Notes on Resilience
Notes on Resilience explores how human experience, including adversity, shapes leadership, innovation, and culture. Host Manya Chylinski talks with people whose work, research, or lived experience reveal how we adapt, care, and create after challenge—what these stories show about the systems we build, and what must evolve.
These conversations are rooted in a simple idea: the goal isn’t resilience for its own sake, the goal is well-being. Resilience is what makes recovery and growth possible.
The show serves as field research on how people and systems recover, rebuild, and move forward.
Episodes
154 episodes
154: Empathy That Works, with Dr. Helen Riess
What if the fastest path to better outcomes is a renewed commitment to empathy you can actually teach, measure, and scale? We sit down with Dr. Helen Riess—Harvard Medical School psychiatrist, founder of Empathetics, and author of T...
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Season 3
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Episode 50
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26:10
153: Truth In The Eye Of The Storm, with Samantha Montano
Crisis leadership is about recognizing reality faster than everyone else. And telling the truth when it’s hardest. We sit down with Samantha Montano—associate professor of emergency management and author of Disasterology—to unpack w...
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Season 3
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Episode 49
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26:06
152: Leading Without Fear, with Melissa Agnes
Fear rewires leadership in the moments that matter most. We sit down with Melissa Agnes, keynote speaker, author of Crisis Ready, and a shaper of ISO 22361, to explore how leaders can move from survival mode to creation mode when th...
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Season 3
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Episode 48
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30:32
151: From Crisis Plans to Operational Resilience, with Suzanne Bernier
News travels faster than your approval chain—so who speaks for you when it matters most? We sit down with crisis management consultant Suzanne Bernier to unpack what effective leadership looks like under pressure. The conversation q...
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Season 3
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Episode 47
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28:46
150: Leaning Into Anxiety, with David Rosmarin
Anxiety doesn’t mean you’re broken; it means you care. When stakes rise, that surge of energy can sharpen focus, rally teams, and improve decisions—if you know how to work with it. We sit down with Harvard Medical School psychologis...
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Season 3
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Episode 46
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29:24
149: Trust Builds Teams, with Nate Amidon
A cargo plane cockpit isn’t the first place most people look for lessons on software leadership—until you hear what happens when a co-pilot stays silent. A single dismissive moment can shut down a voice and invite disasterIn this episode...
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Season 3
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Episode 45
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25:54
148: Adapting After Trauma, with Dr. Jordan Smoller
Resilience isn’t about being unbreakable. We sit down with Dr. Jordan Smoller—psychiatrist, epidemiologist, and geneticist at Harvard and Mass General—to discuss resilience as adaptation and explore why naming harm matters, how ackn...
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Season 3
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Episode 44
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28:23
147: Designing Work For Every Mind, with Travis Hollman
Work should feel human, not like a daily battle with noise, sameness, and stress. We sit down with Travis Hollman, CEO of Hollman Inc. and founder of MeSpace, to unpack how neuroinclusive design, compassionate leadership, and AI can...
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Season 3
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Episode 43
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27:52
146: Serve First, Lead Strong, with Sebastián Torres-Calderon
What if leadership is a practice you start the moment a gap appears? That’s the lens Sebastián Torres-Calderon brings to our conversation. He was an intern who helped stabilize a hospitality company during COVID and later became its...
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Season 3
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Episode 42
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23:17
145: Why Your Brain Won’t Read a Long Email During a Disaster, with Mary Schoenfeldt
A steady voice can feel like a life raft when the world flips. We sat down with emergency management expert and ICISF faculty member Dr. Mary Schoenfeldt to unpack how leaders actually help in the acute moments and the aftermath—wha...
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Season 3
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Episode 41
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36:27
144: Middle Managers, Maximum Impact, with Natasha Kehimkar
Resilience isn’t a solo grind or a wellness checklist—it’s a system that lives in people, teams, and the way an organization actually works under pressure. We sit down with strategic advisor and executive team coach Natasha Kehimkar...
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Season 3
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Episode 40
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31:46
143: Self-Compassion as a Superpower, with Massimo Backus
What if the key to becoming a better leader isn't about mastering others, but mastering yourself? When executive coach Massimo Backus joins me on this episode, he shares a revolutionary idea that's changing how we think about leader...
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Season 3
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Episode 39
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32:20
142: Redefining Performance, with Radhika Dutt
What if the performance metrics we've relied on for decades are actually undermining our success? Radhika Dutt, entrepreneur, product leader, and author of Radical Product Thinking, challenges conventional leadership wisdom...
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Season 3
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Episode 38
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32:18
141: Leadership with Heart, with Nada Nasserdeen
Discover why emotional intelligence might be the missing puzzle piece in your leadership strategy. Nada Nasserdeen, founder and CEO of Rise Up For You, unpacks the critical balance between compassion and maintaining high standards i...
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Season 3
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Episode 37
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29:32
140: Leading Through Compassion, with Hussein Hallak
What if everything you thought you knew about leadership was based on an illusion? Hussein Hallak takes us on a remarkable journey from his childhood in Syria—where entrepreneur wasn't even a word in Arabic—to becoming a successful ...
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Season 3
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Episode 36
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34:36
139: Scaling Without Losing Your Soul, with Kenny Lange
How do you build an organization that grows without losing its soul?Kenny Lange believes the answer lies in compassionate leadership—but not in the way most people think.Kenny challenges the false dichotomy between organizational...
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Season 3
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Episode 35
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31:32
138: The ROI of Kindness: Why Compassion Drives Business Success, with Tara May
What's the true value of kindness in business? According to Tara May, CEO of Aspiritech, compassion is a powerful driver of innovation, revenue, and profit.Our conversation explores the ROI of kindness, a concept that challe...
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Season 3
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Episode 34
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31:52
137: From Local to Global: How Crisis Response Shapes Our World, with Heidi Steinecker
When crisis hits, what separates exceptional leaders from the rest? Dr. Heidi Steinecker draws from her remarkable career as Deputy Director of the California Department of Public Health and US Citizen Diplomat to reveal the unexpec...
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Season 3
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Episode 33
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31:23
136: The Kindness Bank, with Ali Uren
No one will listen to you and really embrace you unless they know that you're there with the right intentions.Ali Uren, founder of Kiikstart, challenges conventional thinking about what truly drives workplace success.The episode ...
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Season 3
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Episode 32
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27:38
135: Leading with Soul, with Karen Ansen
When a disability care organization struggled with high turnover and poor morale, today's guest, Karen Ansen, suggested flipping its organizational chart to put frontline caregivers at the top. The organization transformed its cultu...
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Season 3
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Episode 31
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27:15
134: Crisis Response Essentials, with Jeff Gorter
Leaders tend to bifurcate, going to one extreme or the other. Some become hyper-competent but emotionally disconnected. Others display overwhelming empathy without direction.Crisis response expert Jeff Gorter reveals that effective leade...
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Season 3
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Episode 30
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32:45
133: Invisible Wounds and the Workplace, from The Breakout podcast
When tested, we don't rise to the level of our aspirations. We fall back to the level of our training, habits, and policies.This episode originally aired on
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Season 3
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Episode 29
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33:20
132: What We Truly Owe Each Other, with Alham Saadat
In this first in an occasional series on what we owe each other after collective traumas, bioethicist Alham Saadat shares unique insights from her experiences as a refugee and her work in bioethics at the Broad Institute.Alham offers in...
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Season 3
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Episode 28
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31:15
131: A Great Business Needs Genuine Human Connection, with Rob Gallaher
Ever noticed how the most successful leaders somehow manage to build thriving businesses while maintaining genuine human connections? Rob Gallaher discovered this secret the hard way. After years of working excessive hours, microman...
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Season 3
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Episode 27
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32:06
130: Leaders With Heart, with Fran Benjamin
What happens when we acknowledge our full humanity in the workplace? Fran Benjamin, Managing Partner at GoodWorks Consulting, delivers a masterclass in organizational transformation that challenges longstanding assumptions about lea...
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Season 3
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Episode 26
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27:26
