How to Develop Resilience
Episode 986: How to Develop Resilience, with Anese Cavanaugh
View this episode on:
How to develop resilience—Discover effective strategies for building resilience and overcoming challenges in this effective guide on how to develop resilience.
How to develop resilience? This will be an interesting podcast episode especially with our guest, Anese Cavanaugh. Get ready to learn this trait and make it work for your agency!
The reality is that 2020 was an exceptionally challenging year for businesses and agencies of all kinds — and we enter 2021 with no certain idea of what challenges the new year will bring.
However, attempting to rush out of the discomfort we have felt through the last year can cause us to miss the important lessons the challenges we tackled can teach us. Instead, it is important to reflect, learn, and develop resilience to help us prepare for the coming year.
In this episode of Onward Nation, encore guest Anese Cavanaugh shares how she and her team learned to develop resilience, and how doubling down on their efforts to be helpful are better positioning them for 2021.
What you’ll learn in this episode is about how to develop resilience:
- How the chaos of 2020 impacted Anese and her team, and how they learned to develop resilience and were able to pivot the business to adjust to change
- What important lessons Anese has learned from navigating the unprecedented challenges of the past year, and why she believes the work is never “done”
- What steps you can take to help your team develop resilience and adapt to the challenges you are facing
- How to develop resilience and how to overcome challenges.
- Why Anese challenged herself and her team to decide who they want to become in the new year, and why part of Anese’s resilience is in how she wants the pandemic to “serve her becoming”
- Why the pandemic has created a universal shared experience and an opportunity for all of us to consider who we want to become as we navigate these challenges
- How Anese and her team spent three months in spring 2020 doubling down on their efforts to be helpful, and how that helped create clarity for the rest of the year and 2021
- Why Anese believes being “responsible” and being “response-able” are two very different things with different kinds of energy
- How D.E.N.T. (Do what you can, Engage with a full heart, Now, Trust) is a powerful acronym that helps guide and motivate Anese
- How Anese and her team use D.E.N.T. to make an impact on the struggle of food insecurity that many people face
- How Anese realized that decreasing their prices during the pandemic wasn’t the right move to make, and how instead she focused on adding value and being helpful
- Why it is important to not rush out of your discomfort but instead to fully experience your discomfort and the range of feelings that come with it
Resources:
- Contagious You by Anese Cavanaugh: https://amzn.to/2Xm1F72
- Learn how to develop resilience, and you can find Anese here
- Enhance your strategies on how to develop resilience by reading this article
- LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/anesecavanaugh/
- LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/dare-to-engage-inc./about/
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/IEPMethod
- Twitter: @AneseCavanaugh
Additional Resources:
- Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13
- Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
- Stephen Woessner’s LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/
How to Develop Resilience: Full Episode Transcript
Get ready to find your recipe for success from America’s top business owners here at Onward Nation with your host, Stephen Woessner.
Good morning. Onward Nation, I’m Stephen Woessner, CEO of Predictive ROI, and your host. And as always, I am grateful to have you here. So, I’m going to start us off a little differently by taking you behind the curtain into a recent conversation I had with one of our past guests. Her name is Anese Cavanaugh. Anese was, are a great guest in episodes 756 as well as 912. And we’ve always remained in touch, which has been awesome. We check in with the occasional email and the little hello note, and then about a month or so ago, we decided to hang out on Zoom together one afternoon.
So we could really catch up right on the types of things if you can’t do an email. So we exchanged COVID-19 pivot stories. And what has it been like navigating the choppy waters? We talked about what it has been like steering our businesses back to calm waters. We talked about innovating along the way and, through it all, working hard to show up for our respective teams and our clients in the best right way. I even cried a bit on her shoulder, too. And I know this Onward Nation, it’s not been easy. And I admit there have been times when I have felt depleted and exhausted at the end of the day instead of energized. In times when I know that I could have been a better leader for my team.
When I listened, a niece shared with me how she and her team moved content online, digged in, pivoted, and developed new ways to deliver incredible value for the clients. Candidly, I was inspired by a niece inspired me, but she does that for many. And as I’ve heard her confidently and courageously, and as she vulnerably shared with me, I thought, okay, Onward Nation business owners. They need to hear this pivot story, too. So I’m looking back on my time that afternoon with Anese, and I shouldn’t have been surprised by a writer’s reaction.
I mean, and this is built. This reputation is being one of the world’s leading authorities in helping people show up and bring their best selves to the table to create a significant impact in their lives. So why was I surprised as she was having that impact with MI companies like Fitbit, Nike, IBM, Vistaprint, Zingerman, and the list goes on. You do what they call her work. They call her work, their secret sauce. So, OnwardNation, without further ado. It is my pleasure to welcome, for the third time, my friend, Anese Cavanaugh. Welcome, Anese.
How to Develop Resilience: Anese Cavanaugh’s Introduction
Hey, Stephen. It’s a pleasure to have you here, my friend. Thank you for taking the time out of your compressed schedule. I’m very much looking forward to this conversation. I am so grateful for you. Thank you for having me back.
You’re very welcome. And so, in all sincerity, that conversation that we had about a month or so ago when we spent some time that one afternoon was very impactful. Before we plunged, we had first feet first, whatever, into a pivot story, and so forth. Bring us up to speed. I know it’s been a while since you’ve been here for an Onward Nation conversation. It may be, that this will segue into a pivot story and so forth, but it brings us up to speed with where the business is at today. And then, we’ll rewind a little bit and go and go backwards into earlier this year, but bring us up to speed with where the business is at today. So, Onward Nation has that as context.
Yeah. Okay. So we’re going to dive in full body, not seat or hands or a heads-up. Okay. So, where is the business today? We’re speaking at this moment. Okay, great. Well, we’re right now, as we’re speaking, it’s the end of December, my team and I have just finished our, our completion have 2020 and our kick-off for 20 to 21, and we are doing it. It’s kind of perfect that you and I are talking right now. ’cause it was so interesting to get to know the team and to really look at what’s happened in 2020. And I know we’re going to talk about some of that, but to look at how everybody showed up, who everybody had to become, and what we had to shift in the business in order to get to this point and where we’re at today is the business is that it’s IEP Method so IQ Method stands for Intentional Energetic Presence.
And it’s really just about being clear about your intentions, your energy, and your Presence so that you can create the impact that you want to create in the world. And so there’s a whole methodology around it and the business now we’ve changed all of it while it used to be me running around the world and traveling and speaking and teaching and rooms and facilitating all that stuff, COVID has really shifted that. And so now we’re a Leadership consultancy that has an online program, self-paced training, and completely virtual offerings that really help people step into this content and work on their resiliency, their burnout, change management, building a sustainable culture, like all of these different pieces.
So, it’s been interesting. And what I can say is that you and I talked to this one about a month ago, and you asked me back about it. You said if the people need like, can we, can we share this story? I said, yeah, but I remember thinking, Oh my gosh, the stories are not done yet. And I kind of want to wait until the store is perfect. And Chris, when they come to you in this really great bow, like, I am a really big, or put a bow on it before you share it. and it’s the story has not been done like we are still moving through. It was still rebuilding. We’re still shifting everything where it is today that I think is the most meaningful for me is the team is in a better place. Everybody is in a greater place of Presence and humility and groundedness, and really being devoted to service and helping people move through it, especially as a period of time.
How to Develop Resilience: Embracing the Unfinished Story
Even though our revenues and what would have happened in past years didn’t happen that way, this year, we’re much better placed to move forward in a more sustainable way. So, what does that answer like where it’s at?
How to develop resilience? It does. And I think it gives us a lens into resiliency, which we are going to talk to you about in the story, like, is the story ever done, or is the story never done? I think that’s been one of my biggest learnings this year is — I mean, literally my advisors, my mentors, any coach I’ve ever had, or even my therapist. And of course, he said, man, you really like to put a bow on things, and it looks like a tie-dye. And I think one of the greatest gifts of this year is I really learned that it’s never done; everything is in process. And if you can stay present and in a conscious relationship with the process, the journey becomes that much more powerful and effective and more expansive, you know? So I think, I think the way that I used to do it, where I would wanna put a bow on things and have this story all cleaned up for you, that what I realized now is like that rips up rips off so much of the experience.
It actually happens from just going to the story’s not done, and it’s never going to be done. So, if this is where we’re out in the story as of today,
You know, it’s funny as much time as you and I have spent together, that’s the first time you went, Myers-Briggs on me with ENFJ. But by the way, in TJ, which you’ve probably guessed already, but in any way. So there was that was cool. I loved learning new things about
How to develop resilience? Actually, I think I’ve started to become more of an eye being honest with you about why it’s happening. It’s just a thing. But anyway, sorry, I’m like, I’m ambidextrous. Is that what it does? But he had an eye nimble, and you balance between the dichotomies. Is that what you’re saying? Well, okay. So, let’s talk about something else, foundational. So you’ve given us a view of where the businesses today are before we go backward, which is great, but also foundational. I love your definition of resiliency. Like, when we were talking, and I was in the green room, and then a pre-interview chat, and you were going like this, that resiliency is this wave, right? So I give us your perspective on that because I think that would be helpful for our audience to know for Onward Nation business to know that it’s not perfect all the time. There are the highs and lows, and that’s okay.
Yeah. I think that’s actually a huge part of resilience is starting to shift your relationship with so, so it’s never done it in my experience of this whole year, as for every human being I know, is that in some way, shape or form, everybody’s been doing this up and down, up and down things start to feel really secure and like good from it. And then everything blows up, you know? And so, to me, resiliency is about being able to say, present, and connect to ourselves, no matter what we’re going through, and to be able to be our own best friend so that we’re in a conscious relationship with that change.
How to develop resilience? And if we can be in contact with that change and keep moving with it and not checking out, and by checking out, I mean starting to drink or self-medicate or disappearing to TV. I mean, every once in a while, a good Netflix has been just mandatory, but if we can stay present with ourselves through it and keep coming back up and find the gifts and then find the reframes and then find the pain and then get help for our pain. I think that all of that together is what creates resiliency; I think it is never done. And I think knowing that it is the first step to resiliency, is like giving yourself a little bit of grace when it’s gone like this.
How to Develop Resilience: Nurturing Team Conversations for Strength and Flexibility
Okay. So, I’m thinking about our listeners right now. Onward Nation business owners thinking, okay, that sounds lovely. And I totally get where she’s coming from with that. And then you can also hear them saying, how do I help my team see that too, who don’t have, who don’t have, maybe the same life experiences and the business ownership experience that it needs to us where the traveling experience or been in front of Nike and Fitbit and providing guidance. So they don’t have the same worldview that you do or a business view that you do. So, I help business owners. If they were to sit down and have a conversation with their team about resiliency and being flexible, what would your advice be?
How to develop resilience? Yeah. I love that question. And I love where you were looking with this because I think that’s the most important thing that could be done with our team right now. And my advice is to sit down and just have an honest conversation with your team about what is happening right now and that’s it. Whatever the truth is for you and whatever the cheapest for your team, they might actually need two very different tracks. So it would be very, very conscious of that. So even just sitting down with the team and saying, Hey, look, I know we’re going through a really ambiguous time right now. And it was stressful. I know maybe it would just go through some riffs, like whatever is going on, to be able to sit down and name the pain, the stress, the ambiguity, things, to be able to share your own fear or your own concerns or what you’re grappling with.
I think that it creates more space than permission for people to come together and to be more connected and then just start opening up because we have to. That’s, to me, that’s part of the team resiliency being able to talk about what’s happening authentically and not having to like Armour up and show up great be positive all the time, or on the other side. Just kind of shut down to not do anything about it. So, I would say, just have the conversation; that would be the first thing.
Okay. So, let me make an assumption here. And you correct me. This was probably not a one-and-done conversation you can get, right? There’s probably a rhythm and or a cadence to it, right?
Yep. For sure. For sure. Like I can share, it is funny. I think one of the things I want to really get in the room right now is that every leader is different. Every human being is different. Every team is different. Every organization has different. However, we’re all human beings doing the very best we can. So when I offer these suggestions, I’m not necessarily telling you what to do, but I’m offering some frameworks. And also, what I see for myself even this year. So like this year, when this stuff started happening back in March, one of the first things I did with my team when I was really lucky cause I got to keep my team intact. But when the first thing I do with my team, as I just sat us all down and said, virtually said, okay, here’s what’s happening? How are we? What do you guys need right now?
What’s experience? What happened? I invited my team to actually create more space in our lives to take even better care of themselves as we navigated this. And when this first started happening, I mean, I don’t know if you remember it. Well, I’m sure you do, but we didn’t know if this was going to be. I thought this would be three or four weeks, right? Remember that was like, Oh, we’ll get through this. This is a couple of weeks for Hulu. So we started off just saying, really, take this time to think about what you need. How are you taking care of self to do your IEP work? You know, really practice what we preach. Cause the whole business, a whole body of work, is around showing up and being clear about your intentions and taking care of your energy and staying present and et cetera, et cetera. And so I invited the team to really, and myself included, really doubled down on your IEP practice, doubled down on yourself care.
How to Develop Resilience: Embracing Transformation Amidst Turbulent Times
How to develop resilience? Also, the other really helpful thing was asking them to think about who they want it to become this year. That was helpful for my team, but I know that it’s Stephen who was incredibly helpful for me to keep in mind. Okay. If everything is like a whirling right now, who do I want to be through this? How do I want to show up for my kids? Cause I have two kids. How do I show up for my kids, my family, my staff, and my clients right now? How do you actually want to show up? And how do you want to show up for myself? Who do I want to become a hoot? What do I want, what do I want, how do we want this pandemic to actually serve my becoming? So I have to become an even bigger, right?
How do we want this pandemic to serve our becoming? So I had to actually become a more grounded, resilient leader moving through this, even though I don’t know what the outcome is going to be. And even though it might feel like absolute chaos right now. Okay. I have never heard you say that before. Which one is Golden Nugget? Which the pandemic is becoming. Yes. It’s I believe it. I think that that’s the resiliency two thought, right? I would say endemic or anything—a divorce. You know, I remember I went through a divorce about, I don’t know, six, seven years ago. And I remember that the guiding light for me was like, who do I want to become through this divorce? Who do I want to become? Do I want to become a contract and be scared, angry, frustrated and careful, and closed off in my heart?
Or do you actually want to become a more loving person, parent, or co-parent with me soon, as far as the becoming question has always been something that I, and I’ve actually never thought of this until we were talking about right now in this moment, but the question of who do I want to become through this difficult situation has always been kind of a life raft for me, all joking aside or you know me well enough. So I’m not trying to like a huge golden nugget because the pandemic is not happening.
How to develop resilience? I am using the pandemic to become a better person or the better version of myself or who I want to become as a result of this. I’m sure there is a better metaphor than what I’m about to say. And I’m sure you can say it much more brilliantly and elegantly than me, but I think of coal getting squished into a diamond. I think of the intense pressure, and then the output is awesome. But like, what you just said is for me, a huge, really is a huge mindset shift that I no longer is no longer happening to me. I’m using it as a tool to get to the other side.
Yeah. I totally agree with the, when this first happened in April. About April when we were starting to figure out what needed to be a little bit longer when we were still thinking, I wrote Contagious CULTURE CONTAGIOUS, you are with a really big, heavy Leadership 200 or 84 and 300 or four pages. I also wrote the little sweet book, The Leader You Will Be and which I don’t have to send you a copy of. I don’t think so. I will send you a copy of it. So if you got, so we’ll, we’ll get that handled afterward. I can. Okay. We’ll get to one anyway. It’s a poem. It’s a Leadership that I wrote that I used to perform at the end of my keynote.
And it was a poem about becoming like who was the leader you will become is called. The leader will be an invitation. I used the performance, and a lot of people asked for it. So then we create it into a really sweet little storybook. And now it’s also a new copy. But when the pandemic started, we started to realize it’s in the last little bit longer, I have this thing where sometimes these little kiddies will kind of pour into my head. And then all of a sudden I was just typing and 20 minutes later, there was like this poem, right? And I wrote this poem called Your Pandemic and OT Leadership. and then I decided I wrote it and then decided not to do anything with it. And maybe I’ll do something with it eventually. But I felt at the time it was, I was also upside down, and I wasn’t sure how helpful it would be to the world.
How to Develop Resilience: Opportunities for Personal Growth
How to develop resilience? So, the idea is that this year, we all have it. Every single one of us, every single human being on this planet, has been in FFA impacted by this. And there’s not every single person. And so we have this shared thing that’s happening in our world right now. And we also have this shared opportunity to become more of what we want to become or to, to not, you know? And so I think that when we look at resilience, it’s like, and I say this with all the grace, respect, and honor of all of the hard things that were happening. And I’m very, very much aware that there is, I’m very much aware of that. Everybody may experience this, but it looks different in different businesses and in different humans.
However, we all do have the opportunity to really think about how do we want to become and how do we want to move through this, that we use this as an opportunity to become even better and more helpful in the world.
I love this. So I think this is now the perfect time to rewind back to when this first started, And in the impact that you started seeing happen on the business, and we’re not talking about numbers or anything like that, but just, just the weight of it. The reason why I say it is because I think it is such an — Onward Nation. It is such a great display of how a leader, when were all trying to figure out how to navigate the choppy waters, we have multiple options. We have multiple options. We can run, we can flee, we can hide, we can freeze.
There are a number of different things. And then, when a niece shared this with me a month or so ago, I thought, wow, here’s a PR person who stood in the storm, who is okay to say that she didn’t have all the answers, who rapidly tried to be helpful, too, her team and so forth. And then, just was courageous enough to be vulnerable. In some people see that as a weakness. And I see it as a huge amount of strength. So take us back to March when this all started happening, and then walk us through how you navigated it. Cause I think it will be as inspiring for our audience as it was for me.
Okay, great. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for all that. Okay, so that’s more, what’s up on a time. All right. So, well, one thing that might be also helpful we’ll just for context is that last year in 2019, and I made a very big decision. So I wrote Contagious Shoe and in 2015, I wrote Contagious Culture, and in 2019 or 2018. And 2019, I wrote Contagious You and in 2019, I made this decision. I was traveling a ton. I was working with clients privately. I was speaking, I was doing the things that I was like, this is not sustainable. I’m burning myself out. And my work is all about resiliency and not burning yourself out and taking care of stuff so he can have in fact, two and a half.
How to develop resilience? So in 2019, at the very end of the year in November, when the book launched, I made a very conscious decision that I was going to cut back on my consulting. I was going to cut back on that. And I was going to really focus on my writing, traveling, speaking, and doing all this stuff and growing this work in the world. And so that was the decision. It took me two years, Stephen, to make that decision. I finally got there. I was fully at peace with it. And I was like, okay, let’s go. So in November, I went to New York to do the book tour and we had everything set up. And then, when I got there, there was a lot of other stuff going on in the impeachment. And like all the States they end up saying, actually, let’s reschedule. Let’s have you come back.
How to Develop Resilience: Challenges and Opportunities in Uncertain Times
How to develop resilience? And February and March. So I was like, okay, great. I need the time off. So I also knew that the time in this is relevant to what happened to Mark. So also at this time, I really knew that I needed a little bit of a break because after writing that book and a couple of years before it, I had been going, going, going, and I was like, I’m tired. This is a universe. And God’s way of saying any time out, I can give you a little bit of space. You’re not going to go run around and tour and do all this stuff. And you’re just going to kinda chill out and relax. And then we’ll boost you back up in February. So it was like, great. So it was all ready. We changed our business model. We had things set up for 20, 21 or 2020. Like I’m already trying to get out of this year. We had things set up for jobs that were ready.
Stephen, I was a piece of it. I felt very congruent. I felt very much like it was the right place to be. And then the pandemic hit. The long and short of it is that basically in March, March and April, about 80% of our engagements, my talks consulting, our IEP live programs, our live trading like about 80% of our stuff, kind of felt like it, it fell off a cliff. It’s just like the rest of the world. We were trying to figure out what we were going to do with it. Then the other thing that happened that is relevant is that I now have a new book out in the world called CONTAGIOUS. Okay. So CONTAGIOUS you now?
What started happening as people started saying, like, I would have speaking engagements, and people would go, Oh, we can actually send a book called Contagious You out to people in the middle of the pandemic because it’s incredibly insensitive. And then first, we can get engagements. I did have, and I remember one company is saying to me, Hey, do us a favor and please don’t talk about the words’ Contagious during your talk because we’re in the middle of a pandemic. So that was another interesting thing. And ultimately in case for those that aren’t who aren’t already tracking with us, like talking about contagiousness from an energetic, emotional, or behavioral attitude, resiliency standpoint is actually more important than ever. And so we were able to, kind of over the last six months, turn that around.
How to develop resilience? So people are like, okay, we do need to be talking about contagiousness. And now the books are like starting to move again a little bit more, but that was, that was a disappointment. So there was a book tour of the book launch, not turn out, like I thought it was going to turn out. Then there was the thinking, it was going to show up again in February or March and that didn’t happen and then business fell off. So everything one off the cliff and what we ended up doing was, and just stop me if I’m like rattling. But what we ended up doing was in March. That was when I had a talk with the team, and I started to go back to see if, okay, well, I should get back into consulting again. But at that point, a lot of the companies that have consulted with we’re going through RIFS and so then they would put a freeze on us.
So it just kind of all blew up, like the long, in a short of it, without going into all of the drama, like it just blew up. So I had my moment and I had my eye, like I had my month. And I think anybody listening to this, if you’re a business, was it, well, everyone, everyone has been impacted in some way, but I had my month, I had my period of time where I was like, okay, what are we going to do? Does this work work anymore? Is this work? You know, I actually went to this thing where I was like, Oh my gosh, is it is a bonus to be focusing on in your IEP? You know, is that like an extra luxury? Because I had been working with companies in triage, I always called it triaged or optimization. And then the last couple of years, most of the companies that are coming to me were for optimization.
How to Develop Resilience: Navigating Challenges and Embracing Opportunities
Sure. Everything was going really well. So they just want to be better at their culture would be better for leaders to be better. A lot of the leaders that are coming to me for private work were looking to actually get out of the company to go do something totally different. So it was like optimization, galore, and triage, which was probably about 25%, 30% of the companies. Well, all of a sudden, that flipped. We are now, or if it was in triage mode. And so I had to really do some deep soul searching around. Well, does this work actually work anymore? Or do people actually need it in this way? How do we need to change our frame? And we ended up March and April and May were really quiet. and I also have like, some major personal losses, family illnesses.
How to develop resilience? It was just like, everything happened at once, right? And what we ended up doing, as we said, okay, you know what, we’re not going to fight it, let’s do this. And the team that I got together and we said, let’s do this. We’re not going to worry about doing any business development for March or April or May, or what we’re going to do instead is we’re going to trust that if we give, if we listen, if we keep doing the work that we are doing, cause there was still, there was still some stuff that we were doing. So it wasn’t like everything was done. You know, if we listen, if we serve, if we stay connected ourselves, and if we do our own work, if we work on our own IEP, if we work on our own resiliency, if we work in our connection as a team, we will know exactly what needs to happen in July.
For those couple of months, what we did was reach out to clients and ask them what they needed. Do you need anything? If you’re not allowed to have a consultant or external people, that is no big deal. Would you like me to support you with what we just do? We basically just gave as much as we could. And then we did book clubs and we had a book club for CONTAGIOUS CULTURE we did a big cup for Contagious Shoe. And that was so cool because all of these people started coming They were sharing what they were dealing with and how the content was relevant to them now. And then the coolest thing is starting to happen because I had had a vision that 20, 21, 2022, we would take at least 50% of our offerings online.
We had online programs, but I didn’t like the platform we were on. And so moving platforms was a big deal. Creating an online content is a big deal. And so I just said, all right, let’s focus on growing the work lives in 2020, in 2021, 2022 will take it and make it a virtual. Great, well pandemic, thank you very much. Sped that up. So, we switched platforms. We’ve built a lot, all of our programs online, that I started creating new programs. I could create a program called Away. Yeah. Which was like, Ugh. Oh, how do you actually reset? In a moment? It is basically a resiliency program. I’ve created a reset. I created an IEP 100 thing of who do you want to become over the next one? A hundred days? I created all these different programs that were all under a hundred bucks that people could access for more time.
The other thing that happened was that as we were it kind of taking our time out and just rebuilding stuff. The other thing that we noticed was about five years ago, I set an intention that I wanted every single human being who could just at least get access to a computer or get access to somebody who had a computer to be able to access the IEP work for absolutely. For sure. Or like could spend a ton of money on it, but I didn’t want money to ever be an issue for people to engage in this work for themselves if they wanted it and be like, yeah, this is a pandemic that is not true. So we started to realize like, okay, we’ve got all of them, we’ve got free content to people listening to you guys can go get an IEP.IO.
How to Develop Resilience: A Journey of Service and Self-Discovery
You get a ton of free content. Right? Well, we’ve got like a regular basis, class and blogs. We’ve got now all of these online programs. That left us trying to figure out what and how we were going to serve the best life. So, that was what happened at that point. By the time we got to August, we had our online store is set up, and it was starting to pick up some momentum, but not a ton. The team stayed together, and everybody was healthier. Everybody was more connected. I learned a lot about myself. So like, I can take you from August on ’cause that’s the next chapter, but that was kind of like in this world. And I think what’s worth noting.
And that is that as I was going through that, I didn’t know what it was to look like in the end. I wasn’t sure we were going to get through it. I actually went, I think I showed to you, I actually went through a period of time where I was like, do I need to get a job? Do I? Why would I be better of service? Because one of my driving factors has always been, how can I be, how can I be of service in the world? You know? And so I started looking at, well, what would I be a more service to go work with one company and really go deep? You know? So, I even looked into that. I went, Oh, I went to Northwestern, graduate school to go get a certificate and mediation. Cause I thought, well, maybe I want to work on my mediation chops a little bit more. And that leads to a whole nother thing. But so there was a lot of exploiting. And the other thing that did with you guys is I got a really good therapist.
And I think a lot of times when people hear a story on the other side, it sounds like, Oh, that was really easy. And she just did this and this and this. And it’s not true. There were days that there were days that I was like on the floor and super sad. And I also was super sad because not to mention not only was where things turned upside down at my son’s in college and his college got disrupted and my daughter, like it was a mess, but there were also people dying in, people were sick and when we were masking up and we can’t be with people anymore and there’s isolated like there’s so much happening. So I am huge. I’ve always been a huge advocate of therapist, but I’m even more of an advocate of that now. So that’s up until August. I feel like that’s a lot of what people are still listening to.
Yeah. I’m sure they are, but that’s, that’s exactly why we started with where the business is today. And then we did the rewind and because I wanted Onward Nation business owners to be thinking about the context where you’re at today, as they heard your story just now. Also there’s this amazing throughline through all of that links March to December. That is the question that you continue to ask: ask of yourself, ask of your clients, ask of your team, and how best we can serve right. I realize that it is actually not about us.
How to Develop Resilience: Reaching Out to Clients, Audience, and Team
It’s about how we can reach out to our clients, our audience, and our team and be the person they need.
Right. Yeah. Big time, big time. I will. And I think that Free, I think you were bringing it to August because what happened in August with So now we’ve got this online programs, but that’s not enough to keep the door opened and keep the team going. And like that’s not the online program alone is not going to set us up. and here’s the other thing. Even more than that, I really thrive. I need to be in connection with other human beings. I need to be serving people. I need to actually be in honest, authentic conversations. And so what was bizarre about that was that I know that these are coordinates that I have. And what I was finding was in the pandemic, the only people I was really talking to were my kids and my team, and I was sitting in my office trying to figure this stuff out alone.
Right. And so I started to look at, okay, well, how do you know? And a couple of clients that come to me and they said like we really, we, we need help. So, I was still working with some people one-on-one, but what I realized in August is that I was trying to figure out the next thing to offer in a live situation. I was trying to figure out on my own in an office with my dog. And I was also getting more and more, the more I tried to figure it out, the more tunnel vision I got about it the more contracted I got about it and be more careful I got about it. And so once I was talking to a good friend of mine and he goes, because I need it.
So you actually do, you actually pick up the phone and call anyone to like, see what’s going on. And Stephen, I had gotten so tunnel vision and trying to keep the team going and everything else. And like I forgot. and so that, that was a huge, a huge shift. So starting in like September, October, I started to really go and meet with a bunch of people and talk about what is going on, what do you need? Now, how can I be of help? And the more conversations I had and the more I was able to serve people, the more expansive my energy became and the more strong I felt and the more optimistic I felt and the more of my own IEP, I started to like, bring it up again.
And that led us to actually change the business model, which we are, which we just did. And when you and I had talked, we had just made the decision. And then I made a decision. I wasn’t going to change the business model for sure, for 20, 21, until I talked to at least 15 people who had perspectively been participating in those things to make sure that we were right on the trap. And so that’s where we are at now. We know exactly what we need to do for 2021. And I know when we make plans, God totally laughs, and it can all change. However, it is set. And that has been like the most important thing, talking to people to do it.
Amen to that. Your comment made me think about the dent formula or your debt formula. Is that a good example of that at work? Or is there a better example of a dent at work?
Yeah. Okay. So this is why there are two things to share with her. So one is a difference between responsibility in response and the other is done, and what this relates to is looking at. So, here’s the one thing that I noticed. I know this for myself. And I noticed, and I also see this in almost every person I’m talking to now is they’re so much going on. There is so much pain, there is food insecurity, there is social injustice, like there’s, there’s all those different things that were happening. And it can be incredibly overwhelming to try and make an impact on all of them and to try and serve this and solve that.
How to Develop Resilience: Finding Empowerment in Action
And so what I, what I do, what my experience has been is that if I get caught up in like, okay, well, how do I help this? And how do I help that? And how do I, how do we address global warming and food insecurity and all of these other things I can get really paralyzed in that. And so years ago, I started to realize that if I look at things like I am response-able to my team or response, able to have an issue that I care about versus responsible for it, the energy of response-able versus responsible is very, very different because if I’m response Abel, it means I’m just able to respond. So I offered that for you guys, listening for your team’s with resiliency, his, are you able to, can you be able to respond?
How were you able to respond to a team, not being responsible for their happiness, their resiliency, their joy, their satisfaction, but can you be responsive, able and help them move through this moment in time and also help them figure out what they need to do and who they need to become. So that’s responsible. Dent is an acronym that stands for Do what you can. Engage with a full heart. You know, now, what is the most impactful thing you can do now? What is the most, what is the best use of you now? And T is. Trust me; trust that it’s plenty. You and I were talking about this before the show. and the reason why it came up was because I had just sent out this thing and some of the stuff that we are, so it was a share it to my list, but we have a monthly broadcast that we sent out as a showing that list of like, here are some of the things we’re doing, were working on food insecurity.
We’re working on a scholarship fund for business leaders who have been wildly impacted by this and can’t necessarily afford all of the full program. So we’re looking at subsidizing that with scholarships, and I just shared this thing. And then I got a note from somebody and they send something to the fact of, well, it’s great if they didn’t have it, it’s great. And they said you’re doing nothing for people that don’t have friends and that don’t have a place to go for Christmas. Yeah. And when I saw that at first, I was like, Oh my gosh. Well, I can’t tell you at first, but I wanted to take that on. And then I realized I had got contracted, and I got really careful, and I felt really sad and it was like, I got to make it happen. So I went back to the den acronym, and that kind of helped free up my energy to do so I can look up to it. How can we be the most of service even to that person?
And so how — okay, so let’s take that a little bit deeper. So he didn’t like it. How did you apply the dent formula in that circumstance? Okay, great. So, I chose some of the thing that I have chosen on my team is the thing that we’ve all chosen together to take on food insecurity. Okay. And also, so like, what we’re doing is next year, we’re donating, and we’ve already done this. Actually, in this role this year, we’ve done it at 10% of the proceeds to food insecurity. And in a couple of other things, wow.
It was important. That was another part. Okay. Another part of resiliency is generosity. So even though your company is suffering or you are suffering, what’s the little C you can do to be generous, either generous of spirit, money, time, or wisdom? Another thing that I’ll offer is that when you are well, I’ll use myself. When I really like inside myself and feel really, really stuck. I have a rule that if I can catch myself, I will up the phone and I will call someone and go, Hey, how are you doing? How can I help you right now? ’cause that generosity helped us kind of like create a little bit more space, a little bit more breath. And then that brings our energy to a different place.
How to Develop Resilience: Navigating Challenges with Generosity and Purpose
Now we have new information to go ahead and figure out whatever it is that we were grappling with in the first place. So, the team, and I decided we’re still going to keep doing the stuff and donate it to food insecurity because food insecurity, like of all the things to take on at the end of the day, every single person needs to eat. And that’s the one that’s got a personal meeting for me. Like there is an extra heartstring and not one for me. So food insecurity is what we’ve taken off. And then the other thing that we’ve taken on is in 2021, we’re creating the scholarship fund where 10% of our proceeds for anything, coaching, speaking, whatever, go into a scholarship fund. And then we’re going to use that to subsidize the business leaders who want to do our programs and apply it to all that stuff.
But really, truly do not have the budget to do them. We will help subsidize the costs out of the scholarship fund. Well, and these two things together feel amazing to me because one food insecurity, donating money, that’s going to feed people two, I’m teaching other people in supporting them through the pandemic and teaching them how to quote unquote, for lack of better words, fish. So they can build their own resilience is really, it could lead their people so they can go make more money. So you can go on to donate whatever or whatever. So when it comes back to debt, I write all this stuff up, and I’m feeling really good about it. I’m really excited about it and then I get this one email, in which we can get 20 things to feedback that are great. And we did that one, the feedback, and that’s the one that just goes to the heart. Yeah. I get this one. E-mail and I grapple with that for a couple hours.
Okay. How are you there? Right. Like I’m not doing anything to support people who don’t have a place to go for Christmas, but then I started to think, okay, well, I actually am because I’m giving these other pieces and there’s a lot of free content. So there are ways to participate in this stuff. So I just had to look at the dent of doing what you can. At least I can’t address every single thing or complain that comes up to do what I can engage with a full heart. I know where my heart’s at. Now look at the now. I think the best thing to do now is to address food security and help people grow right now and then trust that that’s plenty. And that’s how I applied the data. And once I got through that, Stephen kind of cleared my energetic field. So then, I can now respond to that person thoughtfully and offer them a couple of resources that are available to them.
I can actually be more accessible to my team. We can now continue to go forward with a plan without me having this energetic pull-up feeling that I’m not doing enough.
That is awesome. But I am so very grateful for you taking us through March and August and then August to now a precedent, which is December as you mentioned. Before I knew the story had not been done. and I also knew that we were getting short on time. So thank you for your generosity and schedule. Still, I know that this one is not done and that this is probably not the right transition word, but, looking back and looking back, absolutely not asking you to judge yourself or to judge performance or anything like that. Is there anything that, in hindsight, you would want to do differently and maybe what are some of the, like, anything that you would want to do differently?
And is there one takeaway that you’re really hanging on to, having been through that experience?
How to Develop Resilience: Beliefs, Support, and Service
Yeah. Okay. There are a couple of things that I would do differently. I had to really pay closer attention to my belief system. Okay. So when this all happened, what I did was I contracted. I got so overwhelmed by everything that was happening. Like remember I had, my mom was, there was a lot of stuff. I went into contraction and survival mode. When I did that, as I was coming out of it, and as I was doing my IEP practice, my meditation at that point, Steve. And I think it was like an hour and a half. My morning practice is like an hour and a half in the morning now. And now it’s like half an hour, but then I need like an hour. How soon does it need to just, like, be with me all day?
And what I started to realize is that my belief started to contract. So my beliefs about, whether I could still make money in a pandemic? Should I reduce it? One of the things we did was sit here; this is good. We have this idea that we adopted a belief that since we’re in the middle of a pandemic, clearly, we need to reduce our prices because people are all in contraction. So meet them there. And so, for a little while, I went into contraction. We were just starting out. Or we were just in our fees, and that actually wasn’t the right way to do it. It actually was not the right way to do it. And I’m really, I’m really grateful that I have that experience because I had never experienced it like that before.
And I’ve seen other people go through that, and I’ve coached them and not to do that. But in the push of that, when it was all messy and muddy, I did that. And so I reduced my fees. And then what was really interesting as I started to talk to more people and kinda come back out and getting to serve some of getting really clear on the value that this work brings people on getting clear on how I can be more of a service that I actually had clients. So it would not stop me on the wrist, but this is a very lovingly. We were like, don’t, you dare reduce your fees. In fact, you are probably not even charging enough the way that you’re doing it. And so, so that, so I would really be aware of the belief system. So, I adopted the belief that clearly we need a contract with the rest of the world is thinking that the rest of the world is sinking is a belief it’s not even true.
So, beliefs really pay attention to your beliefs. I had a lot of beliefs that weren’t serving me for a little while. So, I think that just being conscious of your beliefs is a really big deal. The other thing that I would have done sooner is I think that as well; it’s a two-part. I think that getting support from a really good, trusted, tight inner circle of friends and colleagues was essential. Getting support from a therapist was essential. What I would have done differently is I would have actually asked for help sooner from the people that I was actually serving. And that’s where our beliefs come in.
I had a belief that since I was usually their advisor, and there was a coach and the person that helped space for them, I couldn’t ask for help and go, Hey, I need some feedback on this. I really had to really work through that belief. Cause I felt like I was supposed to be the one holding this tight container. It’s absolutely true. As advisors and coaches, we hold a container for our people. However, this was different in that all I needed to do was ask them how it could be more helpful to you. But because of that belief of like, Oh no, I’ve gotta be strong, and I’ve got to have it together. And I’ve got to have the solid container for them. I can’t ask them to give me some feedback and help, and that slowed me down a lot. So I would really, again, question the beliefs stay focused on service. You know, you say, what is the nugget?
Enhance your strategies on how to develop resilience by reading this article: Prioritizing Personal Energy Accountability in Your Organizational Growth Strategy
How to Develop Resilience: Simple Strategies for Success
I mean, stay clear on your intention, take really good care of your energy to stay present, to do the work, like actually do the work you need to do it. It’s hard work. And I think going back to basics was really important for me this year. I went back to basics. I went back to what I was doing back in 2012 with some core coaching practices and core, like pick up the phone, business development, talk to people we had gotten to a point where all business in 20 up to 20, 29, it was a referral. So I hadn’t had to actually go out and quote-unquote or hunt for work, so I didn’t know how to do it. I was like, oh my gosh, how do we do, you know? So I’m staying in service of doing the work, taking care of yourself, and staying clear on your intention.
And then the last thing would just be, again, triple down on being your own best friend. So you can count on yourself because if you can count on yourself, nobody can take that away from you. and then what I find is the answer come from that place.
So great. And, I love what you said. How can I be more helpful to you? Like picking up the phone and calling in and asking him. And when I think about the 2020 trust barometer from Adelman, that is exactly one of the lines through that the brand is the experts, the trusted authorities who really stand out or the ones that we’re going to their audience with the intention of how can I be more helpful to you so that you can do your job better? What I think about the research study we published just a few months ago called the ROI is thought leadership with our research partner audience. That was one of our key findings, too.
Is that your audience? Onward Nation your clients, your prospects. They want you to come and ask them how you can be more helpful to them and is a nice point, then deliver on that. Right. And actually, get in the trenches and be more healthy right here. You say that, and then that’s what I’m stuck by right now, right? It is. We make it complex.
Oh my gosh, we do. We make it. Some of us have our PhDs and complicating things like me, I mean, really, so what you just said is so profound, and it’s so true, and it’s just simple. It’s like, and this is where I said for everyone listening to, really check in with your beliefs, and stay really present to what’s going on and what you were making up. Cause I’m not alone. I want this with people all around all the time. Like our beliefs, we’ll drive our behaviors and how we’re showing up the results. So if you’re not getting the result you want, even right now in the pandemic, when things are hard, really start to reverse engineer. Reverse engineer, okay, what are you actually doing?
Okay, what are you actually bleeding underneath? What is your state of being? And if you can come back to what Stephen just offered, like coming back to, how can I be more helpful? How even like with the debt, what’s the littlest thing that I can do to help things go, right? What’s the littlest thing I can do? What littlest contribution can I make to help move this thing in the next direction? And don’t figure it out by yourself because you probably don’t know.
Enhance your strategies on how to develop resilience by reading this article: Prioritizing Personal Energy Accountability in Your Organizational Growth Strategy
How to Develop Resilience: Last Bit of Advice and Connect with Anese
This has been so awesome. So thank you so very much. This is exactly why I wanted you to come back for this conversation that we just had. So I know we’ve covered a lot, and there is a lot of, this is a lot. Still, before we go, before we close out and say goodbye at any final advice, anything else that you would like to share, please do tell us Onward Nation business owners of the best ways to connect with you?
Yes. Okay. So, I would just offer this, I don’t think I said this, but I think one of the most important things in resiliency and building resiliency is to give yourself full permission to have your experience. So do not rush out of it. You know, we have Steve, and I had just spent the last hour talking about different ways to address it and like what my personal experience was. But I want to quadruply underline: do not rush out of your discomfort, let yourself fully have your experience and your disappointment, your anger, your pain, your fear, your anxiety at your feeling, isolated, like all of it, let yourself have it and let yourself experience it.
And then, if you fully let yourself have that, what will happen is that there will become a shift where you will become clearer on what the next thing is to do. And if you can get help if you’re blessed with a good friend or a good colleague who can help you talk through that, then consider yourself a part of his personal world. Because that to me is like, let ourselves have it in to get support when we need it. And then keep pulling the learning. If you can learn and find a good day, every single thing, including a pandemic, is loaded with gifts. And if you could find those gifts we’ll bring your energy to another place in the next place, giving you more access to more wisdom that you don’t have when you’re down in the non-regardous space.
So that’s what I would offer. Thank you. What is the best way for Onward to reach you?
Okay. So, if you go to IEP.IO and just subscribe, that will get you on my list, which will then get you connected to me. I like on a monthly bi-monthly basis with articles and resources and tools and announcements, and he’s h dot com is my core website. You can look there and that’s got a ton of stuff on it. And then, in 2021, we have a whole new series of learning labs around resiliency and virtual teeming and all of these different pieces, as well as a leadership cohort.
We’re going to be working with 10 leaders at a time to really dig in over six-week periods of time into this content. So I did the IOS as quickly as possible, and when I’m on Instagram or LinkedIn and all of those places under any h, it’s very complicated. We try to keep it a complicated Onward Nation on it. I love how he just said to us, don’t rush it. And no matter how many times you go back and relisten to her, to words of wisdom, and collect all of these golden nuggets. And I sure hope that you do read and listen to what she just shared with you to take what she is.
So generously shared take and apply it to put it into practice to accelerate your results. And we all have the same 86,400 seconds in her day. And I’m grateful for a third time. I’m grateful for all the time that you and I get to spend outside of Onward Nation conversations, but I’m very grateful, that she came back a second or third to be our mentor in guide to help us move our businesses onward to the next level. Thank you so much for your generosity. Thank you for it. Thank you for having me. And thank you for letting me share this. This is you’re actually the first person I’ve spoken to publicly about this, this is how this happened.
So, thank you so much for being such a lovely space. And for following all of you, listening to things for following my own life, if I’m sure it is.
This episode is complete. So head over to OnwardNation.com for show notes and more food to fuel your ambition. Continue to find your recipe for success here at Onward Nation.
Enhance your strategies on how to develop resilience by reading this article: Prioritizing Personal Energy Accountability in Your Organizational Growth Strategy
Fill Your Sales Pipeline Q&A
LIVE Wednesdays at 1:00 pm Eastern / 12 Noon Central
The Sell with Authority Podcast is for agency owners, business coaches, and strategic consultants who are looking to grow a thriving, profitable business that can weather the constant change that seems to be our world’s reality.