Ep 180: Mastering Midlife Transition: Five Ways to Build Resilience (Mastering Midlife #1 of 4)

It's about having the clarity , self-confidence and unstoppable belief to go after and get everything you want . If you'll come with me , I'll show you how Well . Hello , friends . I hope you had an amazing week .

Today we're going to start the first in a multi-part series on mid-career and midlife and some of the unique challenges that we face at this time of life and how to deal with those . So the first one we're going to talk about is resilience .

But before we get into all that , I do just want to back up for one second and talk for a minute about how I define midlife . Midlife starts at about 39 . And it goes into your mid 50s . Now , for some people it can start a little earlier , for some people a little later , but those middle years are kind of the sweet spot and where I focus .

I know a lot about it , I'm in it myself and I would say it's a unique time where , in one way , you're kind of realizing the fruits of your labor . You know all the things that you learned in school and the early stage of your career . You know you've built all of these things . Maybe you chose a partner and maybe you had children .

So you've got to this place at midlife where there's a lot of things for many of us to be happy about . But the truth of the matter is that midlife is a time of a significant transition in many areas of your life , and just a few of those examples .

It can be a time when there's lots of converging factors , like aging parents and you may not live in the same city as them , so there's all this pressure to kind of see them more often , even though , like me , your life across the country might make that challenging to do that on a fairly consistent basis .

And then also the situation that my siblings and I wound up in was desire and the need to care for parents who all of a sudden needed you in a pretty significant way , when me and my sister lived halfway across the country and only my brother was relatively close and we just decided to split the care . So I talked about that in a lot of recent episodes .

I'm not going to go into it here , but I will just say aging parents on the one side is one factor . Teenagers , maybe in the home at the same time , is another . Or also on the child front , children leaving the nest , finally , and like going to school or venturing out on their own .

I don't have children , but I would imagine that would be a very difficult thing . And the one hand you're happy , on the other hand you're like what just happened here , like all of my 18 or 20 years now is is suddenly very changed . So things have a plus and a minus , right . The other thing at midlife is we're at the peak usually , of our career .

You know we've worked for a long time to accomplish things and maybe we're at our peak earning years , maybe we're running very large organizations , we're a leader of people and we're also , you know , maybe in a key role at work where we're responsible for a lot of revenue or things like that .

It's a lot of stress and pressure , you know , at mid career , and while on the one hand it's everything you've ever worked for , you know , it's kind of like be careful , what you ask for , you get it , and it's like a little overwhelming sometimes . Right .

And then as we age , sometimes there are factors around health that crop up especially as we get a little bit older , and finances sometimes can be a challenge . You're trying to pay for your life and then you have , maybe children you're trying to help through school or maybe you're trying to help your older parents .

There can be a lot of demands on finances in the middle of your life . So I chose that to focus on for my business , because I do feel like it's a pivotal time for so many people and I think that there's so many issues that we face that can present challenges . A lot of joys too , but challenges and my passion is helping people work through those .

First on the career front which is why my business is called the Purposeful Career but also in your life .

Like , I don't just focus on career when I'm talking to my clients , we do try to look at their life holistically , because they're one person , one whole person , and so , while career is my chosen way in , because I know a lot about that , the fact is that if you don't deal with things going on in your career in a healthy way , in a proactive way , in an

optimal way , it can end up creating thoughts and feelings and behaviors that can undermine the quality of your life , and that's the other thing I wanted to say before we dive into the episode . I get a lot of DMs on Instagram or email messages and people want to know , like I don't understand , like why won't you just help me with my resume ?

Or I need help , you know , with my LinkedIn profile , or , you know , help me get ready for this upcoming big interview , or help me find a job .

And it's not that I don't help my clients with those things , because I occasionally do , but I don't focus my business there for one very specific reason and I know a lot of career coaches do , and there's nothing wrong with that Like we can focus our businesses wherever .

But I have found , as I climbed the ladder in my career and I've talked about my story before I was very non-traditional and there were points in my career that was moving very , very quickly and I was very in demand and there were a lot of cross country moves .

There was probably 15 years in there that were a little crazy , and I'm not blaming anyone for that . Years in there that were a little crazy , and that's I'm not blaming anyone for that . That was my choice .

But what I've learned through all of that is that you don't work your way up from graduating college to a multi six figure a year salary by the quality of your network alone , or knowing how to interview , or knowing how to build the right resume .

Those things are functional skills that I do think everyone needs to know about because we're going to have to call upon them at certain periods of our career , and certainly a healthy network is always a good thing . However , those are not the real challenges , and neither is mastering your functional area . All of those things are important .

You've got to be good at what you do , but the real challenges I found come with all the things that happen around us the politics of an organization , the challenging relationships you might have with vendors or with peers , or with a boss or with your people . You lead the challenges of rising to the occasion as a leader .

Right , I've led more than 150 people in my career Like how do you do that in a way that's effective ? How do you drive change if you're a functional leader ? That's very taxing . It isn't just about having a great idea and introducing it to the thing . There is an emotional component to getting people onboarded with that change . That is very challenging sometimes .

You know , and you know just the challenges of like . For me , I've been in a more esoteric part of marketing the brand part , and there's a lot of organizations that don't understand that .

They want it but they don't get it , and so for the person responsible for leading the brand , there's a ton of extra work trying to help people understand something that is very much a part art , part science .

So I say all of this to say I believe 100% that the real challenges we face in our career and our life are more about the big changes that happen around us and our responses to those . The layoff , the merger , the having to let people go that are on your team trying to sell in the tough idea like difficult relationship .

Those are the things that really get in the way of , I think , real career fulfillment and if you don't manage them proactively , they can also start to chip away at what otherwise might have started as a very healthy self-concept , self-esteem . It can start to erode your belief in yourself . It can start to make you more timid .

You can be dealing with things around imposter syndrome , like the more you go up on the ladder , the more there's this cognitive dissonance in your mind because your self-image is still from five or 10 years ago and yet now you're in this other place and I've spent a lot of my career there in this gap of .

Okay , the market looks at me one way and I'm still not quite . I'm confident in myself , but I don't see myself as that yet . So it's just a . I think the career is a place where it's a very rich opportunity to find yourself in a place where there's a lot of inner activity going on that doesn't serve you .

So that is a very long explanation for why do I focus here ? I 100% believe that for 90% of the people , the challenges in your career about your mindset . You can get great at your functional area and still find your career to be a miserable place .

And I've seen a lot of people who some days they're self-actualized and thrilled with where they're at , but many , many more days they might just feel kind of tortured and trapped .

And my mission is to help people move past that by teaching them strategies that are very real . They're not just coachy sort of strategies , they're not rah-rah strategies . These are real strategies based on real science , neuroscience , psychology . The type of coaching I was trained in is a cognitive-based approach .

It's based on cognitive behavioral therapy from the field of psychology . So it's a real genre of psychology , and the difference is that I'm not a psychologist , so I don't use that discipline to help solve people's mental problems . That's not what I do . I'm not qualified for that . I'm not a psychologist .

What I do do , and the people in the school that I was trained in do , is take that same approach and we apply it to the person going forward .

A person who's already kind of mentally squared away but is struggling right , doesn't know where to go , isn't clear about what they want , is struggling with some circumstances that might be going on around them , and we use that philosophy , which is very powerful , to help them move forward in the direction they want to go . It will literally change your life .

So let's bring it back to resilience . So that's kind of why I do what I do , because I know it does confuse people . I still have people emailing me to help with a resume , and it's not that I don't like when you're in my membership , like you'll get a module on that and but it isn't my . I don't believe it'll change anyone's life .

Yeah , I can probably help you get a job , but you're still going to struggle in the job if you don't learn the mental self-command right , and that is what I'm all about . So resilience is a big deal . It's a big deal always , but it's especially a big deal , I think , at mid-career and mid-life , for the reasons that I gave earlier .

We just have a lot going on , and it's a time in life where there's a lot of transitions .

And it's also a time of life where , even if you were very happy with the part of business that you selected when you graduated from school and you worked your way up that ladder , even if you're doing very well sometimes for many of us , you get to a point where something new is starting to call to you and you might not be ready yet or even want to give

up what you're doing in your business life , but you understand that soon , someday soon , you're going to want to do something new , and that's part of what my business does too , is we help people navigate that transition . I'm an expert at that . I've been doing it for years .

Like you know the art of the side hustle and how to do it in a way that it doesn't overwhelm you , and how to decide the weighting of your corporate life and your business and staying aware of that . So you make that transition at the pace and in the way that best serves you , that you want to do so . Resilience is a big part of it .

But I wanted to start by just kind of defining it , just in case you don't feel like you've got a good , clear idea of how resilience is defined . It is defined by the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania . They're like the best in the world at positive psychology .

They define resilience as the ability to positively adjust to a difficult life experience . So obviously that would benefit any of us , right ?

And it's interesting because , according to a did in association with the Hartford Insurance Company , they did this study on resilience at midlife and there was a statistic coming out of that that said that people who are in their 40s and 50s had much lower levels than , say , people who were 60 and beyond .

And the theory coming out of that is that midlife is such a time of I don't know what to say . I would say activity , turmoil in some cases , just a lot of transitions , a lot of change , and that as we navigate through that we start to build these muscles around a lot of things coming at us at once .

And I think that's very different what happens at midlife from like 39 to 55 is very , very different than I would say , the journey from zero to 39 for most of us Like obviously , all of our lives are different . So I know people who've dealt with a whole lot of stuff in earlier . So I'm not saying it never happens .

I'm just saying in general for the population this is kind of how it goes . Like from zero to 39 is the time when we're building , like we're born and we learn how to talk and walk and we learn all the things we learn in elementary school and high school and many of us go on to college or postgraduate or whatever .

So we're becoming who we're going to be . And then we graduate from college and we enter the workforce and we start to shape our career , and not only our career but our life . Maybe we're choosing a partner , or we decide whether to become a parent or not , or , you know , we're buying a house .

Like all of that stuff that happens from birth to like 38 , 39 years old again goes up and down for some people .

You know that's all like a lot of firsts and what happens when you get to be like 39 , and I think the reason why so many people go through a midlife crisis and there's all this mid midlife malaise is because it's kind of like , well , now what you know , and they did a whole episode on the midlife thing .

So if you want to , you know , scroll through and look for that . It's a fairly recent one .

It might be worth listening to because I think it's an interesting thought and I don't want to go too deep into it , but I would just say that that 39 to 55 is the period when it's just , I think it's all coming at you , like your relationship with your children is changing because they're leaving the nest . Your parents may be growing older or passing away .

You're at the peak of your career . You've got all of these financial pressures , maybe from helping your kids to helping your parents and taking care of your own life , and you yourself are getting older , right , and we're never as young as we used to be .

I know I was an athlete a little bit when I was younger and my knee , my right knee , is a mess , you know , and it never used to be , so that's all new and that just kind of crept up on me . So we have all of this stuff and so as we work through that stuff in midlife it's all converging and successfully get to the other side .

You know that MIT study was saying that by the time you get into your 60s , life kind of calms down Again , I'm generalizing here because it's different for all of us but we get a little more balanced , we've maybe learned how to roll with all the changes and we've built some resilience muscle right .

And that's kind of what I wanted to focus this episode on is I wanted to first define it . So you know , the ability to positively adjust to a difficult life experience is how UPenn defines it . But I wanted to also share okay , so if that's the definition , like what are the components of it ? How do you get to resilience ?

And I wanted to share the six things that University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center says is the key to the whole thing .

I'm going to read all six off and then I'm going to define each one and then , when we're done with that , I want to talk to you about the five things that I think you can do if you're going through a difficult time yourself right now , and how to kind of start to build some of those resilience muscles for yourself .

So they call it the resilience skill set . So I think of it as a double click into resilience and it's like , what are the components of it ? The first one , they say , is self-awareness , the second one is self-regulation , the third one is mental agility , the fourth one is strengths of character , the fifth one is connection and the sixth one is optimism .

So I want to go back and talk a little bit about their definition of each , because I think it's really important and when I'm talking about a few of these , think about what I was saying about the type of coaching that I do , because it kind of all comes together and you'll see what I'm talking about .

So the first one is self-awareness , and University of Pennsylvania defines that as the ability to pay attention to your thoughts , emotions , behaviors and physiological reactions . So it basically , my mind , means learning how to not live your life on autopilot . It is very easy to go unconscious in our life , especially when life gets difficult .

That's why people over shop , over eat , over drink , over any behavior , over pornography , over I don't even know , like all the over behaviors . It's like I call them consumption behaviors , because all we're really trying to do it doesn't kind of matter which one is the one that you go to . That matters to me less than the fact that you're doing it .

And you're doing it because you're trying to numb .

You're trying to numb the anxiety and the negative emotions that are happening inside of you right now , right , so the self-awareness component that Yupin is talking about is learn the skill and it is a skill to pay attention to what you're thinking , feeling and doing and how you feel inside your body , the sensations inside your body that are actually causing you

this angstful feeling that you're then trying to numb . Right , and when we do all those overconsumption behaviors , guess what happens ? We mess up parts of our life , right , we gain too much weight and put our health at risk . We drink too much and end up with a DUI or a you know negative effects on our , our relationships or our own performance at work .

We overshop , so it ruins our finances , like all of those things numb you in the moment , but it's very unhealthy way of dealing with it because of the impacts that it has and the results that it delivers in your life , right , that's why this cognitive approach is so important , because it teaches you how to , you know , be aware , like we'll go through the fix

for it in a minute , but that's kind of the first thing to know is you can learn how to have , in the moment , awareness of how you're thinking and feeling , and for some people that's hard .

You know , there were some years there when I was going through some pretty extreme things that if I had to define how I felt , I would not have been able to describe it , you know , because I just would not allow myself to go there because it was just too , it was too much .

So if that's you at the moment , I want to just tell you I get it , I lived there for a while . You can learn , though , how to process , you know through it , how to , how to get back in touch with what you're really thinking and feeling , and you know that will explain to you when you do that .

That will explain to you why you do the sometimes confusing or confounding things you do , why you're say you want one thing but you do another . You're doing it because of you're on autopilot and your brain is running the show probably from a place of fear , anxiety , self doubt , things like that , and you're not kind of in touch with that

. So that's what we mean by part one of the resilience skill set from UPenn is self-awareness . Number two is self-regulation , and I think it's a fast follow to self-awareness . And this again lands right on what I teach . I teach my methodology teaches people how to become self-aware . Where's all this coming from ? Why am I doing the things I'm doing ?

What am I thinking and feeling that's causing me to do these things ? And then you learn the self-regulation which is part two of the resilience skillset which you pin defines as the ability to change your thoughts , emotions , behaviors and physiology in the service of a desired outcome . So here's what that doesn't mean .

That doesn't mean that if crazy things are happening in your life difficult things , challenging things , whatever it doesn't mean pretend like they're not happening . It doesn't mean tell yourself positive affirmations and it'll all go away . That's not what I'm talking about . What self-regulation ? I call it self-command in my business .

What it's about is just saying is acknowledging what's happening and becoming aware of how you're feeling , you know and what you're thinking about that and then just deciding okay , if I continue to think and feel this way , which is kind of my automatic way of being when bad things like this happen in my life , is that going to get me where I want to go ?

And if the answer is no and in most cases , the answer will be no . Then you just decide what you want to think and feel instead . And that doesn't even mean again , think of beautiful , rosy , thought and everything's perfect .

What I'm talking about is being so powerful in your life that you say , yeah , the bottom may have fallen out , and I get it , and I'm not happy about that like acknowledging all of that . But then it's like getting really clear and saying , okay , well , now , given this , that's happened . Now , what am I going to do ?

I think self-regulation or self-command is about understanding that things that we don't want to happen are going to happen , sometimes with a lot of frequency in our life , especially midlife , and sometimes it'll be a long time in between unpleasant things , but when they happen , we see it .

You know , self-regulation would allow you to see it and would also allow you to say , okay , well , if this is the way this is going to be right now , now what am I going to do ? Right and with a clear head and a very intentional thought approach ? Just making a different decision . What am I going to do ?

Right and with a clear head and a very intentional thought approach ? Just making a different decision . What am I going to do right now ? So you decide on the result that you want and then you choose the thought that's going to get you there , and we'll talk more about that in the fix . But that's the key .

When I say self-regulation , it means remember who's in charge here . Yes , you might go in in the morning and lose your job and you might come home that night and the bottom's falling out in some part of your family life . Like you know , I've had to . You know , especially the past year has been very turbulent for me on pretty much every front .

There were moments when it got to me I'm not going to lie , but I kept coming back to , especially like with my parents . It's like , yep , yes To all the hard , yes To all the sad stuff , but here's what I need to do . I'm showing up for my parents and that's non-negotiable . I'm doing it . And so I had to keep myself centered in this place of .

This is what's happening . I don't like it , I can't control it , but I can control myself and I just decided this is what I'm doing , and so I have to keep myself on point , and when I felt myself slipping into anxiety or overwhelm or sadness or whatever , I just decided I can't .

I can't do that right now , because if I do that I'm not gonna be able to do all the other things I need to do in my life . You know , and that's kind of how I stayed on center as much as I could .

It wasn't perfect by any stretch , but it kept me sane and I was able to take care of my parents , which was the most important thing to me over the past year . Now I'm here and I'm finally allowing myself to deal with the grief and I'm sort of addressing all the other little crazy things that happened in my life at that time .

So self-regulation is going to set you free . I promise you it will change your life . If you're not used to doing that in a powerful way , if you're used to kind of reacting to the circumstances of your life , finding a way to say those circumstances can knock themselves out like go ahead and bring it on . I can't change it and I'm going to try .

What I am going to do is change myself and how I respond to it and decide , most importantly , what do I want to do now and then I'm just going to go do that thing and no one can stop me from doing that thing that I want to do .

So it's a very , very intentional way of living and a very empowering way of living and it's just a discipline that you learn right . The third one is mental agility . So mental agility is the ability to look at situations from multiple perspectives and to think creatively and flexibly .

Now this to me , is just a learned way of empathy , like I do think it's really important in life , but especially like in your career , like if you're a leader of people or somebody who's you know , you're always trying to explain these esoteric things to people who you know may be more rational or logical .

My discipline of brand is more part art , part science , and it can really send people into tilt . So I'm always having to kind of challenge myself to , okay , what might they be thinking , you know , and they're not just pushing back to be difficult , like , what might be causing them to push back ? Do they not understand ?

And then just challenging myself all the time to say I think , okay , with their background , how might they be looking at this and how could I use that understanding to change how I'm telling the story so that it makes more sense , because that's going to move this agenda forward a little bit more .

So I think mental agility and the ability to at least try to the best of our ability to understand where others might be coming from . First of all , I think it's an important quality to have . I think it helps with relationships . But secondarily , I do think that usually the more you work at that and the more you understand the multiple perspectives .

I think those multiple perspectives actually contribute to a better strategy , like in business . But University of Pennsylvania is saying not just that , they're saying that it's an important part of resilience .

So the ability to probably understand why things are happening , or you know why things unfolded in the way they did with that person or whatever's going on , it gives you a sense that it's not just happening to you , that it might be happening , I think , for a reason .

It's just an important ability to cultivate in yourself the ability to have empathy for others and where they might be coming from . So that's mental agility . Number four is strengths of character .

Now , one of the big practice areas for University of Pennsylvania is their VIA character institute and what they're talking about here on their definition is the ability to use your top strengths as a person , so the innate qualities that you have to engage authentically to overcome challenges and to create a life that's aligned with your values .

So the Via Character Institute , I think it's viacharacterorg , so viacharacterorg . There's that , and then there's another one from the Gallup organization called strengthsfindercom . Either one of those like you get in , you answer a series of questions and what it's going to do is it's going to read out to you what your top whatever five or 10 strengths are .

I don't know about the via thing , but the strengths finder thing . There's a small fee to it , I think it's like . When I did it , it was like $49 . I'm not an affiliate or associated with them , but I highly recommend I've done both . I highly recommend them , I think for

career . Strengthsfinder , in my opinion , is a little stronger , only because it's . I think it goes a little bit deeper in areas that you're going to have to call upon for your career . That's my personal opinion , but you could try both . I think . The beauty of it , though , is this like when I did it , some of the things didn't surprise me .

You know , some of the things made perfect sense , and some of the things did surprise me , and surprised me from the perspective . Not that when I read it , I thought , oh yeah , yeah , I see that , but I didn't really think of it as a strength , you know .

So it gives you some perspective , because I think what happens is when we're good at something , we can just go oh , that's just , I'm good at that , so that's something everyone has .

We forget that we have our own superpowers and when we don't know them or we aren't aware of them or how they can help us , I think we can't use them to their fullest advantage .

And if you're going through a difficult time when you need to call upon resilience , the point they're trying to make here is , if you understand the things about yourself that are really strong or powerful or like your superpower , you can actually leverage those to help you get through it .

So worth a look at via character or a strength center , if you're interested . Number five , on connection just what it sounds like . Don't forget your connections to others and I think sometimes we get on our path in life , especially at midlife , and there's just a lot going on and it's really hard .

It's really hard , I think , for some of us to really carve out the time for the real relationships that we have aside from the people that are if we have a partner in our house or whatever , making time for friends and family and things like that can be a challenge , but the key is , if you have those tight relationships , it can really be a key to helping

you get through a difficult time . That is really what it's all about is having a close set of friends and family that are around you , that can support you and that , can you know , you can call upon when you need it . And so it's easy to forget that when life takes over .

But I would say , if that's happened to you and you know it happens to a lot of us you know , just course , correct and understand that it's our connections to others that probably matters the most in life and certainly going to help you deal with the things that you encounter . And then the sixth one is optimism , and this one I always thought optimism .

I thought some people were just born optimistic , you know , but really it's a skill , and what they're saying here is that it's the ability to notice and expect the positive , to focus on what you can control and take purposeful action .

So it's not about pretending everything's perfect or that life is rosy , but I thought what they said is really important to key in on , and that is to notice and expect the positive . So basically like to believe that everything may be unfolding in a way .

I don't want , but I still believe that there can be a positive outcome here , like that sense of optimism and hope I think is really important to hold on to , especially at midlife . And I think I've talked to and I've met and I've coached a lot of people who feel a little beleaguered .

They've kind of lost their hope and they're not real sure sometimes that things are going to work out okay .

And especially like if you're going through something you know I think foundational , like the loss of a partner , a parent , the loss of your job , it can be really easy to believe that now there's not much upside left to life , and that is 100% not true . Building that optimism muscle , or rebuilding it if you feel like it's been broken down , is super important .

So those are the six things that make up resilience . So I want to talk real quickly about the things that I think you can do that are the fix . And the ultimate fix , according to University of Pennsylvania , is to get to resilience . It's to develop the thoughts , behaviors and actions that help you recover from traumatic and stressful events .

So notice they're using the word develop thoughts , behaviors and actions . That is again behaviors and actions . That is again what my business is about .

So the first thing to understand is that the circumstances in your life may be out of your control right now , but you still have the ability to control yourself , and when I say that I mean the self-regulation , the self-command . So that is number one . Number two the second thing you need to do is learn to be aware of how you feel .

I have found that , you know , our brain works so fast that when I'm coaching people , sometimes they can't always cue into their thoughts . They're not aware of what they're thinking in the moment , in real time . But most of us are always aware of how we're feeling .

Even if we can't name the emotion , which I think is a learned skill , sometimes we can say I just feel uneasy , I feel uncomfortable , I feel stressed out , I feel stuck , I feel you know whatever , like we can kind of say in general , how we're feeling .

So when you cue into your emotions , that is the key to being self-aware , and because the thing to understand is that when you're feeling a certain way , it didn't just pop up in your body , that feeling because of what's going on . Let's just say it's a layoff . It actually happened because of your thought about the layoff .

That thought is creating the emotion that you feel because somebody could get laid off and they could be thinking my world's just come to an end . So you feel depressed , you feel hopeless , you feel anxiety , whatever you feel for that , which you might , you know , commiserate with your friends .

You might over drink , you might use some type of an escape behavior right but the person that sits right next to you might have a completely different reaction to it . They may be like this is the best thing that ever happened to me , because I hate this job or because I'm ready to turn my side hustle into a permanent business .

So for them , that same layoff , that same exact circumstance could be , in their mind , the best thing that ever happened . They might actually feel excited . You're depressed , they're excited . You see what I'm saying it is never the circumstance that is causing you to feel a certain way .

It's what you're thinking about , that circumstance , and you have the ability to take even the most challenging of circumstances and decide to pivot and decide to think something else , something that's going to head you in the right direction , the direction you want to go , not the direction your brain wants to make you go on autopilot , which will probably be something

associated with fear , uncertainty or self-doubt , right ? Number three you can learn the art of self-command or self-regulation , so that you have the ability to change your thoughts , emotions and behavior and physiology so that you get the desired outcome . That is something that I can teach you .

That is something that we do it in a way that's grounded in cognitive behavioral therapy , where , if you want to know more about it I'm not going to go into it on this episode , but you can go back to episodes 89 and 90 .

In those episodes I actually double click on an 89 on the five interrelated parts of a problem , because that's the core part of we call it CBT , but the cognitive behavioral approach to coaching and then in episode 90 , I teach you how to apply that using kind of a form of self-coaching .

That I think is really helpful , especially if you're going through something tough . So if you're interested in learning a little bit more about what I mean by self-command , go back and listen to 80-90-90 . I think you'll find it really helpful . Number four stay intentional in practicing self-command .

So not only learn the art of it , but do it every day , because our brains are kind of like a river . We've got these neural pathways , these thought pathways that exist in our mind , that have been built up over time , and it's kind of like the course that a river takes as it winds through the geography of the land , and it's got a way that it runs .

The river runs this way and our minds are the same .

That neural pathway is set into motion and if you want to learn the art of self-command , it's the daily discipline of being very intentional about where you're headed and the thoughts and feelings and behaviors you need to do , you need to take or have , so that you actually head in that direction you want to go and not some random direction that your unconscious

mind would lead you . Right , because it's usually . Most of us have programmed patterns of thought that are rooted in fear , uncertainty , self-doubt , things like that . Number five is believe that by focusing on what you can control , that you still can get to where you want to go . So that's the optimism thing , right .

That is about believing that not all hope is lost . It doesn't matter where you are right now , you can still get to where you want to go . That is a very important belief . So those are the five things that I want you to consider as the fix for building more resilience .

If you're interested and you're going through something tough and you want a set of tools that can help you deal with it , I strongly encourage you to listen to episodes 89 and 90 .

That will explain the coaching approach that I use and it gives you a method of doing the daily self-coaching that will help you stay aware and in self-command of how you're showing up in the difficult circumstance .

So I just want to leave you with one last thought , and it's kind of a I'm going to call it a loose statistic , because it's something that someone said to me in a job a couple jobs ago , and we were talking about women in business , and said that he had read that women they were talking about women in the Fortune 500 , who had participated in team sports

when they were young . In team sports when they were young , actually did much better and achieved much higher levels in title and income than women who didn't . And at the time I remember I didn't get it . But now that I understand more about how the mind works , I get it , because if you're an athlete , let's just say you're a gifted athlete in high school .

That just isn't a random thing Like , yes , you may be gifted athletically , but to be really good at it and to successfully compete in team sports over time , you have to be able to come back when you're behind . You have to believe that that's possible .

You have to learn how to work with others who might be very different from you or have different strengths than you . You have to be able to kind of bounce back from a setback or a poor performance or whatever , and not make it be like all hope is lost . You have to kind of go into the next game with a fresh , clean slate .

So I get it now Like what he was saying at the time . I think it's , I'm sure it is true . You know , and that's what I want to leave you you may or may not have been an athlete growing up and you may or may not like , feel like you're good at dealing with really difficult things .

But what I want you to know is that resilience is a learned skill and you can teach yourself this , and that is why I focused my business here , because I didn't have what I consider to be a really great set of tools in that area and there were periods of my career and my life that I think were harder than they needed to be .

Had I had this set of skills , I think it could have been easier . I think it could have been easier on me , taken less of a toll on my life and my wellbeing . So this is something you can learn . It doesn't matter if you're 85 , 65 , 45 , 25 , everyone needs it and you can learn to get good at it at any age .

So if you want to know more about how to do that , if things are sort of a little tough right now , go back to episodes 89 and 90 . So with that I'll leave you till next time .

Make it a great week . My friends , do you have a life coach ? If not , I'd be so honored to be your coach . I've created a virtual coaching program and monthly membership called Next Level . Inside we take the material you hear on this podcast , study it and then apply it . Join me at thepurposefulcareercom backslash next level .

Don't forget the purposefulcareercom backslash next level . Join me and together we'll make your career and life everything you dream of . We'll see you there .