest approach that doesn’t require a start to finish method. You could easily jump to a chapter, read (or listen) in bite size pieces and in fact my approach to ‘self help books’ is the same as cook books, there is usually 2 or 3 recipes you like and you adapt the ingredients to what is in your fridge! (e.g. The HEAL practice, A – Absorb is the one that I will apply).
The question from a wilm&a perspective is “are there any takeaways that could be helpful and practical to women leadership development?”
Understanding negative bias and how that has an effect on our daily lives, including our workspace, will help in rewiring our brain. The author uses the example of what happens when we don’t meet our goals; dopamine drops and we become anxious among other things; and when we do meet a goal, the likelihood is we do not recognise or we don’t spend enough time acknowledging the success. Instead, we quickly move on. So celebrate the wins no matter how small (e.g. answering an email)!
Another interesting insight is compassion for oneself; Hanson says ‘we are better friends to others than we are to ourselves’. We know in the workplace women advocate and successfully negotiate for others, whether it is for a team members increased salary or promotion though fall short when negotiating for us.
I chose the audiobook narrated buy Hanson himself. That said, if I had the book in physical form, it would have allowed me to mark up, reference and perhaps take my time reading and absorbing the methodology.
Resilience is significant in these current times, and I will dip back in to this book to remind myself of the practices that I found helpful; however, for now I will sign off and celebrate finishing the blog post!
I would love to hear your thoughts on the book if you have read it or your insights about building resilience as a woman in leadership!
