RESILIENCE Part 2

August BERGS Blog

In July’s BERGS blog I wrote about how the BERGS mindset came to be and how I have been using it personally and professionally.

This month I want to focus on the mindset element I am most finding myself using right now, RESILIENCE.

Resilience is defined as “the capacity to withstand or recover quickly from difficulties, toughness”.

When getting thru life’s most difficult things I have found resilience to be crucial in framing the “how”. As the great author and leadership thinking Simon Sinek has said, “most everyone knows WHAT they do, a few know HOW and even less know WHY”.

For me my “WHY” or purpose for the past 10m plus years has been to “inspire others to learn, change and grow”. I defined this purpose during my son Kyle’s cancer diagnosis and treatment. During this period of horrific challenge, I was forced to learn everything there was to know about Neuroblastoma, the disease that was tearing my little boy apart. I was in a state of change, my role of father and caregiver was evolving in ways I couldn’t quite fathom. Everything in my world changed when I heard those words, “your son has cancer”. Believe it or not I was also growing. I was becoming amore focused and, on many levels, sincere person. I had developed a desire to grow, grow past this horrific experience. Grow into a better person, a better father and husband, finding patience and grace during this nightmarish experience was what I was working hard to do.

In the years since Kyle’s passing, I have learned and seen a lot. In fact, after Kyle passed, within 7 months we were given the opportunity to adopt. As you can imagine we were mourning not only his passing but as our only child we were also left with not being parents any longer. As there was nothing more fulfilling for me than being a parent so the feelings of loss and emptiness are difficult to put into words. It was during this depth of despair that the person who would become our daughter came into our life, Summer.

So, for those reading this who know about the adoption process it can take years, there are a lot of details that need to be attended to. Well, the resilience Kyle had taught me allowed for the facilitation of Summer’s adoption in 8 weeks. I found attorney’s, social workers, home studies, funding care for the birth mom, all within this time frame. Now, how we got this done, I still don’t know but resilience was at the center of it.

There are many challenges that will encounter you on YOURPATH. Some of these challenges will set you back, some might even knock you down in such a way that you don’t want to get back up. This is where resilience comes in. For me resilience is about being able to come back from getting knocked down. It’s in vogue today to quote/unquote, “fail”. It’s in failure that we learn and whatever caused that failing, we adjust. Before we can adjust, we need to bounce back. Get our hearts and minds aligned and begin the process anew.

Today, I find myself deploying resilience in the context of business. After finishing my book this past spring I thought my “work” would be doing book signings, speaking on my book to audiences who were looking to “get thru”. So far it hasn’t worked out exactly as I had planned. I was thinking my‘ full time” job would be the book. Well, what’s the adage, “make plans, God laughs”.

Now my full time “job” is leading the transformation of a roofing company, helping to get it ready for sale. From time to time, I define some time against my passion and my brand, “Getting Thru”, like I am now, writing this blog, sharing my thoughts on a key element of the Getting Thru mindset. It can be tough to balance what you see as professional responsibilities and personal passions. This is why I only work on things that allow me to see these as ONE. I am at my best when my purpose; inspiring others to learn, change and grow can be applied to ME. I ask myself, am I doing thigs that are inspiring ME to learn, change and grow? When that is missing, I look in the mirror and decide how I AM going to change my daily activities to align to MY PURPOSE. It’s in this ownership that I have found an ability to drive sustained growth as a person.

Being resilient is easier said than done. I have struggled with it over time when I have lacked purpose and focus on defining my time. Intentionality matters when it comes to resilience. If is VERY difficult to have one without the other. Be INTENTIONAL and Be RESILIENT.

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