Nobody ever said that your life, your business, your sales and even your networking would be easy. There will be knock-backs, some rejection and tough times. You need to bounce back! There is an article from the Harvard Business Review entitled 'How Resilience Works' by Diane Coutu, who states that resilience is intuitive for some people – they just seem to bounce back from adversity with ease – while for others it’s a skill that must be learned and continually practised. She goes on to write that...

“Resilient people possess three characteristics: a staunch acceptance of reality; a deep belief, often buttressed by strongly held values, that life is meaningful; and an uncanny ability to improvise.”

Lets take a look at these three factors.

1. Be able to accept reality - no matter how difficult it may be. Tennessee Williams once wrote,

Be realistic about where you’re at in life! Avoid pessimistic messages like “Life’s a bitch. And then you die” at all costs! Realism is the healthiest attitude in times of crisis, Coutu tells us, and she gives us this example.

On September 11th, the Morgan Stanley investment bank took a direct hit on their offices in the south tower of the World Trade Center by the second plane. They were the largest tenant with some 2,700 employees, but incredibly they lost only seven people.

The reason they lost so few was that Rick Rescoria was the vice president of security. Since the first bombing of the Center, Rick had fanatically trained everyone in the offices with fire drills. After the first plane crashed into the north tower, Rick immediately ushered everyone out, even though many of the other companies were telling their employees to return. Unfortunately, Rick was one of the seven people who didn’t make it out, but because of his realistic view he was able to save many lives.

Embrace realism!

2. Know and believe that life is meaningful. Your career will not always go to plan, so having the ability to make meaning out of the tough times is an essential element to resilience. While some people throw up their hands in times of crisis and cry, “How can this be happening to me?”, others stand firm and just get on with it. Be like that!

Resilience is real but it’s not inevitable, so you have to take a chance. We can learn so much through the muddles of life if we’ll only allow ourselves to be open and vulnerable. Believe that you can learn through the crises of life!

3. Develop ingenuity. Be inventive and ingenious in your thinking. Think outside the box. Believe that you can fix things (instead of making them worse!). Look at the multitude of options and the wide variety of resources available to you. Make the most of bad situations.


Ask lots of questions. Play with new developments. Constantly learn from experience. Improvise!