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
183 episodes
183: Zero Gray Leadership, with Kirk Driver
Ambiguity from leaders can teach people to hesitate, to gossip, and to lower their standards. I sit down with Kirk Driver, a 34-year veteran of the Fort Worth Police Department and the creator of the Zero Gray Leadership system, to ...
182: Trust-First Leadership In The Age Of AI, with Tamar Cohen
A CEO calls employees “low-value human capital,” companies brag about AI while cutting people loose, and somehow, workers are told to just be resilient.To be honest about what that does to trust and what leaders can do differently, I sat...
181: Whose Choice Are You Living? With Graham Skidmore
If you’ve ever looked at your career and thought, “I did everything right, so why do I feel so wrong?” this conversation is for you.We sit down with Graham Skidmore, co-founder of Harmony Health, to unpack what happens when corporate suc...
180: Human-Centered Leadership, with Chase Sterling
We sit down with Chase Sterling, workplace well-being expert and founder of the Wellbeing Think Tank, to get honest about what support actually looks like when someone is stressed, grieving, or barely holding it together. The throughline is res...
179: Always Be Curious, with Chris March
Your first move as a leader is probably not what you think. Before the strategy deck, before the new plan, the faster path to trust and better results is to be genuinely curious and listen like you mean it. I’m joined by executive a...
178: Real Recovery Is Slow And That Is Normal
One screw in a piece of drywall doesn't usually feel profound. This time it did.Standing in a gutted house in Altadena, California, more than a year after the Eaton Fire, I felt the absurd weight of wildfire recovery and the despair that...
177: How Lived Experience Turns Into Real Support, with Cynthia Conigliaro
You can feel it everywhere right now: more stress, less sleep, shorter tempers, and a quiet sense that a lot of people are barely holding it together. We sit down with Cynthia Conigliaro to talk about what resilience actually looks ...
176: Beyond Resilience, with Keith Erwood
Most organizations don’t fail because they don't have a plan. They fail because they can’t imagine they would ever need a plan.We sit down with Keith Erwood to talk about what real risk looks like and why business continuity and crisis m...
175: The Gap After The Crisis
The strange part of a crisis is not the first week. It’s the months after, when the debris is cleared, the headlines move on, and your body finally stops running on adrenaline. That’s when many people begin to notice the insomnia, anxiety, irri...
174: Resilient Leadership Starts With You, with Chris Harris
Would you follow someone up the hill if they’ve never taken one themselves? That question sits at the center of our conversation with executive coach and keynote speaker Chris Harris, whose warrior mindset approach strips leadership...
173: How To Talk To Your Doctor, with Dana Sherwin
Doctor visits can feel like a high-stakes performance: you get 15 minutes, you are anxious, and you only remember the perfect question after you leave. We sit down with Dana Sherwin, a healthcare management consultant and speaker sp...
172: Hidden Wounds Of Surviving A Public Crisis
A bomb explodes across the street, and you walk away with both your legs. People call that fine.But your body tells a different story for years. On the 13th anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing, I share what that day felt like from...
171: Lead Without Losing Yourself, with Robin Goad
What if leadership were less about being impressive and more about being useful? Robin Goad joins me to get painfully honest about how most of us learn leadership the wrong way, then spend years unlearning it. She’s a technology exe...
170: The Servant Leader Mindset, with Daniel Tataje
The strongest leaders change what people believe about themselves. That’s the thread running through my conversation with Dr. Daniel Tataje, founder and CEO of Mercy Dental Group and author of The Leader Humanity Needs, a l...
169: The Recovery Gap
The finish line gets repainted, the cameras come back, and the speeches sound certain: we’re stronger, we’ve recovered, we’ve moved forward. But what happens when a community’s timeline keeps marching and a person’s nervous system d...
168: Ready Already, with Allister Frost
Your boss doesn’t know what’s coming next. Neither do you. That’s not a crisis; it’s the new starting point for modern leadership, where real agency can finally show up.We sit down with ...
167: When Clear Messaging Still Misses
Good intentions can still break trust. After a crisis, many leaders speak with calm certainty, hoping to steady the room, only to discover it doesn't work the way they thought.We unpack why offering reassurance can backfire, how timing a...
166: Resilience Is Motion, Not Stillness, with Kenyada Meadows
Balance isn’t the finish line. It's the pendulum that’s almost never centered, the butterfly that needs resistance to fly, and the swimmer who learns to win with water in his goggles.We sat down with coach, author, and financial services...
165: The Quiet Phase After Crisis
When the headlines fade and the urgent meetings stop, most leaders exhale—and miss the most important phase of recovery. We unpack the quiet phase, that deceptive calm where people finally feel the impact and disengagement takes roo...
164: Leading Through Unrest, with Ayme Zemke
When a crisis engulfs your community, the urge to go quiet can be powerful—and costly. We sit down with Ayme Zemke, Chief Client Officer and Certified Crisis Communication Leader at Beehive Strategic Communication, to break down how...
163: Resilience Is The Real Infrastructure, with Tony Crescenzo
Pressure tests every organization, and Tony Crescenzo believes resilience isn’t a perk—it’s the infrastructure that keeps the mission alive. We sit down with the Marine veteran turned CEO of Intelligent Waves and founder of Peak Neu...
162: Back To Functioning - Steadiness or Speed?
What happens when the crisis is no longer in the news?We dig into that uneasy stretch when calendars fill back up and leaders feel the urge to get back to normal. And why that push can cause mistrust and leave people alone with their pai...
161: Resilience Without The Buzzwords, with Kemia Sarraf
What if we stopped treating trauma like a forbidden topic and started treating it like a leadership skill set? That’s the spark for a candid, practical conversation with physician and public health expert Kemia Sarraf on how to show...
160: Resilience With Boundaries, with Kathryn McEwen
What if compassion without boundaries is the very thing burning leaders out? We sit down with organizational psychologist and executive coach Kathryn McEwen to unpack resilience at work as a living system.Kathryn leads the Working with R...
159: Stronger Together At Work, with Peter Turner
Real care at work isn’t about saying yes to everything. It is about designing a culture where people can struggle together and still deliver. We brought Pete Turner, partner and senior executive coach at 2B Limitless, to talk about ...
