Communal Resilience

Plus Practising Resilience and Australian Availability

Photo: Margo Talbot

If you've seen me speak, you know I talk a lot about resilience. At least, I used to talk a lot about resilience, but then covid came along and I figured, OK, now you get it. No need to keep banging the drum.

I do however continue to emphasize that building resilience is akin to making deposits into an account, let's call it our "resilience account".

We do this by practising anything that makes us uncomfortable, that takes us outside of our comfort zones.

Much like a bank account, when the time comes that we need to make a withdrawal, the account only has what it has. You don't magically discover you have more resilience; much like you don't magically discover you have more money...

In essence, resilience is a form of being prepared.

Now, in saying all this, I must admit I wasn't quite prepared for what happened onstage a few weeks ago in Cancun when suddenly, my microphone cut out mid-sentence...

I thought initially that maybe the batteries in the mic transmitter pack just died. No big deal: dud batteries exist, though thankfully aren't common.

I figured someone would run out a backup pack, or maybe a handheld mic.

That seemed to be taking a long time, so eventually, I asked if people wanted to move closer to the front so that they could hear, and many begun to move.

What I didn't realize was, the reason nobody came out with a backup mic is that they had just discovered that

the ENTIRE SOUNDBOARD had just shorted out...

So, forget about my mic not working, we have NO sound. From any mic; from any source. Zilch. Nada.

I said in the beginning that resilience is a form of preparedness, and what happened next over the course of 20- 30 minutes was a masterclass in an element of resilience I don't talk a lot about, and that is communal, or group resilience.

In this case, having the right people on the job who can quickly move through the three phases necessary to get through any crisis.

Now, these are my three phases, and I did share them later in my presentation once we got going again, but I honestly didn't set out to write about this until just now.

 Very quickly, the AV team had to acknowledge what was happening, and then, simply (but not aways easily):

ACCEPT what was happening.

• We have lost the sound board.

• We have a MAJOR problem.

And then, again, very quickly to step two; who is going to do something about it?

We are.

RESPONSIBILITY.

And then immediately onto:

ACTION.

Find a replacement.

Think about this for a second.

You're an event production team from Canada, working in Mexico...

I still have no idea how, but we were back up and running in approximately 30 minutes.

Where they got the new board, I have no idea.

All I know is that the crew saved the day, the show went on, and we all witnessed a great example of resilience in real time.

This piece was originally published on LinkedIn

Practising Resilience

As the water temperature in our lakes here in the Columbia Valley move into double digits (50 for our neighbours down south), that can only mean one thing; lake swimming season is upon us.

With cold plunging and cold-water therapy being all the rage these days, you may be tempted to buy one of those ready-made plunge pools, or better yet, make one yourself out of a chest freezer.

Another option, my preferred, is to kill two birds with one stone and get your physical exercise at the same time by swimming in cold water.

Now, I get it; this may be hard to find if you’re in Florida, or Queensland, or the Cayman Islands for that matter, but my guess is if you get down to the water early enough in the morning it’s going to have some degree of chill to it.

The benefits of swimming alone are numerous. Less stress on joints, great cardio, the peace and quiet of being immersed in water; it really is like a moving meditation to me. When you combine these with the benefits of cold-water therapy; increased dopamine production, reduced inflammation, boosted metabolism as well as reported support for our immune systems; it really is a win-win.

Australia in November through January

As I’m spending more time each year back home, I wanted to give a heads up that I’m now booking dates for speaking engagements in Australia for November through January 2025.

Please hit me up if you think you (or an associate) might be able to use me for your conference or event.

Of course I’m up for speaking at any time of the year; just letting you know as obviously travel will be a lot less when I know I’ll already be there for sure.

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