Why building resilience is the need of the hour?

In one of my past workplaces, I had a wonderful opportunity to facilitate a team meeting & it had to do with something that could improve our software team performance.

I started that meeting with 1 question - On a scale of 1 to 10, how would u rate the current performance of the team in terms of it being a high performing 1?

1 of the team members chose to not answer it. This was a question asked in the midst of the Corona pandemic & schools in Germany were not fully functional & the person who chose not to answer it is also a parent

I realised this person was right on their part on choosing not to answer the question as they understandbly could have had other things on their mind with regard to supporting their family & rightly so.

I realised, I had asked the wrong question. I should have instead asked - what are u doing in today’s times to build #resilience? Why? Simply because building resilience IMHO would allow one to be able to do better both at work & even in personal life, especially amidst more challenging times.

Last year, I had a chance to visit #Finland, which as per 1 report is the world’s happiest country in the world. I’m not diving into that opinion.

I was curious about what made it the happiest country & that’s when I came across #Sisu which comes from the word sisa which means internal. In short Sisu is the Finnish concept of resilience, courage & grit in the face of all manner of challenges as per ‘Everyday Sisu’ book by Katja Pantzar. I asked a Finnish man what did Sisu mean to him & he said persistence & dedication

Reflecting back on my 4+ years of living in #Germany, I’ve been laid off more than once here & more than 3 times in my career, however I’ve never let that get the better of me

Coming from #India, there’s been atleast 1 thing that has always kept me going amidst my own challenging times & for me that has been my conscience & at the core of it, my asking myself one question, was I on the path of #Dharma? Dharma stands for righteousness & following my Dharma has built immense resilience in me & it’s been 1 of my biggest guiding light in the face of adversities & life. The saying: ‘Dharmo Rakshati Rakshitah’(which means if u protect Dharma, Dharma will protect u) has proven to be true in my life always.

Whether its Sisu or Dharma or anything else that drives u, I’ve realised at the core of it is one’s perception to life. Michael Jordan once said: I’ve failed over and over again in my life, that is why I succeed.

Recently Sister Shivani, a spiritual leader from India, shared a formula Stress=Pressure/Resilience in a Tony Robbins podcast. I’ve seen pressure get the better of even well-intentioned leaders of software companies & it made me realise, we humans need to be trained to handle pressure better & building resilience is 1 way of doing so, even as per the formula

I intend to share more on my own learnings of navigating pressure better as part of #April #stressawarenessmonth