Episode 7: Full Circle: Mastery of Resilience and the Power of a Supportive Community

Standing my ground in a youth emergency squad taught me early on that resilience isn't just about bouncing back; it's a complex dance of adaptability, growth, emotional fortitude, and sheer doggedness. On Full Circle, we strip away the myths to reveal resilience as a skill forged in the fires of experience and nurtured by a community of support. From the collapse of my own software company to pushing past corporate barriers, I open up about personal battles and victories that have shaped my understanding of what it truly means to stand resilient in the face of life's curveballs.

As we navigate the intricate web of personal and professional growth, the role of networks and mentorship becomes unmistakably clear. Join me as we uncover why your success might just hinge on the diverse perspectives of those you surround yourself with and the guidance of mentors who challenge you to outgrow them. We also tackle the profound journey from military service to the civilian workforce, a transition rife with both obstacles and opportunities. This episode isn't just for veterans; it's a call to action for anyone ready to aid in this significant shift, underscoring the collective responsibility we share in fostering resilience and success in ourselves and others.

Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:00

Welcome back to Full Circle with Sean. I'm your host, sean, and, as promised, we're talking about resilience today. Yay, so let's start with. I mean, what is resilience? Right so? Resilience to me encapsulates about four points, and they start with adaptability, emotional strength, growth, mindset and persistence. So let's look at what that means, right so? Adaptability adjusting one's approach or thinking to overcome challenges and move forward. Right so? It's more. The resilience involves in adapting to one's misfortunes and setbacks. The second one is growth mindset, so viewing difficulties as opportunities for growth and learning from experiences. The third is emotional strength right so, managing emotions effectively during crisis to enable clear thinking and appropriate actions. And then the last one is persistence, so continue to push forward, even in the face of obstacles or when situations seem really bleak. Right so? I guess it's also important to say what resilience is not. So it's not immunity to emotion. So a big misconception is that resilient people do not experience sadness, stress or frustration. In reality, resilient individuals experience these emotions, but they're able to manage and work through them effectively.

Speaker 0: 1:31

Resilience is not a singular victory. Some people think that once you've shown resilience, you're set for life. However, resilience is more of an ongoing process that needs to be cultivated continuously. That needs to be cultivated continuously. Resilience is not instantaneous recovery, right? So resilience does not imply bouncing back immediately after a setback. Recovery can take a lot of time and the process is different for absolutely everybody. And then, resilience is not perfection. Being resilient doesn't mean you never fail or you never feel overwhelmed. Rather, it's more about learning how to deal with those feelings constructively.

Speaker 0: 2:10

And now, following on from that, what are some common misconceptions about resilience? So some people think that resilience is inborn right. And while some aspects of resilience can be influenced by personality traits, it's largely developed through life's experiences and can be learned and strengthened over time. Some people think that resilience eliminates stress. Well, that's a big misconception. Resilience does not remove stress. People still experience stress, but they know how to manage it effectively and prevent it from overwhelming them. A lot of people think resilience is a solo act. Many believe resilience is about individual toughness, but social support plays a very crucial role. Connection with others is often a key component in developing and sustaining resilience. So let's go through some examples, right?

Speaker 0: 3:05

So persistence. When I was really young, obviously I was in foster care if you've seen my previous episodes and I was in the emergency squad, so I was a CFR, so Certified First Responder and President of the Emergency Squad, right? So President of the Junior club, let's call it and there was a group of people because every place likes to be political and everybody's important, right. So they decided that if you're younger you shouldn't be riding on the ambulance, basically. And they got us. They got us shut down and I wouldn't take no for an answer. So I talked to everybody. I went to, you know, local council, I got people together that I had ridden the ambulance with other medics, you know people that were um higher in society, that that had seen it, seen us work until I got it overturned.

Speaker 0: 4:06

And that's persistence in the face of obstacles, right, I wasn't going to take no, but I went around it the right way. And I'm sure I got a bit emotional at times, but I didn't let that blind me to the right way to approach that, because I mean, if I went out and just started blasting everybody, nothing would happen, right, in fact I would have been the bad guy at the end. So that's persistence. Now, if we go even further, we can say, as of today, we have a lot of setbacks, we drive our technology, but you have a lot of people in companies that feel threatened by new things right, and even more that if it's not my way, if I wasn't the one that proposed it, then it can't be good, or even if it is good, then it could offset me as a person. So I'm going to block that, I'm going to stop that. And you need a lot of persistence and you need a lot of emotional strength, because those people are going to be everywhere that you go and you have to have the emotional strength of not to go to their level with that kind of stuff.

Speaker 0: 5:20

And I had one guy refuse to meet me for a coffee but wouldn't reply to my emails. No, wouldn't meet a coffee. He wouldn't reply to my emails. No, wouldn't meet me for coffee, wouldn't reply to my emails. We were talking to everybody else in the company. Everybody else wanted to trial some of the stuff that we had. Just this one person, and not even at the top, just this one person. And I still send him emails and you know we can be buds. This is good for both of us and and just kept the persistence. Now it looks like things are going to go around him, but it shouldn't have had to. You know it, it, um, he didn't have the emotional um strength or, you know, the growth mindset, and it's unfortunate, but you're going to find those roadblocks everywhere, right? So you need to be resilient to that.

Speaker 0: 6:08

If we look at, you know, when I lost my company, when, you know, my software company went under, I could have said, okay, well, australia's got a good welfare program and I can sit at home and twiddle my thumbs and watch Netflix and eat Cheetos and kind of relax for a while. And I said, nah, it's just not going to happen. It's, uh, we're going to, we're going to grow again and I don't know what it's going to be yet. But, uh, is it going to be a software company? Am I going back into it? Am I going to go, you know, put a sign outside the house again and start fixing computers? I was not going to stop, it didn't matter. So that's what you got to think about is?

Speaker 0: 6:49

You know, everybody says it's funny, because everybody says that all what you're doing is risky. Or, you know, you take too many risks. But I'm more than okay with taking the consequences if I fail. I'm not okay with not trying, because I feel the consequences of not trying would affect me a lot worse than failing on something, and, yeah, that's how I've always seen life, though, is go, go, go, and I have a lot of friends that say, well, that's the American mindset, and sure, I do believe that Americans are more into risking things and giving it a go, but there's plenty of places that it's not acceptable to fail or their life will be over. But it should be a reflection, it should be what did I learn from that? How much did I lose from that? And hopefully we'll do better next time.

Speaker 0: 7:55

Right, and I guess that's a bit of an oversimplification as well, because it's still painful. You're still going to go through pain, you're still going to get upset, you're still going to get stressed. You're still going to go through pain, you're still going to get upset, you're still going to get stressed, you're still going to cry, and hopefully you have a network around you that'll help you. Hopefully you've got the right mentors around you that'll help fix where you're broken, because you'll be a bit broken and that's okay, and let's say that just one more time. That's okay. It's okay to be broken Sometimes, it's okay to be, to be overwhelmed, just because, just because I said that you know dealing with everything can help you from not being so overwhelmed.

Speaker 0: 8:35

You're still going to be overwhelmed, right, but resilience is picking yourself up. You know what was in the army, you know. Suck it up, you know. But it wasn't about sucking in the emotions, it was about continuing on. I will move forward in your head. I will move forward.

Speaker 0: 8:53

I will get past this, and one of the greatest things that I think about so this is this is how my mind works, right? Is I think I'm in a bad situation, right? Maybe I've said something stupid or I've done something stupid, or just I've had a bad day. Maybe a client backed out or something's happened, right, and I'm just like, okay, it's bad. Right now it's a bad day. But you know what Time heals everything and you know what, in a week from now, it might be something that I reflect on and I need to reflect on it, and I should be playing back how I got in that situation or what I did to get in that situation, so I can learn from it. But At that time, nobody's going to remember it, or a few people are going to remember it, unless you really screw up, and then it can last a little bit longer. But that's what you need to think is time will heal it.

Speaker 0: 9:51

I need to give it that time and during that time that I give it, I need to clear my head, I need to learn from it, I need to adapt my thinking and I need to be persistent that I will continue my own growth and I will keep hitting the goals that I set for myself. It's funny, like you know. Everybody says, set your new year's resolutions right, but if you're a resilient person, then you don't really. You might have new year's resolutions, but I think it's more of having a path that you want and being willing to adapt that path based on what you learn and being able to focus in on you know learning.

Speaker 0: 10:34

So every situation that I find myself in if I find myself, I screwed up here or I go with one of the camera systems that we built. Right, and we built a single camera system. I loved it. It solved a big problem for divers and they didn't like it. They didn't like it that much. They wanted it in the place it used to be and I was like but that's not. We need to teach them that this is a better way to go and at the end I went with what they wanted.

Speaker 0: 11:03

After quite a long time, I went with what the divers wanted and the engineers were able to adapt that to be as good as what we had. But I didn't open myself up to that. Now, after that, every time the engineers or clients says something, I sit back and go is this a camera moment? If I don't want it, is it a camera moment? And then I use my sounding board. So I have mentors. So is this something that you know? I'm preconceived and I need to pull myself out of that.

Speaker 0: 11:35

So I'm constantly learning as well, right, and now, if you go to say the military, when I got back from Iraq, I went and I'm sitting in a bar because that's what you do, and I was a bit depressed, you know, I, yeah, it was a bit not in good headspace, right, but I just needed the time to think through it. Why am I depressed? Should I be getting out of the military? Should I? What am I going to do if I get out? And you know how scary it is to get out of out of the military because you, you get up every morning and you have direction. Right, you know what you're going to do. You, you know if you screw up your finances. You can go to the chow hall, you know, if you, you know you have that support around you. So it's it's very hard to make a decision to get out. And then when you get out, it's like, wow, I had all this support and everything around me and now I'm on my own. So what, what am I supposed to do now? And we'll we'll talk about transitioning from the military to civilian life in a later episode. But yeah, it's, people come up with all this stuff, like I love hearing some of these speakers say oh yeah, you just have emotional strength or have the growth mindset, you know, because that's what you need and you'll be be happy.

Speaker 0: 13:00

It's not that easy. You'll pick up a lot of these traits and you'll work on them and they'll go slowly and you'll forget about some of them. And then you'll reflect back a month later and go, yeah, I didn't really have much emotional strength there and I'll do better next time. And it is about the learning. But it's hard. And if anybody says it's easy, then either they've had a pretty good life, they've never failed, or they don't understand it. It's not easy. It's not a movie, it's not where you just show up and things are bad and all of a sudden things are great and you get the bad guy and life's misfortunes. You win the lottery and you have a bad day, but all of a sudden everything comes out good. Sometimes you have a bad day and then you have a bad day, then you have another bad day and it's about dragging yourself out of that.

Speaker 0: 14:05

I mean, maybe need to change, you know, maybe you know, as far as careers go, if, if you're not happy, are you in the right career? But that doesn't mean go quit your job. I mean, and how much have I seen that too, this whole quit mentality of the younger generation. They don't even have another job. They just, oh, I'm not going to do this and just quit. And I know there's certain reasons why you might do that, but it just became. You know politics, it became I can be very popular by saying I quit on TikTok or something. No, no, if you really feel that you're not doing the right thing, then you go to night school and you persist through what you want to do and you learn and you pivot right. But it comes with hard work, it comes with reflection.

Speaker 0: 14:56

It's not an instantaneous gratification, and that's where we are as a society, though, right, we're all instantaneous gratification, and I'm one to speak I've got all sorts of electronics and new thing comes out, and sometimes I'm like, yeah, I want that. Or the kids, yeah, I want that. All right, you can have it. But as a parent, I had a pretty bad upbringing. So, while not bad, it taught me who I am, but I had a rough let's say rough upbringing, and that's made me a dad where I overindulge by giving them things and trying to give them a much better childhood than I have, and it's not always good, because they're not getting some of the life lessons, but that's how I am as a person and I know that, and I do sit with them and have these conversations as well, but not to this extent, because they're not old enough yet, but I hope to, and I guess one thing you're starting to learn about me is I go off tangent sometimes and yeah, well, there you go. So that's just how it's going to be.

Speaker 0: 15:58

Let's just touch shortly on networks, though, right. So having your own network is very important, and not like just your close family or the friend you've had for 50 years. It's about getting new networks. It's about connecting with people outside of your normal network because you need the perspective. It's. You know, how can you understand how a different culture is, besides your preconceptions, if you have no friends from that culture or or career or anything like that?

Speaker 0: 16:30

So, and then, and then your mentors, right? So I was always taught that you know if you're, if you're trying to grow, you should eventually outgrow your mentor. So you find the mentors doing the thing that you want to be doing, and and then you latch onto them and learn. And then, once you've gotten to the point where they are and you start to outgrow them, you get your new set of mentors. Above that, now, you stay friends, of course, but you should be outgrowing your mentors if you have a growth mindset right, and I have some friends that I've had for a long time. Some were mentors before and aren't anymore, and some are still mentors because, like some things in business, some of the expansion things that we're doing, we weren't there yet and we're starting to get there and some of my mentors keep me steady and I really appreciate it as a sounding board.

Speaker 0: 17:25

But we need our networks right. It's just you need to be able to rely on people or advice when you're broken, and in good days as well, you know. I mean, how many people have won the lottery and lost it all right. So who were their mentors? And the honesty around it is they probably didn't have any or they didn't have the right ones, and I guess that's another something that you have to learn. I mean, I had how many accountants have I had? Oh my goodness right, so many accountants and oh well, like for R&D, I didn't realize I was losing a whole bunch of tax refund money because a bunch of accountants in that chain never told me until I got to one that was much, much better and they were all the same price. In fact, I think the last one, the one I have now, is cheaper, but their advice and their knowledge base is much better.

Speaker 0: 18:26

So we also have to reflect on that, which is why you kind of want multiple mentors. But you don't want to be a sheep, right? You need to think about what people are saying, reflect on what you're doing and how things are working and then decide if that mentor is right for you over time. Right, you don't start with preconception that they're not going to be good, so, but you, you still have to measure that. You don't want blind belief that that is the right mentor or the way they say to do things is the right thing. It's it's you, it's it's your life and, whether that's personal or professional, at the end of the day it's you. They don't have a stake in the game of how you turn out. Yeah, sure, maybe if they're a mentor, because they're an investor in your business, they have a stake, but that's in your business, not so much in you.

Speaker 0: 19:22

And, believe me, I've had a lot of high net individuals with investment money that have completely wrong, completely wrong advice, and it's because they're there to make money. So you got to look at what is motivating the people that are talking to you, right? So one of my mentors when I was having a bad day and he came and helped me with the company, he didn't take a paycheck. He worked for a year with me and didn't take a paycheck and just helped me and talked to me and helped me with the company and everything. That's different. And, yeah, now he works with me a lot. I actually asked him to be CEO of the company as it started to grow, because he is the kind of person that you want as a CEO do everything and there'll be plenty of people that surround you that will always be better at certain things than you, so why would you try to be better than them? So, like in business, you hire the right accountant because you don't need to be doing your own books. You need to focus on what builds your company, and it's you, it's around you, that's your company. So marketing's the same way, and there's a whole bunch of aspects that we can go through and we will go through in later episodes on that.

Speaker 0: 21:04

But let's go back because it's starting to get a bit long this podcast, and the main point I'm trying to say is you need to learn from each failure or setback. You need to understand that it's going to be painful emotionally, maybe physically, depending on what your setback is and by learning from it it can lead to greater resilience and adaptability, your growth mindset, your emotional strength and your persistence. And it's really up to you. You know how many people I've seen with amazing aptitude but no persistence, no growth mindset, no persistence, no growth mindset, very little emotional strength, and they're never going to be what they could be, but they will be the people that go. Ah, I can't believe this other person got this and not me, or I can't believe I'm not getting to this position. It's up to you. Nobody can do it for you. You need to be the one to have these traits or work on these traits, and it's up to you.

Speaker 0: 22:16

So I think that's going to be it for this episode. I think the next one. What we'll do is we'll talk to the transition from military to civilian life. It's in all the ins and outs and some of the stresses and just how different it is. So, whether you are military transitioning, whether you've transitioned before, or whether you're a person who works in a company where you see military people coming into, that are transitioning, and I'm just going to open some insights there and just have another conversation about that. So look forward to seeing you in the next one and thank you again for joining me today on Full Circle with Sean.