Springing Forward With Learning with Russell Harvey, The Resilience Coach

What if resilience isn’t about bouncing back, but about learning forward? We sit down with Russell Harvey, The Resilience Coach, to unpack a practical, human approach to leading in a full-on, always-changing world. Russell shares how his sixth redundancy became the catalyst to claim a clear identity and purpose, and why that moment of alignment shifted fear into energy.

We explore the Resilience Wheel—a seven-part framework built on research and field-tested across industries. Russell walks through attitude, purpose, confidence, adaptability versus agility, support networks, meaning, and energy, explaining how each element strengthens a leader’s ability to make good choices under pressure. You’ll hear how to use strengths daily to boost natural energy, why curiosity should come before action, and how to turn success into something you can sustain. Expect tangible steps, not theory: a three-question reflection ritual, self-assessments that reveal blind spots, and strategies to prepare for turbulence before it hits.

We also dig into optimism without the fluff. This is optimism grounded in reality—naming the size and shape of the challenge while elevating what’s good and workable about your people and your capabilities. Leaders who hold these conversations well see teams become more open, adaptable, and creative. Whether you’re navigating change, rebuilding confidence after tough feedback, or protecting momentum when things are going well, this conversation offers a map you can use right away.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

You have to walk the talk. You have to be authentic as a leader. If you're not doing it, they see that.

SPEAKER_03 0:07

It is entirely universal. Just other people who are going through this.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

For me, a great leader needs to be able to marry three things: vision, systems, and people.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

Welcome to Leadership Moments if this is your first time. And if you are returning, thank you for your support.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

This show is about leaders from all walks of life, leadership tips, and maybe even a little of what you wouldn't expect to help you in leadership.

Meet Russell Harvey, The Resilience Coach

The “Number Six” Turning Point

SPEAKER_03 0:35

We would appreciate it if you tell someone else about our podcast as we strive to support all leaders that want to just be better. Let's get on with the show. Today our guest is Russell Harvey, also known as the Resilience Coach. Russell has over 20 years of experience in learning, leadership, and organizational development and has specialized in resilience and VUCA for the past 18 years. He is so passionate about positively affecting people that he set a goal of impacting 100,000 people by the year 2025 and has recently met this goal. In addition to his work with clients, Russell is the chair of governors of a local primary school and a volunteer with Leeds Young Authors. He also runs public speaking and confidence workshops in schools. Russell has a depth of qualifications that include certifications in training, education, and coaching. And he is an ILM and CIPD facilitator, strengthscope, master NLP, and MBTI. He has been a National Training Awards Judge and is a member of the Association for Coaching, NLP, and CIPD. I bet you guessed what we're going to talk about today. Yes, you're right. Resilience. Let's jump in. Russell, you have a wonderful, interesting story when we were talking about the show and having you on our show, and I'm so excited that you're here today. But as we were talking about it, you have an interesting thing about the number six. And I would love for you to tell our audience about that.

Identity, Purpose, And Confidence

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Yes, thank you, Stacey. Nice to be here. Yes, the number six, uh, it's not the six degrees of separation, which is something that just popped into my head just then. Uh, it's like, yeah, how many times does it take the universe to tell me that I need to do something different? And it took me my sixth redundancy uh in my corporate corporate career before I actually it felt right, or the universe was giving me a message about it's time to set up your own business, Russell. It's time to become the resilience coach, essentially. Uh and it is, it's it's just really curious about so many times, I think maybe even the first or the second or the third redundancy, friends, relatives, colleagues went, Well, why don't you set up by yourself? And it's just at the time, I was like, Yeah, it doesn't feel right. I'm not sure. I don't have the confidence necessarily to do it. And for whatever reason, on the sixth one potentially because I um I knew that it was likely that it might be coming for a long period of time, for maybe like a year, essentially. Uh, that uh I suppose I was getting myself mentally ready and cogitating and getting my head, my heart, my gut in alignment to go, do you know what? I'm I'm gonna sort of um strike, whatever's it, you know, pull the trigger, essentially, for analogy on going, do you know what? Let's set up by yourself. Uh so that's that's my number six. Essentially, it took me six redundancies before I went, you know what, it's time to set yourself up, Russell.

SPEAKER_03 3:41

Yeah, I love that. And, you know, what's really interesting is one, I I want to get into the resilience part of it because I do a lot of work with resiliency too. So I definitely want to dig in there in just a few minutes. But I think it's really important to pause and just say, you had other people telling you, Russell, you should be this resilience coach. Russell, you've been doing this already. And you yourself were like, not sure, not sure if this is the right thing. And there was finally that trigger. And was it really the number six? Was it another instance that happened? You know, what kind of just said, you know what, now is the time? Because we have lots of, I have lots of clients, we have lots of lots of listeners that question themselves all the time. And we know this imposter syndrome is a very real thing. And so, what advice would you give to them to say, like, you know when you know? Like, what is that thing that triggered that worked for you?

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Uh so yeah. So the the little bit of it is you you do know when you know. So it really is, you know, listen uh to your gut. And I suppose it's about um when I visualized, not like um proper like visualization techniques, but when I just imagined subconsciously me as my own business, um it infused me. So it scared me less and it infused me more, essentially. And then it was also that when the identity of the business name came about as well, that that that was the crystallizer for me. This is where it all came about. So uh I'd already done a number of different um qualifications in coaching, learning, and development, and I did a diploma in coaching. Um, just as the sixth redundancy was um happening, and in one of the many uh sessions I went to, it was the session around so who are you? What's your USP? What's your identity? And my brain just went, Do you know what, Russell? You you are the resilience coach. In the last couple of years in your corporate role, you have literally been the resilience coach. And I went, That's my business, that's my name, that's me, that's my identity, more that's my purpose. And it just all locked into place for me, essentially. And it's so that's when it felt right, it aligned, you know, had a smile on your face, uh, feeling it inside yourself. And it's like, actually, that did something for my levels of confidence to go, right? We're doing it. This feels um good, scary, or this feels stretching, you know. All of those things happened in that moment, essentially. But I I think it was really, it was very much when the business name, you know, came about. And but it wasn't the business name, it was my identity, essentially.

How Are You: Leadership And Wellbeing

SPEAKER_03 6:17

Yeah. I it's a couple things you said there that I really liked. And one is it scared me less. It's not that fear completely goes away, it's that, you know, I got more excited than I got scared. So I think that that's a really good trigger to kind of like think about. And just hearing you talk about it, you can hear your excitement, you can hear your passion. And if you think about when you're talking about those things that make you happy, um, and that you're finding that joy in, you can hear someone light up when they're talking about it. And in a wonderful, and it's so wonderful. I love when I hear people talk about things that they enjoy because you just you hear the joy in their voice and their tone. And it's really, really exciting. And I can hear that in you, and I think that's something for people to think about. You said, hey, I could see it, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:05

No, and I think that goes into a lot of the things I do. So all of the time we go around the world uh and talk to people, um, metaphorically go around the world and we go, How are you? Yeah. And um, there's a whole sort of reasons about how you can respond to it. The last two world happiness reports suggested that something ridiculous, like 65-70% of our ability to answer that question well of how are you, is down to your relationship with your line manager, which is fascinates me. So in leadership development. Um, but it's also, you know, so when I ask prospective clients around these go, you know, how are you? Currently, you know, they'll sort of go, Well, I'll be all right if it wasn't for, or yeah, I think some of the same challenges have come around again. And then when working with them, same as you do, you start to shift them into uh a different place to be able to ask the question, How are you? Because when they have purpose, clarity, better understanding about who they are, their strengths, their skills, they give a different response. You know, you go, How are you? You go, Yeah, I'm good because this is happening, and this is happening, and as that happens, and you just and so it that's lovely to see, you know, it takes a lot to get there, but um, I think enabling that response in others to how are you, how's work, enabling people to get in that place just is just a real privilege and it's exciting.

Who Reaches Out For Resilience Coaching

SPEAKER_03 8:33

Yeah, yeah, I love that. Now, let's talk a little bit about resiliency and the fact that you're a resilience coach. Do people you know do they reach out to you because they say, hey, I'm struggling here, or I need to become more resilient, or I think I am? Like, what is the factors that somebody says, hey, I need help and this is why? Because I do a lot of work in resiliency too. Um, but I wanna I want to hear more about why people reach out to you and then kind of this some of the things that you do with them to help them with resilience.

Tools: VUCA, Strengths, And Assessments

Coaching When Things Are Going Well

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Yeah, so um, if I may, I'll just uh say now how I define resilience, which is springing forward with learning. Springing forward with learning. I'm not a fan of the term bounce back. So that's it's because you can't go back, and it's a subconscious instruction to go back to how you were, and I'm about great, what have you learned? Essentially. So the resilient individual springs forward into a better place with learning. So that's immediately uh the place I'm coming from. And so, very similar to um to answer your question about who do I work with, when going all the way back to that question of like, how are you? So, my prospective clients, I mean, officially business owners and people with the job title of head of and director of, that those are the ideal clients, essentially. And you ask them, How are you? How's work? And they do some variation, as I've already said, of like, well, it'll be all right if it wasn't for. Or the team's not quite, or I know change is constant, but do you know what? There's too much of it. Or I've got all of these challenges in front of me, and I've run out of ideas about what to do about them. You know, the the things don't seem to be working that I used to do, essentially. There are some clients that are in a quite a difficult, challenging place, you know. You know, they're they're not in a good place, there's some clients, and then it's a really good conversation with them about whether counselling is better as a first step, because I'm not a counsellor. Um, and and so it's just trying to find that point of actually is coaching us right for you, or is there some other work that you need to do first before the coaching can work? And only occasionally, but also as uh well, ideal clients are if when everything's going well, so if you ask them, how are you? and you go, It's really good. Uh yeah, everything seems to be working. It's like you need a coach now to ensure that it stays that way as much as humanly possible, you know. So I don't have as many clients that come because when things are good, you you know, you don't necessarily reach out and go, I think I could do with some, you know, some help. A lot of people also reach out when um in terms of the career coaching space of like they might have gone for a promotion and it's the first time they didn't get it, or the first time they got a bit of feedback where you know it it it was maybe difficult to hear about this is you and this is what you like, or this isn't what work isn't what's working for us as an organization and you and your behaviours, you know. Sometimes people reach out to go, huh, I got this feedback. No, no, that's never happened before, or I've always just got every role I've gone for, and I didn't get it this time because they just said I wasn't good enough. And I was like, Okay, I've not heard that before, so I need to I need to figure that out, uh essentially. And then in terms of the second um part of your question, what do you do with them? So my so simplistically, so my specialism is in a full-on mad bonkers crazy world, uh, I support my clients to understand how to lead themselves and others really well in an always changing, full-on world. That that's the specialism. So, what I do with them is there's just a multitude of tips and tricks. There's the resilience wheel, seven bits to it, there's the whole VUCA space for UCA, there's the you know, positive psychology strengths-based approach. And I've got all of these things at my fingertips, and we utilize which with particular kinds, what they might need, essentially. So there's a self-assessment with a psych uh psychometric, and then we just go from there to go actually, where's it already really good? And where would you like it to be different, essentially?

SPEAKER_03 12:47

Yeah. A couple things you said there that I want to reiterate, which is one, you recognize that sometimes people are not ready for coaching because co coaching is forward-looking. So I love the spring forward.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 12:58

And sometimes they, you know, people need to work through something else before they're ready for coaching and recognizing that kudos to you as a coach, because not all coaches are great at that. And that's really, really important to understand where uh the client is at and what their needs are. And so to our listeners, like sometimes coaching is not the right time. But then I also love the when things are going great, there's a lot of people that say, I'm good, man. I don't, I don't need coaching, like, because they equate it to therapy. No, coaching is to continue the greatness. And having that coach when things are going well is so important. So, yes, of course, if you're working through things that you're struggling with and you know you need help, that's beautiful. But it's even greater if you say, you know what, things are going good and I want to maintain this, I'm gonna get a coach now and maintain this greatness that's happening in my life. So I love those pieces that you add there.

The Resilience Wheel: Seven Elements

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Yeah, a couple of in terms of people are listening now, if somebody's responding uh with, yeah, it's all good, it's going really well. So, you know, a couple of follow-up questions to them would be, what is it that you're doing behaviorally that's enabling it to go well? And if they can't answer that pretty quickly, then there's an opportunity in there to work that out. And then also, uh if it starts to go less well, what are you gonna do? That's those are tweets. Anyone that's listening now, if you don't have some ready answers to those, maybe it's an opportunity to reach out to a coach. There's thousands of them on the planet, so yes, so yeah, it's it is. It's it's like it's going really well. So how are you gonna ensure? And you know, do you know how well do you know what you're doing that's enabling it to go well, you know? Um, and what are you gonna do if it starts to go less well, actually?

SPEAKER_03 14:52

Right, right. Preparing yourself for that for sure. Now, you mentioned you have lots of tools that you have in your toolbox that you leverage with people. You did mention the resilience wheel, and I don't think that's something that's talked about very often. And so I'd love, can you give a little bit of insight into that, that maybe some tips and tricks that our listeners could walk away with?

Curiosity, Adaptability, And Action

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Absolutely, yes. And uh without self-promotion, if you want to find out more, if you go on to my website, the resilience wheel is on there. Okay. So the wheel is built upon loads of research from Robertson and Cooper, who literally them and others did lots of research around what does it, uh, what does a person have to do to be to build and grow their resilience, essentially. Uh and so they add a number of aspects to it, and I've added two more in just in terms of my humble experiences over like about 16 years around the resiliency word, essentially. Um, and so if anybody asks me, so Russell, how do I build resilience? I go, There's a wheel, seven bits to it. So I'll say the seven bits, and for now, they'll feel like buzzwords, okay? However, you know, when you look behind them, that's where the tips and tools are. So the heart of our resilience is our attitude, our settled way of thinking, feeling about life. And so there's a number of different things that contribute to that. So resilient individuals have a purpose, okay? So from a leadership point of view, I always ask my clients, what's your leadership purpose? So this isn't about having two purposes, it's just that you can ask the question a variety of different ways, and then people will go, actually, I've now settled on my leadership purpose, which is about me as the whole human, the leader and the whole human. Uh, then uh it's about what's the different ways in which that individual builds their confidence. And so there's five ways in which you do that. There's the lovely word of adaptability, openness to change. And then we talk a lot about the difference between and the nuances between adaptable and agile in that space. So adaptable, open to change, but not necessarily doing anything. You're you're open, but you didn't do anything. The agile is then making the quick decision to do something. Then is your support network so growing the best, useful, helpful, find your tribe, the one that nurtures you, the one that actually tells you some home truths, just your best possible support network. Then there's one that's called meaning, which is about our internal storytelling and our self-talk and our belief systems, essentially, and what we do that, how we what we do around that impacts our levels of confidence, our attitude. And finally, it's this word energy, which for me is more in the whole strengths-based approach. So uh, yes, you know, diet and exercise is useful, but I'm not a specialist in that area. The energy piece is that when you actually turn up to work in life each day, you've got some natural strengths, some things that naturally energize you. And when you understand what those are and you harness those well, they build natural resilience and natural confidence. So I engage with clients around their wheel and we talk about it and they self-assess themselves, and it just becomes part of our conversations to go actually what's happening where you're in this. And you can apply the wheel personally to leadership, to teams, and to organizations. So it's it's it's got a multifaceted approach to it, essentially.

SPEAKER_03 18:16

Well, thank you for sharing that. I think that's great, and great that we can go look it up to you know understand more on your site. But one couple things that I really like that you said there. One is the adaptability and the ad, I did you say agility or agile? But basically it was a two-step approach. First, be open-minded. Because a lot of times when you talk about being open-minded, people think being open-minded means you're actually going to take action too. And I love that it's a phased approach because little steps go a long way. And if it's first, if I can just think, you know, differently, um, and what I like to say is stay curious. Yes. Now that I'm staying curious and being open-minded, now what are the steps that I can take? And really breaking that apart makes it a little more palatable for a lot of people where this may not be easy for them. So I like how you break those two pieces up.

Reflect, Restore, And The Three Questions

SPEAKER_01 19:09

So, in terms of my intention to enable the openness and curiosity, um, when I anybody that's listening now can invite you to do this and work with clients to role model springing forward with learning. So part of resilience is pausing and re-energizing and restoring and recuperating yourself, all things, to be with the letter R, because I'm Russell and it's the resilience coach and any other letter I can think of. That's the only word I can think of with a letter R. Um, you need to do in your reflections is ask yourself three questions. Okay. So, what have I been doing behaviorally recently that's been serving me well? What have I been doing behaviorally recently that has not been serving me well? And how can I do more other things that are the answers to the first question? So, you know, leaders are humans that make the decision and the choice to build and grow their resilience on a regular basis. They pause, they restore themselves, and they ask themselves those three questions, and those reflections can be against the resilience wheel. So it's just that that's how people can go away from listening to this and watching that and start to build and grow their resilience for the rest of their life. Because unfortunately, as you know, we don't know how resilient we are a lot of the time until something unpleasant happens. Yeah. And I'm of the view, why wait? You know?

SPEAKER_03 20:40

Yeah. I love that. Because the f the famous line is, Well, you become more resilient by putting up with tough times. Okay, well, how do I prepare for that? And what I'm hearing from you is you help people prepare for that. So I really like that.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Yeah. Proactive resilience, absolutely.

Strengths And Daily Energy Management

SPEAKER_03 20:55

Yeah. I also like how you use the word energy rather than fitness exercise. Um, I do believe in what I call wellness and how important that is to show up. Um, just it, it's there's so much studies out there, right? That when you take care of yourself, you're more, you are more resilient, you're more productive, you're more innovative. Um, and so I put a lot of that into my coaching as well. But what I really like is, which I do the same thing, it's not just about exercise and eating well. Wellness means finding that joy, picking up that hobby that you haven't done in years that you used to love doing. Or even just like sitting in nature. There's so many studies of just sitting in nature for 20 minutes makes the big difference. So it is those small things that you can do as well. Uh, and so I love that you just focus on energy and what do you love doing is as you put it.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

This well, this is it, yes. It's just what floats your boat every single day. So it's um, so my top three strengths are collaboration, strategic mindedness, and developing others. So that means that I turn up to life with those three things in the forefront of me. So anyone that comes across my desk, any conversations I have, any emails that I see, my knee-jerk response is to go, how can we do this together? Collaboration, because I'm energized by that. What's the big picture? Strategic mindedness. And along the way, you're gonna get coached. Because I love doing however so I know that, uh, and then it's about me flexing with my other strengths and the ones that I've got less energy for. So I'm energized least by detail. I can do detail, but I don't have a lot of energy. That's the least amount of energy. So my understanding of all of that means that I can turn up to life uh harnessing those, essentially.

Leading With Optimism, Not Toxic Positivity

SPEAKER_03 22:56

Love that. Love that. It's a great way to look at it. What are your strengths? It's typically what you enjoy doing, and how do you harness that uh every day? So I like the way you break that down. Now, um, okay, so you have all these tips and tricks, all these tools. Maybe we might have time for one more. Like, what's one thing that you find with most of your clients that's really valuable that maybe our listeners could walk away with today?

SPEAKER_01 23:21

So um I'd like to talk about the word optimism, if I may. Okay. Uh, because uh so the reason I want to do that is I absolutely do not want anybody to think about um toxic resilience or toxic positivity. Okay. That's not where I'm coming from. We've fallen into a trap these days of people sort of saying, hmm, I'm a bit worried about something or things aren't going as well as I would like them to, and they just get the you just need to be resilient. You just need to be positive. They get the pointy finger, and that's not what I'm about. So optimism uh is a route to uh enabling yourself to feel more hopeful and positive. So optimism is grounded in reality, which is we need to get better in life and society at talking about the reality of situations, and it requires a lot of the emotional intelligence and empathy and compassion and coaching skills, essentially, to hold an optimistic conversation well. But this is a case of let's just talk about the reality of the size of the scale of the problem, let's talk about the reality about what's concerning us about it. We need to hold that well, essentially. And then during that conversation, you start to talk about the reality of what's good about us, what's right about us, what's our strengths, our skills, our experiences, our capabilities, our levels of resilience, etc. And then when you can bring that a little bit more to the fore, higher up, then people start to go, we're uh I'm feeling hopeful actually that we'll be able to do this. Oh, okay. I'm I'm feeling positive about, yes, we've talked well about the size and the scale of the challenge and reality of the circumstances. And and I've had the opportunity to, you know, reflect upon those and air about those, and we listen to well about them. And actually, we've had a great conversation about what's really good and right about me and others and the people around me and how we're going to find a way through. So, a question that I ask all my clients a lot of the time, after I've said, How are you? and they give me a download, I'll often sort of say, and how optimistic are you feeling right now? And they'll give me an answer. And sometimes they'll go, Oh no, actually, I I am still feeling optimistic for these reasons. And then they'll go, sometimes they'll go, oh no, like, no, not at all, Russell. There's no optimism there. They go, right. Either way, we have a chat, essentially, to go right. How do we maintain the optimism that you've still got? And how do we regrow, you know, the optimism for the for that you've lost, essentially. So uh, leaders, um, role modelling and holding optimistic conversations with their teams is a really great tip as far as I am concerned. You know, I encourage everybody that's listening and watching now to just start to really discover what optimism is, play around with it. There's a few blogs on the website um about it. Um, and then actually you will notice that when you have uh teams that are optimistic, they are more open, more curious, more adaptable, more agile as well.

Quick-Fire Fun Questions

SPEAKER_03 26:31

I really like that. And one thing that I want to just say to that is sometimes when people think about optimism, they see people as being fake and being non-realistic. And that is not true. That is about somebody just trying to stay curious, trying to see the positive, looking at life for the beauty that it is and what is possible. And I really just want to try to negate that. It doesn't mean that someone's fake, it means that someone truly is just seeing things for the wonderful things that they can be. So it's really important to focus on that. And I I love, love that you brought that up. Great advice.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

My absolute pleasure. So I hope that's useful for um people that are listening and watching.

SPEAKER_03 27:13

That is great. That is great. Okay, there's that sound. It's time for our fun questions. Are you ready for our fun questions?

SPEAKER_01 27:20

Yes, I am. Absolutely. Here we go.

SPEAKER_03 27:23

All right. Would you rather give up sweet snacks or salty ones? Salty. Salty? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

I'd rather give up salty. Yes. I need my sweets.

SPEAKER_03 27:35

Okay, great. I'm I'm with you on that one. I love my sweets too. All right. Would you rather take a luxury vacation to the same place every year or travel somewhere new but budget style?

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Uh travel somewhere new budget style.

SPEAKER_03 27:51

Yeah, I'm with you on that one for sure. You gotta experience the world. And we've been talking about that all day, right? Yeah. With optimism and seeing things and experiencing things for sure. Yes. Okay. Would you rather have a personal chef or a live in masseuse?

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Oh, live in masseuse. I like to cook. So live in masseuse would be, yeah, that would be fabulous.

Closing Thanks And Listener CTA

SPEAKER_03 28:14

That's wonderful. That's wonderful. Good. Well, Russell, thank you so much. You gave our listeners so many great tips today. They might have to listen to this one twice to gain all the knowledge out of it. But really appreciate your time today. And if everyone will have all the show notes there so people can go to Russell's site and look up the resilience wheel and everything else he talked about around optimism and his blogs. Um, but really appreciate your time today. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

My pleasure. Thank you for having me on.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

If you enjoyed the show, please go to LeadershipMoments Podcast.com to subscribe to the podcast or on your favorite player, as well as follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_03 28:56

You can also send us a message on what you like and don't like or what guests you want us to have on the show. So until next time, this is Stacy Caster, and what doesn't challenge you won't change you.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

And I'm Tracy Ann Palmer. Be the change you wish to see in the world.