a speech about resilience

mind remake project

A therapy and mental health resource site

10 Powerful TED Talks on Resilience, Empathy, & Compassion

10 powerful TED Talks on resiliency, empathy, and self-compassion for clinical use for therapists and counseling students or for self-help.

Powerful TED Talks on resilience, empathy, compassion, and related topics for clinical/educational use or for self-help.

For more recommended TED Talks, see 10 Most Popular TEDx Talks (a playlist on the TED website), 3 Powerful TED Talks on Grief , and 18 Best TED Talks for Addiction & Recovery .

For additional psychoeducational videos, see 50 Helpful YouTube Videos for Psychoeducation .

Powerful TED Talks on Resilience, Empathy, & Compassion

1. compassion and the true meaning of empathy | joan halifax (2011).

In this inspiring TED Talk, Joan Halifax shares about what she’s learned about compassion and true empathy. She has a deep insight into the nature of compassion, gained through her work with people in the end stages of their lives.

2. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance | Angela Lee Duckworth (2013)

In this popular TED Talk, psychologist Angela Lee Duckworth explains how grit and determination, not IQ, are the biggest predictors of success.

3. How Do You Define Yourself? | Lizzie Velasquez (2014)

Lizzie Velasquez, once labeled the world’s ugliest woman, explores the ways in which we define ourselves. As one of the most powerful TED Talks on true beauty, this video empowers viewers to challenge society’s definitions of beauty, happiness, and success – and to decide for themselves how they’ll allow themselves to be defined.

4. How to Succeed in Every Moment Even When You’re Failing | Dr. Jill Stoddard (2020)

Dr. Jill Stoddard – clinical psychologist and author – challenges the notion that goal achievement is a measure of success. She explores alternative ways of thinking about failures in life.

5. Listening to Shame | Brené Brown (2012)

Brené Brown – researcher, professor, and author – explores what can happen when people confront their shame head-on. In this TED Talk she explains how shame is an epidemic and how it plays a major role in “broken” behaviors in our lives.

6. The Magic of Not Giving a F*** | Sarah Knight (2017)

Bestselling author Sarah Knight outlines her method for “not giving a fuck,” thereby putting a stop to spending time she doesn’t have, doing things she doesn’t want to do. One of the most powerful TED Talks on self-determination, Sarah Knight’s speech will leave you rethinking your own priorities (and fucks to give – or not to give) in life.

7. The Price of Shame | Monica Lewinsky (2015)

Monica Lewinsky delivers a compelling talk on public shaming and the “culture of humiliation” that exists today. From a woman who lost her personal reputation on a global scale back in 1998 – and who was able to survive by taking back her narrative – this video clip is one of the most powerful TED Talks out there on countering public humiliation with empathy and compassion.

8. The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong | Amy Morin (2015)

What bad mental habits are holding you up? In this TED Talk, Amy Morin – psychotherapist and author – explains how to become “mentally strong” by challenging our negative beliefs and giving up unhealthy habits. This strategy builds resiliency and allows us to become unstuck in life, thus reaching our full potential.

9. The Space Between Self-Esteem and Self-Compassion | Kristin Neff (2013)

Kristin Neff – university professor and published author – explores the relationship between self-esteem and self-compassion in this video clip. She asks viewers to be kind to themselves as she discusses what research tells us about self-compassion.

10. The Three Secrets of Resilient People | Lucy Hone (2019)

In this TED Talk, Dr. Lucy Hone – resilience expert, acclaimed researcher, and published author – discusses three strategies for rising up from adversity in the face of suffering. She shares about her personal experience with painful loss – and how she was able to get through an unimaginable tragedy. As one of the most inspiring and powerful TED Talks on resiliency, this video clip provides viewers with not only insight, but hope.

3 thoughts on “10 Powerful TED Talks on Resilience, Empathy, & Compassion”

Pingback: 10 Powerful TED Talks on Emotions - Mind ReMake Project
Pingback: 20 Powerful TED Talks on Relationships & Communication - mind remake project
Pingback: 350 Creative Ideas for Hobbies - mind remake project

Essay on Resilience: Why it important & how to develop it? (1400+ words)

The word resilience is defined as the ability to recover quickly from difficult conditions, illness, or setbacks. The meaning of this word has become more important in today’s society. We are constantly reminded of how hard it is to get through an average day, let alone a rough patch in life.

Essay on Resilience

What does it mean to be resilient? The word “resilient” means “to bounce back”. This is what we’re aiming for: bouncing back from a challenge or adversity and achieving something healthy and positive as a result.

From surviving abuse to graduating college despite adversity, each struggle you’ve overcome has made you stronger and more capable of handling problems.

No matter how tough life gets, some people find a way to keep going. And that’s what resilience is all about. Resilience is the ability to come back from hard times or failure.

It’s the ability to bounce back after being knocked down. It doesn’t mean you won’t have bad days or tough moments, but it does mean you have the power to pick yourself up and carry on.

What is resilience?

Resilience is not a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice and determination. It is your mental, emotional and physical ability to handle adversity and triumph in the midst of hard times.

This trait, which has become somewhat of a buzzword, allows you to push through struggles and difficulties in life and go on to live a happy, fulfilled life.

Types of Resilience

There are many types of resilience. There is psychological resilience, which is the ability to overcome adversity and persevere in spite of circumstances. There is also social resilience, which is the capacity for communities to maintain their connections after an event or disaster.

Resilience can be seen in natural systems, such as trees that are able to survive under harsh weather conditions. It’s important for individuals and communities to have resilience because it can help people move on from difficult events in their lives.

But not all people are resilient enough.

Why it matters

Resilience is more important than ever because of a combination of factors. The first is that humans are evolving, which means that, as a species, we are becoming more and more resilient.

The third is that our brains aren’t equipped to handle the changing times; for instance, our ability to learn has declined.

The fourth factor that is changing and weakening our mental reserves is the rate at which we are growing.

Stress and anxiety

Resilience is vital in being able to bounce back when we face life’s rough patches. If our mental and physical stressors are not dealt with, we will have difficulty maintaining a positive outlook on life.

“The emotional reaction to stress is our body’s way of protecting us.” In addition, stress and anxiety can be extremely harmful to our health and even life.

If we don’t have a good level of resiliency in our lives, our health can be affected and even in some cases, we can even die.

To help us develop resilience, we can take steps to reduce our stress and anxiety. These steps include getting more sleep, eating healthy and exercise, socializing, keeping a journal, and doing positive affirmations.

Coping with depression

Depression is an often misunderstood mental health condition. It is a harmful mental condition that we don’t talk about often.

But there are things we can do to develop resilience, so that we are equipped to cope with depression. There are many signs that depression is beginning to interfere with your life and people suffering from it often think that it is simply situational.

However, depression can impact your mental and physical health. With depression you may feel depressed, lethargic, have anxiety, and/or a lack of appetite or focus. You may feel like you’re going through the motions of daily life. You may have thoughts of self-harm or suicide.

How to develop resilience

Scientists have identified that sleeping in a timely fashion can improve memory function. Basically, getting at least 7 to 8 hours of sleep is important to prevent temporary memory lapses that impair everyday tasks, such as driving or reading directions.

Don’t procrastinate and give yourself breaks.

Change your mindset

Resilience, like love, is a choice. When we begin to focus on the present rather than dwell on the past, or worry about the future, we begin to see things in a more positive light.

When we get caught up in worrying about what’s going to happen next, we forget to appreciate what we have.

We dwell on what might go wrong instead of taking the time to be grateful for all that’s going right in our lives.

Be active and positive

For some, it’s feeling strong and powerful, like we are in control of our lives. For others, it’s working hard to manage the things we have been dealt.

But, the truth is, as in all things, there is no one-size-fits-all definition for this word. Many people fall into one of two categories – those who say resilience is something you get from within and those who believe it’s something you can only acquire.

Get enough rest

The ability to cope with difficult times comes from having enough sleep. Insufficient sleep is a prime example of the challenge of being resilient.

If we make it through the challenging times that life throws at us, we’ll find that we did have a great amount of resiliency.

Building Resilience Through Reflection & Gratitude: A Motivational Speech

I had the honor of being the Keynote Speaker for the Atlanta Black Nurses Association’s 10th Annual Prayer Breakfast. Below is a transcript of my speech about building resilience through reflection & gratitude from that day, I hope that you enjoy it.

- I won't dance. I promise. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.

- [Audience] Good morning.

- I am so excited to be here and out of the house because during the pandemic , I've done a lot of speaking, but it's mostly been on video chat, on Zoom. And so it's nice to see real people face-to-face. This is a big day for me. Thank you for having me. And I thank you, Zora Reeve, for that introduction.

What If Our Introductions Told The Whole Story?

I love hearing my introductions. It really makes me smile because it just lists all of the positives. Right? It just sounds like win after win after win. But sometimes, I have to kind of laugh at myself because I think what would it be like if in my introductions, instead of it just having everything that I've won, everything that seems so impressive, if it gave the whole true story, if it gave a background?

So instead of just saying that I've been president of my own medical practice, that I've been president of my junior class, I was president of the teens in Jack and Jill. I was president of the Kappa Epsilon chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority undergrad. Instead of just talking about the wins, wouldn't it be something if I had someone else to be able to do a co-introduction and to say, yes, Dr. Frita was president of those things, but she also ran for president of sixth grade and she lost.

She ran for president of her middle school, then she lost. She ran for president of student government in high school, and she lost. Wouldn't that be something if there was somebody up here because all of those things are true, but when we present ourselves, we just tell the positives, right, just the wins. And even with some of the certifications, I'm very thankful, very proud of them. And I liked how you said it. "She's a triple board-certified MD." I like to hear that. That sounds good. That makes me feel like a real winner. But what if you knew the real story?

If that other person told the behind the scenes, that on my journey, when I was in undergrad majoring in biology, when I was supposed to be getting my MD, during the spring semester of my sophomore year, I decided that having fun was a little more important than studying. What if I told y'all that?

What if you got that in my introduction? What if you found out that after spring, my sophomore year, I did not miss a party. I did not miss a dance. I was a step master, but I had not mastered one step in biochemistry, so I dropped it. And then, taking organic chemistry got in the way of my social life, so I dropped that too. And then they wanted me to take calculus. Who had time for calculus? I had to be at parties. So I dropped that as well. But you didn't mention that in my introduction, did you?

- [Woman] I did not. I did not.

- Okay, good. Okay, don't tell anybody. But I think sometimes as we present, we put our best feet forward. What would it be like if you knew all of that? And if you knew that on this course to becoming a triple board-certified MD, right after my senior year, I had not prepared. I had not taken any entrance exam. And so I took a year off.

And back then, they didn't call it the gap year like the kids do now. In fact, my father, who's very strict when it comes to school, and he's a surgeon, had another name for the gap year. And when he called me- Oh, that call. He said, "So you don't know what you're gon' do after you graduate? I sent you up there to major in biology, and all you did was major in Delta." He wasn't wrong, but I tell you what, you can go on my website at any time, and you're not gonna hear that story.

You're just gonna see that she's a triple board-certified MD. Oh, you talked about my grades. Thank you. Because I didn't, again, I'm very thankful I got straight A's in medical school and I got all of those accolades. But what if there was someone else up here helping with the introduction to say she didn't always get straight As?

My Seventh Grade Latin Test

What if there was someone up here telling you that in seventh grade, there was a Latin test. And I don't know why Mr. McLaughlin gave us a Latin test of this day. He knew I had stuff to do. I was hanging out with Jeanette and Susan. I was doing my thing. But he gave us a Latin test and I was not prepared. And I got an F on it. I got a 33%.

So I had, of course, to take it home, to have it signed and returned. I took it to my mother because she tended to be more lenient, you know, more easygoing. She saw that grade, and she said, "Un, un, you gotta show this to your daddy." I was like, I do not want to deal with him again. So I took my grade. I took my F to show my dad. You know how kids try to be so slick. They try to kind of slip it to a parent when the parent is busy watching a game or doing something like that.

So I slipped that grade to him, that 33%, and he stopped. He probably made it sound like that. He looked at it, pulled it forward, back. He said, "It says you got a 33." Yes, yes, Daddy, I got a 33 on my test. "Now is that a 33 out of 100?" Yes, yes, Daddy. I got a 33%. He said, "33". He looked at me and he said, "I can't even think that low." Was that in my introduction?

- [Woman] No, it was not.

- No, okay. You just know I got straight As in medical school. But my point is, even though my father said that he couldn't think that low, I actually, sometimes when I reflect upon my life, I enjoy thinking about the lows.

In Order To Be A Good Winner, You Must First Learn How To Be A Good Loser

I enjoy remembering the times that I've had to face embarrassment, humiliation, shame, times where I was not the shining star. Because if it weren't for those lows, and the understanding that surviving the lows is what gave me the strength to have the highs, I wouldn't be the same person. As I stand here today, I'm not really ashamed of the losses.

Right, I am ashamed of the 33, but other than that, I'm not really ashamed of the losses because I understand that in order to be a good winner, you must first learn how to be a good loser. You lose, you stop and you reflect upon the loss. You have gratitude for those lessons, and then you jump back. You become resilient. You build resilience through reflection and gratitude.

The definition of resilience is when something is able to regain its original form after being pulled and stretched and bent. I have a question. During this pandemic, how many of you have felt pulled and stretched and bent? Yeah, I didn't think I was alone. And when you think back to when the pandemic first started , didn't it seem kind of like just a fantasy or something over there?

It was that mystery pneumonia way over there, in another country. And then it got a little closer to home. It became something that happens to people on a cruise ship. But the cruise ship was way over there. But very soon, it became very real that it would hit home. And back in March 2020, when we were told that we had to shelter in place, I was like, well, is inconvenient.

And I was like, but you know what? I can last. I'll close down my practice, hang out with the kids in virtual school. I'll give it a few days. But then those days became weeks. Those weeks became months. Apparently, the months have become years, and we're still here. We're still here. But some of us did have the luxury of being able to shelter in place. And it became a luxury to a degree.

If you were a teacher, you were able to shelter in place. If you were a student, you were able to do school at home, you could shelter in place. Lawyers could work from home. They could shelter in place. Engineers could shelter in place. Even doctors. As a physician, I was able to close down my practice, do telemedicine, and shelter in place. And the reason I was able to maintain my practice was because, in order to see my dialysis patients , all I had to do was do video chats initially. And then I called in orders. But to whom did I call in those orders?

- [Audience Member] Nurse.

- [Audience] Nurse.

Gratitude For The Nurses

- I called in those orders to the one group of frontline healthcare providers that do not have that luxury of sheltering in place, my nurses. And so from now, until the end of my days, when I reflect upon this pandemic, I will always have gratitude for the nurses, the true backbone to the medical community. Absolutely.

And for my patients, and anyone, are there any dialysis nurses here? For anyone who's ever worked with dialysis patients, you know that that they're a special breed. They really are. I love my patients, but they also did not have the luxury of sheltering in place, did they? We were all told to socially distance, stay six feet apart.

But dialysis nurses, most of them had to go into public transportation, and be shoulder-to-shoulder. We were all told to wear our masks to make sure that we didn't breathe other people's air. But dialysis patients, when it's time for them to get their treatments, they usually have too much fluid, right? They have volume overload. They don't make much urine, and their lungs are filled. And so when you tell a dialysis patient to keep the mask on, it doesn't really happen, right? Those masks are usually pulled down to their knees. And that's just the reality. Plus, they're high risk. A lot of them live in nursing homes, communal living. But once they get to the dialysis units, who's there to take care of them?

- [Audience] Nurses.

- My nurses. If they sneeze without their masks, the nurse still has to be there. If they code, if they go unconscious, they have cardiopulmonary arrest , the nurses still selflessly have been there, even through the pandemic. And when we did not have enough PPE, enough masks, enough protective gear, who ended up getting sick first from COVID-19 ? The nurses. As I reflect on this pandemic, I will always have gratitude for my nurses. And then even after working, not just in dialysis, but in emergency rooms, on the medical floors, and the surgical centers, and the ICU is the nurses, the nurses, the nurses who have had to be there. And then when they go home, you know, when you go home, it's not over.

You take off your nursing scrubs, and you slip on that Superwoman cape because then you become the mother. You start having to teach new math. Who came up with the new math? See, I can't stand the math, but that's a talk for a different day.

If you have spouses, you have to be that listening ear to how bad spouse's day was, knowing good and well that your day was probably worse. If you have parents, you may be the caretakers. You go through all of these things. Talk about being pulled, stretched, and bent. But then when you show up to work that next day, no one's asking you how you feel as a nurse. They expect you to bounce back, to have that original form despite being pulled. That is resilience, that's resilience.

The Importance of Self-Care

But one thing I would like for all of my nurses to remember, that when you are in the process of being that caregiver, when you're always having to put other people first, you always have to think about other people's needs. I want you to pause, and make sure that you remember your self-care. Because no matter how strong you are, no matter how resilient you are, any person can only be pulled, bent, and stretched to a certain degree before you break. And so please, please take some time for self-care.

The American Heart Association says that self-care contributes to 40% of your health . And honestly, I have so many nurses who have worked double shifts, triple shifts, they have given up their time off, and have been selfless. But you have to remember that self-care is not selfless. And one part of self-care is learning how to tell people no .

If you're on every committee, if you're leading everything all of the time, if you're making sure things are perfect and you're trying to run them all the time, you have to make sure that you don't overextend yourself filling other people's cups. Am I talking to anybody in this room? Okay. And I just wanted to put that in while I'm there because while I love and admire the beauty and the resilience of my nurses, I also want you, as you reflect on your lives, to have gratitude for yourself sometimes, okay? I definitely want you to do that as you build your resilience.

A pastor of mine once said, "For people who have trials and tribulations," he said, "When the Lord puts things on you, then you should actually look at it as a compliment." That's what he said. He said, "Because if He didn't trust that you had the faith in Him and the strength to persevere, then He wouldn't put it on you." That same pastor was also probably reading my mind because he then said, "I know some of you are sitting here thinking, 'I wish I could get complimented a little less sometimes.'" Just a little bit less. But the truth of the matter is it really is a compliment, it really is a compliment when you have these trials, these tribulations, these lows, especially when you're able to reflect on them and to learn from them, even in the pandemic.

Gratitude For Your Growth: Reflecting On The Trials and Tribulations

And so, as we reflect on life, the things that are going on, even as we sit here, we know that there've been over 700,000 deaths. Even as we're sitting here, we know that over 6.4 million children have been infected. And even as we live in multiple pandemics at the same time, not just the pandemic of coronavirus, but also the pandemic of systemic racism, of inequality, of voter suppression, of social injustice. As we live through these times, I want us to pay attention to the silver linings because as we reflect, even when going through trials and tribulations, there's always something to learn, always something to build.

You know, be it a small trial or big one, but even coming here in Atlanta, it's Saturday, but this is Atlanta. You know, folks like to drive like it's a NASCAR race, right? But if you drove and somebody cut you off, or fish tailed you, and instead of using choice words, like maybe you did some time ago, or choice sign language, if you just let it go, you breathed in and breathed out, then you need to reflect and be proud that you're no longer that person you used to be.

You reflect, you have gratitude for your growth. And then you move forward. You build your resilience. And then for more serious situations, if you're a person who's gone through health problems, if you've been diagnosed with cancer, if you have a family member or a loved one with cancer, or if you have a chronic illness such as kidney failure , or if you're someone who used to have 2020 vision, and now all of a sudden, you find that you can't see well, and it's impairing your life, you could wallow in self-pity, or you could reflect on what positive things have come from it.

For example, if you have cancer, now, all of a sudden, loved ones have come to support you in ways that you never thought that they could. Or if you're faced now with the disability, if it's forced you to pay attention to some of your abilities that you never really stopped to nurture, you should reflect and have gratitude.

We Don't Stand Alone In Resilience

In everything, give thanks, for it is the will of God and Christ concerning you. We also have to remember that we don't stand alone in resilience. We have strength. When you've got to just put on that strength. You have to put on the armor of God. And so that we're able to stand firm against the devil's strategies.

You have to remember that as we build our resilience. And so, my wonderful Atlanta Black Nurses Association, again, I certainly thank you for having me. I certainly appreciate you. And even in times when you're not at your highest, even in times when you're low, even in times when you can't think that low, I want you to always remember to hold your head up and build your resilience through your reflections and gratitude. Thank you.

Recent Posts

10 Best Exercises To Lower Blood Pressure The Natural Way! - September 10, 2024
9 Common Medications and Drugs That Cause Kidney Damage - August 21, 2024
15 Foods to Avoid with Diabetes You Might Already Be Eating! - July 28, 2024

Resilience: The Power to Overcome, Adjust, and Persevere

Building resilience begins with increasing your self-awareness..

Posted June 27, 2021 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

What Is Resilience?
Take our Resilience Test
Find a therapist near me
Individuals with high levels of self-awareness and self-connection tend to be the most resilient people on the planet.
We are designed to experience an array of feelings. If we choose to suppress difficult ones, it becomes harder to feel the positive ones.
People are not born with high levels of resilience. It is something they earn through practice and consistency.

I begin most of my training sessions by inviting the participants to define or share their thoughts about the topic of focus. Not only does this encourage participation, but it also helps to identify the audience’s baseline of knowledge. Resiliency, a popular topic of discussion over the last year or so, tends to generate a variety of answers similar to the ones below.

Always performing your best
Standing strong when life throws challenges your way
Having the ability to move forward
Not breaking down or appearing weak
The strength to cope with various obstacles simultaneously

Most people seem to associate resilience with consistently pushing forward, coping without emotionally breaking down, and succeeding time and time again. All qualities, though, that by definition seem to be more associated with stamina rather than resilience. Stamina is generally associated with sustaining physical exertion within a known block of time. For example, having the energy to finish a marathon or play all four quarters of the game with the same intensity and strength. Sports and physical competitions are scheduled and the duration or goal is common knowledge to those participating. There is training involved and time allotted for rest and recovery.

Events or experiences that require resilience tend to occur without warning, lack a structured format, and can be highly unpredictable. Typically there are no known timeframes or clues to inform you about what may happen next. Of course, the most recent example being the pandemic and how it continues to impact us socially, academically, politically, and economically. It has been a long, intense journey, but also one that has provided unique opportunities to pause, reflect, and rearrange priorities.

How do some people:

Remain hopeful and creatively adapt?
Push forward and live through life's hardships?
Consistently access their resilience and avoid stagnation?

Genetic factors can play a small role in one’s level of resilience, but overall it is something that is learned and acquired through action and perception. Life is not a sprint, but rather a marathon through valleys, mountains, sunshine, and rain. Building resilience consists of several steps. Ones that require time to reflect, acknowledge, adjust, and restore. Individuals with high levels of self-awareness and self-connection tend to be the most resilient people on the planet.

We can persevere through difficult times and uncomfortable obstacles. The necessary tools are already something we possess. They may just need to be activated or nurtured.

Every time you challenge yourself and live with an open mind and open heart, you are increasing your repetitions and in turn, building your confidence and. As humans, we are designed to experience an array of feelings. If we choose to constantly suppress or avoid the difficult ones, it becomes harder to access the extraordinary ones too.

Ways to Build Resilience

1. Accept that change is part of life

This is a challenging step for many simply because we love control, but let’s face it, we don’t have much of it. Change is inevitable and how we receive it is key. Rather than viewing change as derailing or sabotaging, try welcoming it as a challenge, an obstacle, or an opportunity. This mindset will channel strength and optimism rather than trigger feelings associated with the ‘victim’ mentality.

2. Acknowledge what you have already accomplished and navigated

Just pause for a moment and think about all of the events, experiences, and conversations you have been involved in. They are over, in the past. You survived them, pushed through. Sometimes with grace and vigor and sometimes with pure luck. It is so important to encourage ourselves, our children, and our co-workers to take positive risks and welcome the unpredictable and uncomfortable. This is what builds resilience and creates the memories to access later. The wins, the tears, the laughs, and the struggles—they all count. They are all part of your story. You are the creator and therefore have the power to ignite and utilize the strength and knowledge acquired from your past.

3. Maintain presence and perspective

Limit your distractions or at least take the time to identify what it is you need to repeatedly distract yourself from. The world is not out to get you or create havoc. Unfortunately, we tend to do a pretty good job of this to ourselves. Practice showing up as a participant and acknowledge that whatever you are presented with also comes with the opportunity to choose how you respond or react. We are all intertwined and connected. Our actions and words do matter and can positively or negatively impact others, sometimes more than we know.

4. Challenge your mind and body: keep learning and sweating

Never stop learning and connecting to your environment. Our bodies and our minds want us to thrive and be as healthy as we possibly can. They are on our team, not working against us. Our bodies and minds need to be nourished, challenged, and replenished. View anxiety , pain, restlessness, or exhaustion as opportunities to set a boundary or invite something new into your world. They are signals to make adjustments or adapt a viewpoint or behavior.

5. Build a positive support network

This year has forced us to take a step back socially and perhaps re-evaluate the types of relationships or exchanges we tend to invite or engage in. What role do you typically play in relationships? Do you find yourself constantly seeking validation from others? Do you tend to feel depleted or re-energized? Aim to surround yourself with people who are active listeners and value relationships that are balanced and non-competitive.

6. Complete small tasks from start to finish

Whether you create daily checklists or schedule reminders to keep yourself focused, remember the power of the process. We build momentum and confidence every time we start something and see it through to completion. This could be as simple as making your bed or washing your face. These simple tasks demonstrate respect for yourself and your environment. The focus and the control required to finish something creates purpose and builds resilience. Perhaps try something completely new like learning another language, listening to a new genre of music, or cooking a dish from a different country every week.

7. Use a keyword, phrase, or song to refocus and reset

We all have experienced what it feels like to be overwhelmed and discouraged. It’s not easy, but try to view these feelings as opportunities to learn and reorganize. Scan your memory and think back to a time when you felt strong, empowered, peaceful, or safe. What was happening? Who was around? What was stimulating your senses? Identify what word or song resonates with these memories. This is now your "reset," your resilience on demand. Use it as a tool to re-ignite and reconnect with the energy it once took to rise up and persevere.

8. Find the positives, practice gratitude

You are not alone if you are currently feeling stressed , depressed , exhausted, or negative. At times, finding the positives can be a challenge. It may require you to "fake it till ya make it." Challenge yourself to smile at least 10 times a day. Of course, these smiles might not be completely genuine, but you are sparking positivity. Smiling actually activates tiny molecules to help fight off stress and even trick your brain into thinking you're happy. Give it a try. What do you have to lose?

9. Focus on what you can control and own

Begin to identify your response patterns and the level to which you internalize. Do you tend to take ownership of other people’s feelings/actions, adjust to avoid conflict, or constantly compromise your needs for the needs of others? In order to change such tendencies, you must first learn to establish healthy boundaries . This step serves as a reminder to acknowledge your feelings and needs that tend to be overshadowed by the intense desire to please and accommodate others.

10. Maintain a healthy lifestyle: rest and restore

Prioritize the basics; set yourself up for a good night’s sleep, drink plenty of water throughout the day, be mindful of what you eat, and move your body. A healthy body and mind create a strong foundation and the resiliency it takes to move forward in life. Currently, people are working longer hours at home than they did in the office. To avoid burnout , you must schedule ample time to relax, disconnect from work, and be present with friends or family. Resilience can only be sustained when you set healthy boundaries and make the time to rejuvenate. Don’t just go through the motions. Truly live life by being deliberate and present.

Embrace the idea that you will not have always have all of the answers, know how to react, or work gracefully through an obstacle. These though are the times when extraordinary growth takes place and we have the opportunity to watch ourselves bounce back and recover.

Resilience is something you earn through practice and consistency. It requires a healthy mindset, time for reflection, and the ability to be present with your feelings.

Remain hungry and truly welcome the adversities and challenges that are sure to come your way.

Leah Marone, LCSW , is a psychotherapist who works with teens and adults. She is also a corporate wellness consultant and speaks on performance anxiety, resilience, and mindfulness.

Find a Therapist
Find a Treatment Center
Find a Psychiatrist
Find a Support Group
Find Online Therapy
United States
Brooklyn, NY
Chicago, IL
Houston, TX
Los Angeles, CA
New York, NY
Portland, OR
San Diego, CA
San Francisco, CA
Seattle, WA
Washington, DC
Asperger's
Bipolar Disorder
Chronic Pain
Eating Disorders
Passive Aggression
Personality
Goal Setting
Positive Psychology
Stopping Smoking
Low Sexual Desire
Relationships
Child Development
Self Tests NEW
Therapy Center
Diagnosis Dictionary
Types of Therapy

It’s increasingly common for someone to be diagnosed with a condition such as ADHD or autism as an adult. A diagnosis often brings relief, but it can also come with as many questions as answers.

Emotional Intelligence
Gaslighting
Affective Forecasting
Neuroscience

The Inventory

“You are not born with a fixed amount of resilience”: Sheryl Sandberg’s powerful commencement speech

“It is the greatest irony of my life that losing my husband helped me find deeper gratitude,” Sandberg said.

“You are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. Like a muscle, you can build it up, draw on it when you need it. In that process you will figure out who you really are—and you just might become the very best version of yourself.”

This was the advice Lean In author Sheryl Sandberg offered to graduating students at the University of California, Berkeley in a stirring commencement speech on Saturday (May 14).

Drawing on the theme of resilience in the face of struggle and loss, Facebook’s chief operating officer spoke movingly about the sudden death of her husband Dave Goldberg on vacation in Mexico last year. It was the first time Sandberg had spoken publicly about the loss.

Dave’s death changed me in very profound ways. I learned about the depths of sadness and the brutality of loss. But I also learned that when life sucks you under, you can kick against the bottom, break the surface, and breathe again. I learned that in the face of the void—or in the face of any challenge—you can choose joy and meaning.

“The seeds of resilience are planted in the way we process the negative events in our lives,” Sandberg said, alluding to the work of psychologist Martin Seligman, who identified three “Ps” that people tend to use to explain the things that happen to them: personalization, pervasiveness, and permanence.

Personalization is “the belief that we are at fault,” Sandberg explained. “This is different from taking responsibility, which you should always do. This is the lesson that not everything that happens to us happens because of us.” She noted how her first reaction to Goldberg’s death was to blame herself. “It wasn’t until I learned about the three P’s that I accepted that I could not have prevented his death. His doctors had not identified his coronary artery disease. I was an economics major; how could I have?”

Pervasiveness, the second P, centers on the belief that an event will affect all areas of one’s life. Sandberg alluded to the first meeting she attended after returning to work at Facebook. “All I could think was, ‘What is everyone talking about and how could this possibly matter?’ But then I got drawn into the discussion and for a second—a brief split second—I forgot about death. That brief second helped me see that there were other things in my life that were not awful. My children and I were healthy. My friends and family were so loving and they carried us—quite literally at times.”

Permanence, the last P, refers to a person’s sense that a given circumstance or feeling is everlasting. “For months, no matter what I did, it felt like the crushing grief would always be there,” Sandberg said. ”Instead, we should accept our feelings—but recognize that they will not last forever.”

“It is the greatest irony of my life that losing my husband helped me find deeper gratitude,” she said, concluding that finding gratitude and appreciation were crucial to building resilience. She told the class of 2016 that her New Year’s resolution was to write down “three moments of joy” each night before bed. “This simple practice has changed my life,” she said, “because no matter what happens each day, I go to sleep thinking of something cheerful.”

Last month, eleven days before the anniversary of Dave’s death, I broke down crying to a friend of mine. We were sitting—of all places—on a bathroom floor. I said: “Eleven days. One year ago, he had eleven days left. And we had no idea.” We looked at each other through tears, and asked how we would live if we knew we had eleven days left. As you graduate, can you ask yourselves to live as if you had eleven days left? I don’t mean blow everything off and party all the time—although tonight is an exception. I mean live with the understanding of how precious every single day would be. How precious every day actually is.

Sandberg’s closing mantra was one that bears repeating for us all: build resilience. “When tragedy or disappointment strike , know that you have the ability to get through absolutely anything.”

Watch the speech in full below:

📬 Sign up for the Daily Brief

Our free, fast, and fun briefing on the global economy, delivered every weekday morning.

SUGGESTED TOPICS
The Magazine
Newsletters
Managing Yourself
Managing Teams
Work-life Balance
The Big Idea
Data & Visuals
Reading Lists
Case Selections
HBR Learning
Topic Feeds
Account Settings
Email Preferences

The Secret to Building Resilience

Karen Dillon,
Danna Greenberg

It’s a team sport.

The ability to bounce back from setbacks is often described as the difference between successful and unsuccessful people. Resilience has been shown to positively influence work satisfaction and engagement, as well as overall well-being, and can lower depression levels. But resilience isn’t just a kind of solitary internal “grit” that allows us to bounce back. New research shows that resilience is also heavily enabled by strong relationships and networks. We can nurture and build our resilience through a wide variety of interactions with people in our personal and professional lives. These interactions can help us to alter the magnitude of the challenge we’re facing. They can help crystalize the meaningful purpose in what we are doing or help us see a path forward to overcome a setback — these are the kinds of interactions that motivate us to persist. Are your relationships broad and deep enough to help support you when you hit setbacks? Here’s an exercise to help you think that through.

An anesthesiologist we’ll call Jacob used to describe his job as “90% boredom, 10% horror.” With a few exceptions of challenging surgeries and managing a department of several hundred physicians and nurses, most of the time, Jacob’s role was routine. But that was before the Covid-19 pandemic. Since anesthesiology is not a specialty that can resort to remote “telemedicine,” Jacob and his team entered an overwhelmed hospital day after day. “For two months, I wasn’t sleeping at night,” he shared with us. “I was sending my team into battle with inadequate protection, not even really knowing how many of them might get sick.” The burden of being responsible for both a team he cared deeply about and the lives of a huge volume of patients affected by the pandemic was crushing. Routinely putting in 16-hour days, Jacob was having to determine how and when his team would work in these trying circumstances. “There were nights and weekends when some [colleagues] called me and were crying on the phone. Let’s face it, they were scared for their lives.” And Jacob was, too.

But Jacob didn’t break. He and his team have held together as they continued to do their work throughout the pandemic. So what allowed Jacob to endure this period of extraordinary stress? Resilience.

But that’s not necessarily true. Our research (which is not yet published) shows that resilience is not purely an individual characteristic, but is also heavily enabled by strong relationships and networks. We can nurture and build our resilience through a wide variety of interactions with people in our personal and professional lives. These interactions can help us to shift or push back on work demands and alter the magnitude of the challenge we’re facing. They can help crystalize the meaningful purpose in what we are doing or help us see a path forward to overcome a setback — these are the kinds of interactions that motivate us to persist. People in our support systems can provide empathy or simply help us laugh and bolster our resilience by shifting perspective and reminding us we are not alone in the fight. In short, resilience is not something we need to find deep down inside ourselves: we can actually become more resilient in the process of connecting with others in our most challenging times.

Based on in-depth interviews with 150 leaders (five men and five women from 15 different organizations who were considered to be among their “most successful” leaders), we have defined how connections can help us become more resilient when we encounter major life or professional challenges. A well-developed network of relationships can help us rebound from setbacks by:

Helping us shift work or manage surges
Helping us to make sense of people or politics in a given situation
Helping us find the confidence to push back and self advocate
Helping us see a path forward
Providing empathic support so we can release negative emotions
Helping us to laugh at ourselves and the situation
Reminding us of the purpose or meaning in our work
Broadening us as individuals so that we maintain perspective when setbacks happen

As Jacob (who was among those we interviewed) learned in what was unquestionably the toughest period of his entire career, resilience is a team sport.

While, clearly, a portion of Jacob’s fortitude came from personal strength, our discussion with him revealed a number of ways that relationships bolstered his resilience. A patchwork of different people in his network collectively played a critical role in helping Jacob navigate and survive this extraordinary period — each offering a different perspective or helping hand in some way. First, his boss was a continual source of input and validation, boosting Jacob’s confidence as he faced unprecedented medical and leadership challenges. “She always made herself available and these interactions helped me quit worrying endlessly about different decisions.” In addition, he tapped into the strong working relationship he had with another department head to jointly manage surges in workload. The resources he was able to “borrow” from this colleague enabled him to push back on non-essential work, as well as bypass typical bureaucratic gridlock to secure resources. “At a couple of really important junctures, this helped us from getting over-run.” And a very strong chief of staff stepped in and took ownership of several work-streams put in place to help deal with Covid. For Jacob, knowing that this reliable person had those domains in hand “took stress from a 10 to an 8 many times.” Even his daily exchanges with his office manager played a critical role — she was able to find ways to laugh with him even under this stress. “It wasn’t gallows humor, but sarcastic comments about difficult people or situations that lightened things for us and made us feel on the same team,” he recalled.

Jacob was also lucky in that his home was a critical refuge for him through this time. His wife, who also had a medical background, provided an outlet to vent that yielded both empathy and possible solutions. His children even played a role that he did not realize until past the early crisis: “They were proud of me. They would tell me this, and it was better than anything else to help me buckle down and keep pushing through.”

In short, Jacob shows us that resilience is found not just in having a network of supporters, but in truly connecting with them when you need them most. It’s in the actual interactions themselves — the conversations that validate your plans, reframe your perspective on a situation, help you laugh and feel authentic with others, or just encourage you to get back up and try again because the battle is a worthy one — that we become resilient. Yes, we’re all told to build a network to help further our careers, but what’s important to understand is how essential these relationships can also be to our day-to-day emotional well-being — if we are building these relationships in the right way as we progress through our careers. Relationships may be our most undervalued resources.

But such a network won’t materialize overnight. When we talk to people who have shown exceptional resilience, it’s clear that they often have cultivated and maintained authentic connections that come from many parts of their life — not only through work, but through athletic pursuits, volunteer work, civic or religious communities, book or dinner clubs, communities of parents they’ve met through their children, and so on. Interactions in these spheres provide critical “dimensionality”, broadening their identity and “opening the aperture” on how they look at their lives. We become more (or less) resilient through our interactions with others.

Are your relationships broad and deep enough to help support you when you hit setbacks? Here’s an exercise to help you think that through.

Step 1: Identify your top resilience needs .

Below are eight common relational sources of resilience, the same ones we noted above. Our research shows that these sources are not universally or equally important to everyone. For example, some people value laughter, while others prefer empathy. In short, our resilience needs are personal and are shaped by our unique history, personality, and professional/personal context. But collectively, the relationships we develop are a toolbox that we can turn to in our most difficult times, which we can rely upon to help us navigate day-to-day life challenges.

Using the framework below, identify the top three sources of resilience that you would most like to strengthen in your life . Make a note of those that are most important for you to work on developing.

Step 2: Plan how to expand your network .

Reflecting on the top three resilience needs you indicated, place the names of people or groups that you could invest in to further cultivate sources of resilience. Connections that yield resilience can be intentionally cultivated in two ways. First, we can broaden existing relationships by, for example, exploring non-work interests with a teammate or strengthening mutually beneficial relationships with influential work colleagues that help us push back. Second, we can initiate engagement with new groups or people to cultivate important elements of resilience — for example spiritual groups that remind us of our purpose, or affinity groups that allow us to laugh. Broadening our network helps us develop dimensionality in our lives — a rich variety of relationships and connections that help us grow, that can provide perspective on our struggles, and that can offer us a stronger sense of purpose.

These groups may come from any and all walks of life — athletic pursuits, spiritual associations, nonprofit board work, community organizing groups around social, environmental, or political issues, etc. Engaging in nonwork groups (particularly board work, social action, and community organizing groups) helps us develop resilience in our work life as well. Exposure to a diverse group of people allows us to learn different ways of managing, leading, and handling crises, and helps us develop different relational skills such as negotiating with various stakeholders. It also helps us cultivate empathy and perspective that we carry back into our work, among other benefits. In summary, meaningful investment in non-work relationships broadens the toolkit one can rely upon to manage setbacks when they arise.

One critical insight from our interviews is that relying on your network in times of transition matters a great deal. When people told us stories of significant transitions — moves, job losses, role expansions, or family changes — they tended to separate into one of two groups. One group tended to lean into the transition and relied on existing relationships to work through the ambiguity and anxiety they were experiencing. This group also used the transition to reach out to one or two new groups such as a working parents group, a newcomers group, or a work-based coaching circle. In contrast, the second group operated with a mindset that they just needed to absorb the transition and closed in on their circle. They felt overwhelmed and said they would lean into activities when they had time in the future. Over the ensuing 18 months, this group became a smaller version of themselves and often drifted away from the connections that had been so important to their lives.

Covid has created a significant transition for us all. The importance of building and maintaining your connections has never been clearer. For most of us, the challenges and setbacks we are experiencing in work and life during this pandemic have been relentless. But you’re not alone in this battle. You can build resilience. Start by understanding the critical importance of growing, maintaining, and tapping a diverse network to help you ride out the storm.

Support and funding for the research behind this article was received from the Innovation Resource Center for Human Resources.

Rob Cross is the Edward A. Madden Professor of Global Leadership at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and a senior vice president of research at the Institute for Corporate Productivity. He is the coauthor of The Microstress Effect: How Little Things Add Up—and What to Do About It (Harvard Business Review Press, 2023) and author of Beyond Collaboration Overload (Harvard Business Review Press, 2021).
Karen Dillon is a former editor of Harvard Business Review and coauthor of The Microstress Effect: How Little Things Pile Up and Create Big Problems — and What to Do About It (Harvard Business Review Press, 2023). She is also coauthor of three books with Clayton Christensen, including the New York Times best-seller How Will You Measure Your Life?
DG Danna Greenberg is the Walther H. Carpenter Professor of Management and Organizations at Babson College. Her latest book, Maternal Optimism: Forging Positive Paths through Work and Motherhood , explores the uniqueness of each working mother’s journey to integrate career and family.

Partner Center

About Stanford GSB

The Leadership
Dean’s Updates
School News & History
Commencement
Business, Government & Society
Centers & Institutes
Center for Entrepreneurial Studies
Center for Social Innovation
Stanford Seed

About the Experience

Learning at Stanford GSB
Experiential Learning
Guest Speakers
Entrepreneurship
Social Innovation
Communication
Life at Stanford GSB
Collaborative Environment
Activities & Organizations
Student Services
Housing Options
International Students

Full-Time Degree Programs

Why Stanford MBA
Academic Experience
Financial Aid
Why Stanford MSx
Research Fellows Program
See All Programs

Non-Degree & Certificate Programs

Executive Education
Stanford Executive Program
Programs for Organizations
The Difference
Online Programs
Stanford LEAD
Seed Transformation Program
Aspire Program
Seed Spark Program
Faculty Profiles
Academic Areas
Awards & Honors
Conferences

Faculty Research

Publications
Working Papers
Case Studies

Research Hub

Research Labs & Initiatives
Business Library
Data, Analytics & Research Computing
Behavioral Lab

Research Labs

Cities, Housing & Society Lab
Golub Capital Social Impact Lab

Research Initiatives

Corporate Governance Research Initiative
Corporations and Society Initiative
Policy and Innovation Initiative
Rapid Decarbonization Initiative
Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative
Value Chain Innovation Initiative
Venture Capital Initiative
Career & Success
Climate & Sustainability
Corporate Governance
Culture & Society
Finance & Investing
Government & Politics
Leadership & Management
Markets and Trade
Operations & Logistics
Opportunity & Access
Technology & AI
Opinion & Analysis
Email Newsletter

Welcome, Alumni

Communities
Digital Communities & Tools
Regional Chapters
Women’s Programs
Identity Chapters
Find Your Reunion
Career Resources
Job Search Resources
Career & Life Transitions
Programs & Webinars
Career Video Library
Alumni Education
Research Resources
Volunteering
Alumni News
Class Notes
Alumni Voices
Contact Alumni Relations
Upcoming Events

Admission Events & Information Sessions

MBA Program
MSx Program
PhD Program
Alumni Events
All Other Events

Speech That Empowers: How to Encourage Growth and Resilience in a Younger Audience

In this podcast episode, we discuss best practices when inspiring young people to seize responsibility.

April 23, 2021

“Communication is such a delicate dance and kids need to emerge from childhood having practiced,” says Julie Lythcott-Haims, former associate vice provost of undergraduate education Stanford University.

In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart , lecturer and podcast host Matt Abrahams sits down with Lythcott-Haims to discuss her new book, Your Turn: How to Be an Adult , and ideas on how to communicate with young people so they feel empowered to take on the various (and often intimidating) duties of adulthood.

“Responsibility isn’t a bad thing,” she says. “Responsibility is actually an amazing thing. And I think we have to do a better job of narrating that truth.”

Think Fast, Talk Smart is a podcast produced by Stanford Graduate School of Business. Each episode provides concrete, easy-to-implement tools and techniques to help you hone and enhance your communication skills.

Full Transcript

Matt Abrahams : This podcast is dedicated to helping people deal with everyday business challenges with confidence and conviction. However, today we’re going to take a different tack. We’re going to look at another challenge that many of us face helping teenagers become adults. And the things that we learn in this conversation will actually help us do better in the workplace. I’m Matt Abrahams and I teach Strategic Communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. I am really looking forward to speaking with Julie Lythcott-Haims. Julie is multitalented, a lawyer by training and a former dean of freshman and undergraduate advising at Stanford. She is now a much sought after speaker and the author of the award winning book, How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overprinting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success . Julie now has a new book, Your Turn: How to Be an Adult. Thanks for being here, Julie.

Julie Lythcott-Haims: Matt, thanks so much for having me. I’m really looking forward to communicating with you today.

Matt Abrahams: Excellent. Meet me, too. Let’s jump right in. Can you define what you mean by the term adult thing and can you share some of the challenges parents and kids face during the transition to adulthood?

Julie Lythcott-Haims: Sure thing. Well, I guess I need to start by giving a nod to the millennial generation. They’re the ones who coined the verb adult. I don’t want to adult. I don’t know how to adult; adulting is scary. And their anguish, their angst over not knowing how or wanting to is really what led me to write this thing. And then I had to examine what adult meant. And I came up with this as the definition adult thing is simply the phase of life between childhood and death, where you’re not dependent upon other people to plan, chart, fix, manage, handle the stuff of life for you where you have this delicious freedom and independence and, oh, the terrifying knowledge that, hey, it’s kind of on me to figure this out, which is not to say any of us ever has to go it alone. So that’s what adult thing is. And the challenges when it comes to parents and kids is as parents, we grew this child in our body perhaps, or adopted into our family or our partner gave birth to it. And we are completely responsible in those early months and years. But over the course of that child’s life, we’re supposed to be slowly moving from being completely in charge of their life to turning the reins over to them. And I think this big leap from the end of high school, the start of college, the start of work, the start of military life, whatever awaits after high school is to leap over a chasm in some ways. I mean, there’s a sense that, oh, my gosh, there’s a big gap I might fall into or, you know, I might not make it. And of course, that’s not literally true. But I think it’s an important moment for us as parents to be preparing for to be thinking, OK, what do I want to have confidence my kid can do when they’re no longer living in our home, when I’m no longer the primary one responsible for their food and their shelter and and their day to day well-being. We want to be parenting in the teenage years and even earlier toward the inevitability that we all want this young person to be a freestanding adult who can fend for themselves one day.

Matt Abrahams: Oh, and it is so fraught with challenges. I am going through this now as a parent myself, it sounds like it’s really balancing between freedom and responsibility, both for parents as well as for kids. What advice and guidance do you have for helping parents and kids communicate about some of these challenges in achieving this balance?

Julie Lythcott-Haims: You’re absolutely right that it’s freedom and responsibility. I can hear John Hennessy, who was president when I worked at Stanford, every year giving the graduation speech and really helping the graduates understand that with this freedom and independence comes responsibility. Responsibility isn’t a bad thing. Responsibility is actually an amazing thing. And I think we parents have to do a better job of narrating to that truth. That is, you’re going to be more, you’re going to be responsible for more of your own things. You’re going to be responsible for making sure your homework is in its bag and taken to school. You’re going to be responsible for making your own lunch. You’re going to be responsible for making your own doctor’s appointments, conveying the expectation that these things will be turned over to the kid and that that’s not a bad thing. You’re actually trusting that they either can already or can almost handle that task. It’s really by handing somebody some additional responsibility, which we’re supposed to be doing increasingly over the years of childhood. We’re actually signaling, I believe you can, and that turns out to be a really important indicator of a person’s wellness. And to which they believe they can do the task in front of them so that a vote of confidence from a parent saying, hey, you’re going to be responsible for this now, as long as it’s done kindly, as opposed to feeling like your parent has turned your back on you. It’s really quite empowering to be given additional responsibility. And that’s how, you know, the freedom and the responsibility really nicely then go together.

Matt Abrahams: So it sounds to me like part of the challenge is to set clear expectations along the way, but also to think about the tone in which you’re communicating those messages so that as you’re having these conversations, you’re being supportive, but also very clear about what is happening now and will happen in the future. Is that right?

Julie Lythcott-Haims: Exactly right. I mean, I think we’re at our best when we’re parenting, when we’re providing unconditional love, a tremendous amount of empathy, optimism that the kid is going to be able to make their way. So the tone of voice, the body language needs to be that of a compassionate yet emotionally somewhat distant adult. And this may sound a bit odd to people. Aren’t parents supposed to be very close to our kids? And kind of, why would you advocate for psychological distance? What I’m responding to is the overprinting tendency, which, as you know, your homework needs to get done. You need to get away. You need to get into this college or go off and do this career so that I feel OK as a parent. That’s a psychological intertwined-ness that’s actually really unhealthy for both the kid and for the parent. The more healthy distance is when you can care very much about how they are. You can offer help and guidance, but you’re not feeling that you own every single thing that they do, whether it’s their homework or their activities or their college applications. It’s we want to be in this place where our child has the agency, the autonomy to kind of make their own way and have their experiences, make their choices fall a little bit here and there, pick themselves up and be stronger based on what they experienced. And our tone needs to be even and positive, optimistic, kind and loving, but never nudging them. Why are you doing it better? You know, we expect better of you or and certainly not being, you know, disinterested. It’s sort of like, picture how loving you can be with your niece and nephew or your best friend’s kid where you care about the kid, but you don’t feel obligated to tell them precisely what to do all the time and you don’t feel obligated to solve their problems. That’s the healthy psychological distance I think we’re going for. Actually, as parents.

Matt Abrahams: I really like that image. That will be very helpful to me and hopefully many other folks. And I like how you highlighted. It’s not just about what you say, but how you say it, that nonverbal openness is really critical. We have on this podcast talked about improvisation in lots of different ways to help people be present oriented, to help people feel more comfortable speaking spontaneously. You talk about adopting principles from improv and design thinking to help when people feel stuck. Can you tell us more about this and how this can help?

Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah, so a lot of people who are trying to spread their wings and enter adult land feel stuck. And I think part of that is the sense that I have to know what I’m doing in advance. I have to be really good at it before I even start. Kind of a perfectionistic tendency. I have to know what I want. I have to know who I am. And I think an overarching message of this new book, your turn is, hey, you don’t have to know. You don’t have to have it all figured out. The point is just start to move in the direction of something. And so both from the school folks and from improv more broadly, I borrowed the language bias toward action and anywhere. And I think whether you’re a designer or whether you’re an improv actor trying to entertain an audience, it’s just all about, let’s go. Let’s just try something. This about being perfect. This is just about what can happen when we leave this point. We’re stuck in or standing in our comfort zone, perhaps, or are our stuck zone perhaps, and just take a step in any direction. You will learn something. You will have an experience. You will, you know, analyze the data, how you felt, you know, what you might do differently. And all of that begins to create some velocity forward.

Matt Abrahams: The bias towards action is such a powerful lesson from both design thinking and improv. And it plays out in lots of ways in our relationships and in our communication. There’s a corollary to that notion, which is, you know, good is great, good enough as great. And it’s this notion that we put a lot of pressure on ourselves. And one of the reasons we don’t. Move forward is we’re afraid it won’t go the way we want or it won’t be as good as it could be, and just giving ourselves permission to move forward is really, really powerful. In your book, Your Turn , you have a chapter entitled “Start Talking to Strangers.” Can you explain the advice you give in this chapter and share any breath best practices you have that can help people use communication to connect with others?

Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah, I think that chapter opens by saying this or in the first couple of paragraphs, this may be the most obvious point I make in the book, but every human is a stranger to you. At the outset. I’m deliberately subverting the childhood norm. Don’t talk to strangers which young adults were raised with and making the point that this was an overbroad rule. The rule should have been learned. Let me teach you how to discern the one creepy stranger from the vast majority of humans who are perfectly fine child. Let me let you walk through the world with me, watching how I discern whether a stranger is OK to talk to. Instead, we’ve given this overbroad rule. Don’t talk to strangers and many, many, many, many young people really don’t know how to be. They feel afraid. They feel unsure. They feel something’s wrong if stranger is trying to talk to them. And that’s way if there’s anything that’s inhibiting or really preventing a normal, free flowing conversation between people who’ve not previously met this mantra, don’t talk to strangers, maybe it. Yeah, well, you know, we shouldn’t like it like it. Rules rarely apply, right. Instinct about how to approach somebody. You’re going to have to talk to strangers when you leave your family home. You’re going to go to a college or a community college or the workplace where the military there will be people who have information that you need. There will be people who can help you on your path. There will be people that you can help. And, you know, all of those things are going to require us opening our mouths and talking to this person. But that’s not all. I mean, we’ve got to be respectful toward this other person. We’ve got to also have a sense of how to advocate for ourselves. Communication is such a delicate dance and kids need to emerge from childhood having practiced. Matt, here’s a fascinating thing that I end up putting in the pages of Your Turn that I got from psychologist and Stanford alum Lori Gottlieb. So many young adults don’t know how to communicate with their significant others or their boyfriend or girlfriend, the person they’re dating. And they show up in her therapy practice and they say, oh, I broke up with my boyfriend. We had an argument and he wasn’t a hundred percent there for me. So I just I dropped him. And she says, Julie, here’s what I think is going on. Their childhood communication conversations were so regulated by well-meaning parents, teachers, other adults who sorted out difficulties when kids weren’t getting along on the playground or on a playdate, who gave the kids language to use to talk to the other kids. Not trusting the kids could ever figure this out themselves with a bit of guidance, right. A lot of adults did that handling. Now we’ve got a set of young adults who haven’t had that practice on the playground and play dates in group play with their peers. And they think that when someone loves them, it means I’ll drop everything to support you. You know, parents basically behave that way, right? You’re not have school. I’ll go argue with the teacher for you. And instead of letting the student practice the child practice how to have a difficult conversation with somebody so they become this young adult who who doesn’t have the skills to communicate in what we would call run of the mill situations, a conversation with a friend, a conversation with with a lover, a conversation with the with a colleague or a boss. We’ve got to let our kids know we need to want for our kids to practice, practice, practice, communicating with their fellow humans well before they ever leave our homes if they’re to make it in the world one day.

Matt Abrahams: The notion of practice and giving space to learn how to communicate better is so important and then helping them. I can imagine you would agree with this to reflect on that communication so you can learn from it and do it differently or better is also a valuable skill to add there.

Julie Lythcott-Haims: Absolutely.

Matt Abrahams: So I’m going to ask you to get a little meta here, Julie, if that’s OK. I have seen you speak on a number of occasions and you are a phenomenal speaker and and actually a great meeting facilitator as well. And those two don’t always go together. Can you share some of the things you think about and do to prepare yourself and your content before you present or facilitate?

Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah, it feels a little personal, but I’m not criticizing or critiquing, I’m just acknowledging that I am going to tell you that the honest, true, honest to God truth here, please. I am spiritual, but not religious. And as a way to kind of get my mindfulness game going, when I’m backstage, about to give a big talk, I offer what some might call a prayer. I am trying to summon my gratitude for where I am and for what’s about to happen and for something that’s, you know, whatever’s going on in my life. I then ask, you know, please let me have access to my to my intellect, to my sense of humor, to my intuition. Let me connect. Let me help everybody here somehow feel seen in the message I’m trying to deliver. I’m centering myself. I’m trying to create space between wherever I just was, you know, hurrying to get there. If I’m late for pandemic, you know, the traffic was bad or, you know, I left too late or or I’m a little stressed. I just try to put a buffer between everything that came up to that, you know, that happened before that moment. And the moment that I’m entering, I’m trying to create a new container of which the conversation, whether it’s a speech to an audience or a conversation among humans where I am just one of you know, I’m I’m a fraction of the of the whole I’m trying to be intentional about the the what I need to do to create a safe and welcoming and interesting and engaging conversational experience.

Matt Abrahams: Wow. Thank you first for sharing that. And second, so many things going on in that ritual that you go through that are so helpful, the ability to be present in getting yourself in the present moment, focusing through what you called prayer, others called mantra, just focusing on the strengths that you bring to the situation. Many of us feel so intimidated and think about all the deficiencies we have before we communicate in front of others. And to focus on our strengths can only help and to really think about the experience. I love that idea of the container that’s being created and thinking about that experience can only help. So, so many lessons to learn in in what you just shared in and so many lessons to learn in watching you speak and facilitate. Before we end, I’d like to ask you the same three questions I ask everyone who joins me on this podcast. Are you up for that?

Julie Lythcott-Haims: I’m up for it, Matt.

Matt Abrahams: Excellent. Number one, if you were to capture the best communication advice you ever received as a five to seven word presentation slide title, what would that be?

Julie Lythcott-Haims: Stop using slides?

Matt Abrahams: That might be the best answer to that question, given that I’m asking for a slide title. Excellent. Tell me more. Tell me, what is it about slides that bothers you?

Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah, well, I think some people do manage to use slides quite artfully as a way to enhance whatever it is they’re doing with their body language and the actual language. But to too many of us, don’t matter how many degrees you have or what role you play of importance in the world, really rely on the slide to tell the story, to tell the experience and glazing over, they read your slide instead of reading you. Yes. Look, my work is about connecting with humans, human to human. I actually am interested in the energy that we can create that exists in our bodies, that we can we can sort of strengthen and raise and share and receive from others. And so my work, when I’m this is what makes the pandemic so hard for a speaker like me. I’m trying to create energy through his own experience and a webcam that I’m really interested in. Like what can you feel radiating from the message that I am delivering and the slide? I think if I was to use slides and you can probably tell from my answer that I don’t, I would just use imagery, some kind of image to enhance rather than words. I think it’s too confusing.

Matt Abrahams: Allow me to go to question number two. Who is a communicator that you admire and why?

Julie Lythcott-Haims: Oprah Winfrey and has had a resurgence, not to say that Oprah wasn’t ever always on our minds, but she did this amazing interview recently with Harry and Meghan. Yeah. And so billions of people got to see her again. But I began watching Oprah. I think her afternoon Chicago based talk show was on when I was either in my late high school years, certainly my college years. She conveyed such a mad respect for humans, a deep curiosity about the why behind people’s actions and language, and ultimately could be having a really tough conversation with somebody because the topic was tough or because what they did was difficult, bad, wrong, etc. She managed to to elucidate difficult subjects without judgment, and I thought it was the most profound intersection of curiosity, respect and truth. I mean, Oprah was always going to tell her own truth, but you would feel even if she was disagreeing with you, you would feel kind of held in her arms as she did it. And I just thought that was magnificent.

Matt Abrahams: I like the way you dissected that: curiosity, respect, and truth. And certainly she is an expert at all of that. What are the first three ingredients that go into a successful communication recipe?

Julie Lythcott-Haims: Maya Angelou, I believe, said they’re not going to remember what you said. They’re going to remember how they felt when you said it. For ten years, I had the distinct, humbling joy of being the dean of freshmen on the Stanford campus. And I gave a big speech, many big speeches, in a year. But orientation is what I’m thinking of. And in the noise of orientation, 200 events across six or seven days, I knew that whatever I said was not going to be memorable. You know, they were drinking from a firehose, right? Just trying not to get wet, just trying not to drown. And yet we wanted some of that water to land because it would be nourishing. And so I aimed to convey that feeling. Right. You will probably not remember the words, but hopefully you are having an experience of being respected and and helped and aided and cared about and rooted for. So I think that’s the advice. Yes. You’re going to use words, but what is it ultimately that you hope the recipient, the listener, the reader is going to take away my new book, Your Turn ? The narrative voice of that took me three years to kind of find and hone, and it ultimately is trying to be me is me trying to be this compassionate, frank, older person saying, I know you’re terrified. I get that it’s valid. And the thing is, you got to you got to step into the adult place. And I’m here rooting for you and I’m going to be alongside you on these pages. And you’re going to be OK. Yes, yes, yes. Yes, you will. And to try to do that on the page, I mean, readers will have to let me know, did I succeed or not? And maybe in some chapters I did. In others I didn’t. But that’s it’s trying to imagine how the other person is going to receive any of the stuff you have to offer. And instead of focusing too much on who am I and how am I, what do I think about it from their perspective, it’ll take some of the pressure off you, I think, and it allows you to create empathy for your reader, your listener, your audience. And ultimately, that’s going to lead to a great presentation, a great communication.

Matt Abrahams: The notion of focusing on your audience and what they need is a recurrent theme that we hear across these podcast episodes. What you’ve added to it around this notion of really thinking about the experience and the feeling is very, very important as well. Thank you for that. Thank you for all of your time and your insights, your ideas about support, compassion, both for ourselves and for the young adults we’re talking to is critical. And these lessons extend well beyond transitioning into adulthood. I encourage everyone to take time to read Julie’s books and to watch her talks. Thank you so much, Julie.

Julie Lythcott-Haims: Matt, thanks for having me. And to all the listeners, thanks for spending time with me today. I appreciate it.

Matt Abrahams: Thank you for listening to Think Fast, Talk Smart , the podcast, a production of Stanford Graduate School of Business. To learn more, go to gsb.stanford.edu. Please download other episodes wherever you find your podcasts.

For media inquiries, visit the Newsroom .

Explore More

Aicha evans: “you must have the irrational belief that it will work out”, eric yuan on keeping customers and employees happy, sundar pichai: “reward effort, not outcomes”, editor’s picks.

June 08, 2020 It’s Not What You Say, It’s How You Say It: How to Communicate Power On this podcast episode, we discuss how to harness power through non-verbal communication.

See the Current DEI Report
Supporting Data
Research & Insights
Share Your Thoughts
Search Fund Primer
Teaching & Curriculum
Affiliated Faculty
Faculty Advisors
Louis W. Foster Resource Center
Defining Social Innovation
Impact Compass
Global Health Innovation Insights
Faculty Affiliates
Student Awards & Certificates
Changemakers
Dean Jonathan Levin
Dean Garth Saloner
Dean Robert Joss
Dean Michael Spence
Dean Robert Jaedicke
Dean Rene McPherson
Dean Arjay Miller
Dean Ernest Arbuckle
Dean Jacob Hugh Jackson
Dean Willard Hotchkiss
Faculty in Memoriam
Stanford GSB Firsts
Annual Alumni Dinner
Class of 2024 Candidates
Certificate & Award Recipients
Dean’s Remarks
Keynote Address
Teaching Approach
Analysis and Measurement of Impact
The Corporate Entrepreneur: Startup in a Grown-Up Enterprise
Data-Driven Impact
Designing Experiments for Impact
Digital Marketing
The Founder’s Right Hand
Marketing for Measurable Change
Product Management
Public Policy Lab: Financial Challenges Facing US Cities
Public Policy Lab: Homelessness in California
Lab Features
Curricular Integration
View From The Top
Formation of New Ventures
Managing Growing Enterprises
Startup Garage
Explore Beyond the Classroom
Stanford Venture Studio
Summer Program
Workshops & Events
The Five Lenses of Entrepreneurship
Leadership Labs
Executive Challenge
Arbuckle Leadership Fellows Program
Selection Process
Training Schedule
Time Commitment
Learning Expectations
Post-Training Opportunities
Who Should Apply
Introductory T-Groups
Leadership for Society Program
Certificate
2024 Awardees
2023 Awardees
2022 Awardees
2021 Awardees
2020 Awardees
2019 Awardees
2018 Awardees
Social Management Immersion Fund
Stanford Impact Founder Fellowships
Stanford Impact Leader Prizes
Social Entrepreneurship
Stanford GSB Impact Fund
Economic Development
Energy & Environment
Stanford GSB Residences
Environmental Leadership
Stanford GSB Artwork
A Closer Look
California & the Bay Area
Voices of Stanford GSB
Business & Beneficial Technology
Business & Sustainability
Business & Free Markets
Business, Government, and Society Forum
Get Involved
Second Year
Global Experiences
JD/MBA Joint Degree
MA Education/MBA Joint Degree
MD/MBA Dual Degree
MPP/MBA Joint Degree
MS Computer Science/MBA Joint Degree
MS Electrical Engineering/MBA Joint Degree
MS Environment and Resources (E-IPER)/MBA Joint Degree
Academic Calendar
Clubs & Activities
LGBTQ+ Students
Military Veterans
Minorities & People of Color
Partners & Families
Students with Disabilities
Student Support
Residential Life
Student Voices
MBA Alumni Voices
A Week in the Life
Career Support
Employment Outcomes
Cost of Attendance
Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program
Yellow Ribbon Program
BOLD Fellows Fund
Application Process
Loan Forgiveness
Contact the Financial Aid Office
Evaluation Criteria
GMAT & GRE
English Language Proficiency
Personal Information, Activities & Awards
Professional Experience
Letters of Recommendation
Optional Short Answer Questions
Application Fee
Reapplication
Deferred Enrollment
Joint & Dual Degrees
Entering Class Profile
Event Schedule
Ambassadors
New & Noteworthy
Ask a Question
See Why Stanford MSx
Is MSx Right for You?
MSx Stories
Leadership Development
How You Will Learn
Admission Events
Personal Information
GMAT, GRE & EA
English Proficiency Tests
Career Change
Career Advancement
Career Support and Resources
Daycare, Schools & Camps
U.S. Citizens and Permanent Residents
Requirements
Requirements: Behavioral
Requirements: Quantitative
Requirements: Macro
Requirements: Micro
Annual Evaluations
Field Examination
Research Activities
Research Papers
Dissertation
Oral Examination
Current Students
Education & CV
International Applicants
Statement of Purpose
Reapplicants
Application Fee Waiver
Deadline & Decisions
Job Market Candidates
Academic Placements
Stay in Touch
Faculty Mentors
Current Fellows
Standard Track
Fellowship & Benefits
Group Enrollment
Program Formats
Developing a Program
Diversity & Inclusion
Strategic Transformation
Program Experience
Contact Client Services
Campus Experience
Live Online Experience
Silicon Valley & Bay Area
Digital Credentials
Faculty Spotlights
Participant Spotlights
Eligibility
International Participants
Stanford Ignite
Frequently Asked Questions
Operations, Information & Technology
Organizational Behavior
Political Economy
Classical Liberalism
The Eddie Lunch
Accounting Summer Camp
California Econometrics Conference
California Quantitative Marketing PhD Conference
California School Conference
China India Insights Conference
Homo economicus, Evolving
Political Economics (2023–24)
Scaling Geologic Storage of CO2 (2023–24)
A Resilient Pacific: Building Connections, Envisioning Solutions
Adaptation and Innovation
Changing Climate
Civil Society
Climate Impact Summit
Climate Science
Corporate Carbon Disclosures
Earth’s Seafloor
Environmental Justice
Operations and Information Technology
Organizations
Sustainability Reporting and Control
Taking the Pulse of the Planet
Urban Infrastructure
Watershed Restoration
Junior Faculty Workshop on Financial Regulation and Banking
Ken Singleton Celebration
Marketing Camp
Quantitative Marketing PhD Alumni Conference
Presentations
Theory and Inference in Accounting Research
Stanford Closer Look Series
Quick Guides
Core Concepts
Journal Articles
Glossary of Terms
Faculty & Staff
Subscribe to Corporate Governance Emails
Researchers & Students
Research Approach
Charitable Giving
Financial Health
Government Services
Workers & Careers
Short Course
Adaptive & Iterative Experimentation
Incentive Design
Social Sciences & Behavioral Nudges
Bandit Experiment Application
Conferences & Events
Reading Materials
Energy Entrepreneurship
Faculty & Affiliates
SOLE Report
Responsible Supply Chains
Current Study Usage
Pre-Registration Information
Participate in a Study
Founding Donors
Program Contacts
Location Information
Participant Profile
Network Membership
Program Impact
Collaborators
Entrepreneur Profiles
Company Spotlights
Seed Transformation Network
Responsibilities
Current Coaches
How to Apply
Meet the Consultants
Meet the Interns
Intern Profiles
Collaborate
Research Library
News & Insights
Databases & Datasets
Research Guides
Consultations
Research Workshops
Career Research
Research Data Services
Course Reserves
Course Research Guides
Material Loan Periods
Fines & Other Charges
Document Delivery
Interlibrary Loan
Equipment Checkout
Print & Scan
MBA & MSx Students
PhD Students
Other Stanford Students
Faculty Assistants
Research Assistants
Stanford GSB Alumni
Telling Our Story
Staff Directory
Site Registration
Alumni Directory
Alumni Email
Privacy Settings & My Profile
Event Registration Help
Success Stories
The Story of Circles
Support Women’s Circles
Stanford Women on Boards Initiative
Alumnae Spotlights
Insights & Research
Industry & Professional
Entrepreneurial Commitment Group
Recent Alumni
Half-Century Club
Fall Reunions
Spring Reunions
MBA 25th Reunion
Half-Century Club Reunion
Faculty Lectures
Ernest C. Arbuckle Award
Alison Elliott Exceptional Achievement Award
ENCORE Award
Excellence in Leadership Award
John W. Gardner Volunteer Leadership Award
Robert K. Jaedicke Faculty Award
Jack McDonald Military Service Appreciation Award
Jerry I. Porras Latino Leadership Award
Tapestry Award
Student & Alumni Events
Executive Recruiters
Interviewing
Land the Perfect Job with LinkedIn
Negotiating
Elevator Pitch
Email Best Practices
Resumes & Cover Letters
Self-Assessment
Whitney Birdwell Ball
Margaret Brooks
Bryn Panee Burkhart
Margaret Chan
Ricki Frankel
Peter Gandolfo
Cindy W. Greig
Natalie Guillen
Carly Janson
Sloan Klein
Sherri Appel Lassila
Stuart Meyer
Tanisha Parrish
Virginia Roberson
Philippe Taieb
Michael Takagawa
Terra Winston
Johanna Wise
Debbie Wolter
Rebecca Zucker
Complimentary Coaching
Changing Careers
Work-Life Integration
Career Breaks
Flexible Work
Encore Careers
Join a Board
D&B Hoovers
Data Axle (ReferenceUSA)
EBSCO Business Source
Global Newsstream
Market Share Reporter
ProQuest One Business
RKMA Market Research Handbook Series
Student Clubs
Entrepreneurial Students
Stanford GSB Trust
Alumni Community
How to Volunteer
Springboard Sessions
Consulting Projects
2020 – 2029
2010 – 2019
2000 – 2009
1990 – 1999
1980 – 1989
1970 – 1979
1960 – 1969
1950 – 1959
1940 – 1949
Service Areas
ACT History
ACT Awards Celebration
ACT Governance Structure
Building Leadership for ACT
Individual Leadership Positions
Leadership Role Overview
Purpose of the ACT Management Board
Contact ACT
Business & Nonprofit Communities
Reunion Volunteers
Ways to Give
Fiscal Year Report
Business School Fund Leadership Council
Planned Giving Options
Planned Giving Benefits
Planned Gifts and Reunions
Legacy Partners
Giving News & Stories
Giving Deadlines
Development Staff
Submit Class Notes
Class Secretaries
Board of Directors
Health Care
Sustainability
Class Takeaways
All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions
If/Then: Business, Leadership, Society
Grit & Growth
Think Fast, Talk Smart
Spring 2022
Spring 2021
Autumn 2020
Summer 2020
Winter 2020
In the Media
For Journalists
DCI Fellows
Other Auditors
Academic Calendar & Deadlines
Course Materials
Entrepreneurial Resources
Campus Drive Grove
Campus Drive Lawn
CEMEX Auditorium
King Community Court
Seawell Family Boardroom
Stanford GSB Bowl
Stanford Investors Common
Town Square
Vidalakis Courtyard
Vidalakis Dining Hall
Catering Services
Policies & Guidelines
Reservations
Contact Faculty Recruiting
Lecturer Positions
Postdoctoral Positions
Accommodations
CMC-Managed Interviews
Recruiter-Managed Interviews
Virtual Interviews
Campus & Virtual
Search for Candidates
Think Globally
Recruiting Calendar
Recruiting Policies
Full-Time Employment
Summer Employment
Entrepreneurial Summer Program
Global Management Immersion Experience
Social-Purpose Summer Internships
Process Overview
Project Types
Client Eligibility Criteria
Client Screening
ACT Leadership
Social Innovation & Nonprofit Management Resources
Develop Your Organization’s Talent
Centers & Initiatives
Student Fellowships

Rosemarie Rossetti, Ph.D.

Influences, inspires, and motivates your event participants, attaining competitive advantages by managing & embracing change.

How do you find the will to move on when faced with life challenges?

This transformational experience will empower audience participants to embrace change, improve performance, and unlock their competitive advantage. Your organization’s associates will be revitalized and recharged - leaving with restored hope, happiness and an improved vision of their future.

Attendees develop an Action Plan with staying power that will support them in achieving their goals and taking charge of their lives today and in the months and years ahead.

Rosemarie Rossetti, Ph.D. is a recognized role model and agent for change. Her own life was changed while riding a bicycle in 1998 when a 3 1/2 ton tree came crushing down on her. Paralyzed from the waist down with a spinal cord injury, Rossetti looked deep within herself and found new strength and new resolve.

Rossetti uses the 5 Lessons To Live By, learned during her recovery, to revitalize and recharge her audience. She taps into what motivates people to change their behavior, awaken their inner gifts, and find meaning in their lives.

As a recognized industry expert, rather than lecture, Rosemarie inspires participants to bring out the best in themselves through developing tenacity, perseverance, and resilience. She encourages taking advantage of opportunities following adversities so audience members can accomplish more with greater confidence.

Rosemarie taps into what motivates people to change their behavior, awaken their inner gifts, and find meaning in their lives.

Rosemarie’s positive approach to life touches all who hear her. Audiences are captured by her emotive speaking style that rallies them to her message. Her sensitive use of humor encourages laughing while you learn, a proven technique for greater retention of the core messages Rosemarie delivers.

Goal: Helping participants to …

Develop the motivation to push on when faced with adversity
Find the resilience to live life with conviction
Experience the sense of confidence and fulfillment in knowing the impossible is possible
Cope with change by adapting more quickly, modifying attitudes, and finding the courage to act rather than being acted upon
Move beyond fear to hope
Turn negatives into positives
Overcome obstacles
Recognize the key segments of the Wheel of Life that are deficient in their lives
Adjust their perspective and reduce stress when faced with adversity
Set realistic goals that balance life

Participants leave with new hope, happiness and a restored vision of their future!

Outline of the Program:

Living with Conviction
Lessons to Live By
Wheel of Life
How Motivation Drives Behavior
Exploring Goal Setting
Methods of Reducing Stress When Faced with Adversity
Focusing on a Hopeful Future
Fear as a Fuel to Courage
Examining Methods to Turn Negatives into Positives
Designing a Plan to Overcome Obstacles
Utilizing Your Inexhaustible Inner Reserve of Potential

The presentation is enhanced with a handout and high quality graphic slides which serve to illustrate the main points. Audiences in this emotionally powerful presentation are better able to retain the core messages by having visual illustrations.

Rosemarie is the RIGHT Choice for Your Next Event!

A proven (40+ year) success record in corporate & organizational settings, speaking to groups from 10 to 10,000.

Stellar evaluations from both participants & meeting planners, time after time.

A skilled, approachable, ethical professional industry expert you can count on.

Captivating, engaging, well researched, high content / high value presentations.

Pre-program interviews with persons you select allows Rosemarie to dig deep to customize programs tailored to your organization's desired outcomes. You will experience enterprise-wide satisfaction and measurable success.

Credit-ready programs encourage attendance.

Attentive, organized, upbeat and easy to work with.

Get Started Now!

Media / articles — click / tap to view.

NSA Speaker Magazine

Making the Pivot to Plan B

Startup.info

How the Pandemic has Affected the In-person Speaking Opportunities

Imagine The World As One

Thriving After A Spinal Cord Injury

Article Cover - Bounce Back Higher By Thinking Big

Getting Your Life Back to Normal

Restoring Vitality in Our Lives

Bounce Back Higher By Thinking Big

Building Resiliency in Uncertain Times

Pure Inspiration Magazine

Turning Adversity Into Opportunity

Octane - The Entrepreneur's Organization Magazine

The Resilency Factors

Publications

Book: Take Back Your Life, by Rosemarie Rossetti

When life throws you a curve ball, here's how to throw it back!

Rosemarie Rossetti’s own personal story of how to survive-and thrive when coping with change, adversity and setbacks

Partial Client List

American Electric Power
Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc.
Ohio State University Football Team
Craig Hospital
Young President's Organization
Sales and Marketing Executives International
Easter Seals
McDonald Investments
National Association of Realtors®
National Association of Home Builders
The Scotts Company
Susan Komen Foundation
Crane Group
Aquascape Designs Inc.
Innovative Mattress Solutions
United States Department of Justice

What Clients Say

"Please accept this enthusiastic recommendation on behalf of Rosemarie Rossetti as a motivational speaker extraordinaire! Rosemarie addressed The Ohio State University Football Family of some 125 players and coaches, and had us spell-bound for sixty minutes. Her message, 'Just Like Riding a Bike', was tremendous.

She tailored her presentation to our audience with extensive research and conveyed the message of handling adversity as well as I have ever heard! Rosemarie has an inclusive style delivered with force and grace. Our young people were on the edges of their seats the entire time.

It will be an evening we will never forget, and one that truly affected lives. I would recommend Rosemarie to any group and promise that she will make a difference to every person in the audience! Rosemarie Rossetti is special!"

"Rosemarie Rossetti gave the keynote speech [where] she addressed the issues of change and accepting responsibility for one's own life. Prior to the event she took time to contact several employees and conduct interviews so as to customize the presentation for our organization. During the presentation she made references to the issues facing our company and related them to the subject matter about which was speaking. Rosemarie radiated with enthusiasm and passion throughout her entire speech.

Employees commented that following the keynote address they were 'impressed' and 'reflective', and that Rosemarie gave them a new view on how to turn tragedies into opportunities. Her program was insightful and poignant, and she encouraged each person to look inward as to what they are capable of and if they are motivated to reach for these milestones. She spoke about the importance of having one's life in balance and nurturing each facet in order to have a productive and satisfying existence.

Rosemarie did a tremendous job and I would very highly recommend her. Her planning and preparation were impeccable, her demeanor was friendly and inspirational and her presentation skills were captivating."

Bipolar Disorder
Therapy Center
When To See a Therapist
Types of Therapy
Best Online Therapy
Best Couples Therapy
Managing Stress
Sleep and Dreaming
Understanding Emotions
Self-Improvement
Healthy Relationships
Student Resources
Personality Types
Sweepstakes
Guided Meditations
Verywell Mind Insights
2024 Verywell Mind 25
Mental Health in the Classroom
Editorial Process
Meet Our Review Board
Crisis Support

What Is Resilience?

Characteristics of Resilient People

Hinterhaus Productions / Digital Vision / Getty Images

Resilient Meaning
Characteristics

How to Ask for Help

Frequently asked questions.

Resilience involves the ability to recover and rebound from challenges and setbacks. Being resilient can be important for helping people deal with a variety of problems and bounce back from trauma.

What makes a person resilient? There are many factors that contribute to resilient behavior, including personality traits, upbringing, genetics, environmental factors, and social support.

If you want to become more resilient, learn about the characteristics of resilient people and when and how to ask for help building resilience.

What Does Resilience Mean?

Being resilient means facing difficulties head-on instead of falling into despair or using unhealthy coping strategies. Resilience is often defined as the mental reservoir of strength that helps people handle stress and hardship.

Resilient people are able to draw upon this strength to cope and recover from challenges. That's true even when they face significant traumas, such as job loss, financial problems, serious illness, relationship challenges, or the death of a loved one.

Resilience also means understanding that life is full of challenges. While we cannot avoid many of these problems, we can remain open, flexible, and willing to adapt to change.

Characteristics of Resilience

Some of the main characteristics of a person who has resilience are awareness, self-control, problem-solving skills, and social support. Resilient people are aware of situations, their emotional reactions, and the behavior of those around them.

By remaining aware, they can maintain control of a situation and think of new ways to tackle problems. In many cases, resilient people emerge stronger after such difficulties.

While people vary dramatically in the coping skills they use when confronting a crisis , researchers have identified some key characteristics of resilience. Many of these skills can be developed and strengthened, which can improve your ability to deal with life's setbacks.

The five basic characteristics of resilience are:

Problem-solving skills
Strong social connections
Survivor mentality
Emotional regulation
Self-compassion

Sense of Control

Do you perceive yourself as having control over your own life? Or do you blame outside sources for failures and problems?

Generally, resilient people tend to have what psychologists call an internal locus of control . They believe that the actions they take will affect the outcome of an event.

Of course, some factors are simply outside of our personal control, such as natural disasters. While we may be able to put some blame on external causes, it is important to feel as if we have the power to make choices that will affect our situation, our ability to cope, and our future.

Problem-Solving Skills

Problem-solving skills are essential for resilience. When a crisis emerges, resilient people are able to spot the solution that will lead to a safe outcome. In dangerous situations, less resilient people sometimes develop tunnel vision. They fail to note important details or take advantage of opportunities.

Resilient individuals are able to calmly and rationally look at a problem and envision a successful solution.

Strong Social Connections

Whenever you're dealing with a problem, it is important to have people who can offer support . Talking about the challenges you are facing can be an excellent way to gain perspective, look for new solutions, or simply express your emotions. People who possess a great deal of resilience have a network of friends, family members, co-workers, and online support groups to keep them socially connected.

Survivor Mentality

When dealing with any potential crisis, it is essential to view yourself as a survivor. Resilient people avoid thinking like a victim of circumstance and instead look for ways to resolve the problem. While the situation may be unavoidable, they stay focused on a positive outcome.

Emotional Regulation

Resilience is also characterized by an ability to regulate emotions effectively. The ability to recognize that they are having an emotional response and to understand what is causing the response can help them better handle emotions and cope with the situation at hand.

Self-Compassion

Resilient people are also compassionate toward themselves. They tend to notice when they need to take a break and can accept their emotions , which is important for resilience. Self-compassion can help boost overall health and resilience and ensure you're ready to face life's challenges.

Examples of Resilience

So what does resilience look like in action? Some examples of resilient behaviors and ways that you can show resilience include:

Trying to take a positive perspective on situations
Viewing challenges as learning opportunities
Regulating emotions and expressing feelings in appropriate ways
Focusing on the things you can control instead of dwelling on what you cannot change
Recognizing that cognitive distortions are false
Reframing negative thoughts to be more realistic and positive

For example, imagine that you get stuck in traffic on the way to work. For a non-reilient person, they might get angry, stressed out, and worried about how being late will reflect on them at work.

If you are resilient, however, you might choose to focus on what you can learn from the situation (leaving the house earlier for work), control your emotional response (using stress relief strategies to calm your mind and body), and avoid negative thinking (by reminding yourself that you are always on time and your employer will understand).

While being resourceful is an important part of resilience, it is also essential to know when to ask for help. During a crisis, everyone can benefit from the help of psychologists and counselors specially trained to deal with crisis situations. Other potential sources of assistance include:

Books : Reading about people who have experienced and overcome a similar problem can be motivating and suggest ideas on how to cope.
Online message boards : Online communities can provide continual support and a place to talk about issues with people who have been in a similar situation.
Psychotherapy : If you are having trouble coping with a crisis situation, consulting a qualified mental health professional can help you confront the problem, identify your strengths, and develop new coping skills.
Support groups : Attending support group meetings is a great way to talk about the challenges you're facing and to find a network of people who can provide compassion and support.

Resilience is important for mental health and well-being, and luckily, everyone can learn to be resilient. While some people may be naturally more resilient , it's a skill that you can strengthen.

Start by practicing some of the common characteristics of resilient people and focusing on your existing strengths. Don't get discouraged; becoming more resilient may take time, but the investment will have big payoffs on your health and well-being.

They are competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping, and control. Pediatrician Ken Ginsberg, MD, created the 7 Cs of resilience model to help children and adolescence build resilience. However, these skills can be developed at any age.

Being non-resilient, or lacking resilience, often involves becoming overwhelmed by difficult or stressful situations, dwelling on problems, or using unhealthy coping mechanisms to cope with the challenges of life.

People who are stress-resilient have better coping strategies for handling stress . They can recover more quickly from the major and minor stressors that occur day to day.

While resilience is often portrayed as a character trait that people either have or don't have, it is actually an ability that people can improve. According to one study, resilience can fluctuate over time and may depend on the situation and circumstances that a person is facing. This means that with practice, you can learn to strengthen your resilience.

Reid R. Psychological resilience . Med Leg J. 2016;84(4):172-184. doi:10.1177/0025817216638781

Walker FR, Pfingst K, Carnevali L, Sgoifo A, Nalivaiko E. In the search for integrative biomarker of resilience to psychological stress . Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2017;74(Pt B):310-320. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.05.003

Hornor G. Resilience . J Pediatr Health Care . 2017;31(3):384-390. doi:10.1016/j.pedhc.2016.09.005

Munoz, RT, Brady, S, Brown, V. The psychology of resilience: A model of the relationship of locus of control to hope among survivors of intimate partner violence . Traumatology . 2017;23(1):102-111. doi:10.1037/trm0000102

Ertekin Pinar S, Yildirim G, Sayin N. Investigating the psychological resilience, self-confidence and problem-solving skills of midwife candidates . Nurse Educ Today . 2018;64:144-149. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2018.02.014

Somasundaram RO, Devamani KA. A comparative study on resilience, perceived social support and hopelessness among cancer patients treated with curative and palliative care . Indian J Palliat Care . 2016;22(2):135-40. doi:10.4103/0973-1075.179606

Hutnik N, Smith P, Koch T. Using cognitive behaviour therapy to explore resilience in the life-stories of 16 UK centenarians . Nurs Open . 2016;3(2):110–118. doi:10.1002/nop2.44

Ginsburg KR, Jablow MM. Building Resilience in Children and Teens: Giving Kids Roots and Wings . 2nd ed. American Academy of Pediatrics; 2011.

Flynn PJ, Bliese PD, Korsgaard MA, Cannon C. Tracking the process of resilience: how emotional stability and experience influence exhaustion and commitment trajectories . Group & Organization Management . 2021;46(4):692-736. doi:10.1177/10596011211027676

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

More From Forbes

The power of resilience, and how to develop it.

Share to Facebook
Share to Twitter
Share to Linkedin

David is a best-selling author, speaker and trainer. He is also CEO of IPD , a world-class marketing agency based in Tampa, Florida.

“Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.” — Nelson Mandela

I am convinced that resilience is single-handedly the most important characteristic to have if you want to be successful in life.

It isn’t about being the smartest. It isn’t about who you know. And it sure isn’t about being lucky. It’s about the ability to go through hardship and still have the will to keep moving forward. Resilience is not the absence of pain. You will go through pain. You will go through failure if you’re attempting to do something worth doing. It’s just the reality. Being resilient doesn't mean succeeding on your first or second try. You may come up short on the third attempt. By the fourth and fifth try, you will probably be tired. You may be covered in dirt from falling down over and over. But eventually, you will succeed.

To break it down to its most simplistic, rudimentary definition, resilience is getting back on your bike even though you fell down and skinned your knees. Resilience is saying, “I am already in pain. I am already afraid. I may as well keep on going.” Many will put the bike away and go inside after they fall once or twice, but a select few will get back on and start pedaling. Because the reality is that you can be tired and discouraged, or you can be tired and accomplished.

In my experience, resilience is attained only through hardship. I can remember distinct moments in my life in which hardships led to resilience: That first missed payment. The first time I was fired. The first time I lost a big client. These moments happen to us and can drastically alter our lives. But just because these incidents start out as painful moments doesn’t mean that they have to remain that way. They can provide us with grit. They can give us a newfound strength that we would have never discovered had we not gone through them.

‘The Acolyte’ Fan Petition Shows Just How Right Disney Was To Cancel The ‘Star Wars’ Flop, After All

Today’s nyt mini crossword clues and answers for thursday, september 12, nyt ‘strands’ today: hints, spangram and answers for thursday, september 12th.

If I hadn’t been struggling financially, I wouldn’t have gotten into sales. I probably would have wound up in some other role that wasn’t enjoyable or fulfilling to me. Missing payments, getting evicted, getting vehicles repossessed — these incidents hurt me financially, of course. But they taught me hard lessons about finances and allowed me to come to the realization that I needed to do something different. They were the catalyst for the rest of my career.

If I hadn’t been fired from previous jobs, I probably never would have started my own business. I never would have learned what it’s like to be an entrepreneur. The lives of my team members would most likely have panned out differently as well. Who knows whether I would have been able to provide for my family in the manner that I am able to today? I certainly don’t believe that I would be as happy as I am now.

After losing my first major client, I quickly learned the importance of serving others as a salesperson. I learned how to not only gain business but also retain business. Losing a major client reminded me that success isn’t permanent; it can change at any time. You have to be ready for this change and able to bounce back quickly enough to take control of the ship before it goes down.

If I hadn’t experienced these hardships, then I would not have developed the resilience necessary to reach the level of success that I have. I would not have had the doors open that have allowed me to run a successful company. I attribute my success not to any particularly great talent, but to my unwillingness to give up — my unwillingness to accept defeat.

So my advice to other business owners and leaders is to strive to be one of the resilient ones. Get back up when you fall off of the bike. Otherwise, you may never take the training wheels off. You might always be weighed down by your fears of failure.

To develop the necessary resilience and grit to keep moving forward, you have to first build a solid foundation for yourself. This foundation will act as a sort of mental fortress in which you can protect yourself from both naysayers as well as your own discouraging thoughts. It is wise to surround yourself with peers who seek not to tear you down, but to build you up, and to encourage you and support you throughout your goals. But perhaps even more important than this is to be your own biggest cheerleader. There are times when you will have to consciously tell yourself good things. No one should believe in you more than you do. The words that you tell yourself matter. Make sure that they are words of encouragement. Make sure that the criticism you give yourself is constructive — not destructive.

Above all, remember that it’s okay to fall. You just have to get back up.

Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?

Editorial Standards
Reprints & Permissions

Resilience Examples: What Key Skills Make You Resilient?

There are a number of dimensions when it comes to positive mental health, one of which is resilience.

Resilience is the process of being able to adapt well and bounce back quickly in times of stress. This stress may manifest as family or relationship problems, serious health problems, problems in the workplace or even financial problems to name a few.

Developing resilience can help you cope adaptively and bounce back after changes, challenges, setbacks, disappointments, and failures.

Research has shown that resiliency is pretty common. People tend to demonstrate resilience more often than you think. One example of resilience is the response of many Americans after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and individuals’ efforts to rebuild their lives.

Demonstrating resiliency doesn’t necessarily mean that you have not suffered difficulty or distress. It also doesn’t mean you have not experienced emotional pain or sadness. The road to resilience is often paved with emotional stress and strain.

The good news is resilience can be learned. It involves developing thoughts, behaviors, and actions that allow you to recover from traumatic or stressful events in life.

Before you read on, we thought you might like to download our three Resilience Exercises for free . These engaging, science-based exercises will help you to effectively deal with difficult circumstances and give you the tools to improve the resilience of your clients, students or employees.

This Article Contains:

A definition of the resilient person, traits, qualities, and characteristics of the resilient person, the main factors contributing to resilience, is resilience a skill or character strength, resilience skills and how to train them, resilience strategies for coping and bouncing back stronger, different types of resilience, what are the key components and elements of the resilient life, an example of resilient behavior, a take-home message.

There is an evolving definition when it comes to resilience. According to the American Psychological Association ( APA ) resilience is defined as the process of adapting well in the face of trauma or tragedy, threats or other significant sources of stress (Southwick et al., 2014)

When it comes down to it, the concept of resilience is a complex one. In reality, resilience is more likely to exist on a continuum that may present itself in differing degrees across multiple domains of life. (Southwick et al., 2014)

For example, someone may be very resilient in the workplace but not as resilient in his or her personal life and personal relationships. In other words, the idea of resilience is relative and depends upon the situation.

Resilience may also change over time depending on your interactions and the environment around you. The more that is learned about resilience, the more potential there is for integrating these concepts into relevant areas of life.

This integration is beginning to foster an important shift in thinking. Clinicians and researchers are starting to sense the importance of focusing on evaluating and teaching methods to enhance resilience rather than continually focusing on or examining the negative consequences of trauma or stress.

This is an important shift to pay attention to because it signifies a move away from a purely deficit-based model of mental health toward inclusion of strength and competency-based models. This allows greater focus on prevention and building strengths in addition to addressing psychopathology. (Southwick et al, 2014)

Developing skills of resilience can help you face challenges and difficulties in life, which can help you feel better and cope better.

In essence, resilience helps you handle stress more positively. Everything in life is about balance. Without the darkness, you would not appreciate the light. Without sadness, you would not appreciate joy. Like the yin and the yang, you need both positive and negative emotions and experiences to appreciate what you have.

Life isn’t always going to be easy – but it shouldn’t always be hard. Whatever you resist persists, so learning how to let go and adapt to change and adversity can really help you move into a new mindset, and develop more resilience along the way.

It’s natural to have a tendency to try and control things. There are things you can control in life but there are also things you cannot.

Developing resilience is a very personal process. Each of us reacts differently to stress and to trauma. Some people bounce back quickly while others tend to take longer. There is no magic formula.

What works well for one person may not necessarily work for another, which is one of the biggest reasons to learn multiple techniques for enhancing resilience.

According to Conner and Davidson (2003), resilient people have certain characteristics. These characteristics may include:

Viewing change as a challenge or opportunity
Recognition of limits to control
Engaging the support of others
Close, secure attachment to others
Personal or collective goals
Self-efficacy
Strengthening effect of stress
Past successes
Realistic sense of control/having choices
Sense of humor
Action-oriented approach
Tolerance of negative affect
Adaptability to change

Conner and Davidson also developed the Conner-Davidson Resilience scale (CD-RISC), which is comprised of 25 items, each rated on a 5-point scale from 0-4 with higher scores that reflect a greater sense of resilience.

The scale was administered to general psychiatric outpatients, a clinical trial of generalized anxiety disorders, two clinical trials of PTSD and community samples.

The Conner-Davidson Resilience Scale

Able to adapt to change.
Close and secure relationships.
Sometimes fate or God can help.
Can deal with whatever comes.
Past success gives confidence for new challenge.
See the humorous side of things.
Coping with stress strengthens.
Tend to bounce back after illness or hardship.
Things happen for a reason.
Best effort no matter what.
You can achieve your goals.
When things look hopeless, you don’t give up.
Know where to turn for help.
Under pressure, focus and think clearly.
Prefer to take the lead in problem-solving.
Not easily discouraged by failure.
Think of self as a strong person.
Make unpopular or difficult decisions.
Can handle unpleasant feelings.
Have to act on a hunch.
Strong sense of purpose.
In control of your life.
You like challenges.
You work to attain your goals.
Pride in your achievements.

By using this scale, the study concluded that resilience is quantifiable and influenced by health status, is modifiable, and can improve with treatment. Individuals with mental illness, for example, tend to have lower levels of resilience when compared with the general population.

Greater improvement of resilience also corresponds to higher levels of global improvement. The study also surmised that it is possible to perform well in one area such as work, in the face of adversity, but function poorly in another area, such as personal relationships.

Moreover, the study surmised that resilience may either be a determinant of response or an effect of exposure to stress. Further studies would be required to inform whether resilience predated exposure to trauma, protected against post-trauma or if through certain circumstances survivors developed further resilience after traumas occurred.

Download 3 Free Resilience Exercises (PDF)

These detailed, science-based exercises will equip you or your clients to recover from personal challenges and turn setbacks into opportunities for growth.

Download 3 Free Resilience Tools Pack (PDF)

By filling out your name and email address below.

There are many ways to increase resilience. Some of those include having a good support system, maintaining positive relationships , having a good self-image and having a positive attitude .

Other factors that contribute to resiliency include:

Having the capacity to make realistic plans.
Being able to carry out those plans.
Being able to effectively manage your feelings and impulses in a healthy manner.
Having good communication skills.
Having confidence in your strengths and abilities.
Having good problem-solving skills.

Developing resiliency can help you maintain caring relationships with others and help you maintain a positive and easygoing disposition. It can also help you develop good coping skills and improve cognitive thinking skills.

Those who develop resilience tend to cope much better with life than those who aren’t resilient and they may even be happier.

Some people are naturally more resilient, however, you can work to enhance your level of resilience. You can learn how to bounce back from adversity in a healthy manner.

In the end, resilience is a skill that can be cultivated and nurtured.

Clinical psychologist Christina G. Hibbert, Psy. D. defines resilience as the ability to bounce back after life tears you down.

Those who are more resilient have learned to move past obstacles and challenges in a healthy way.

Resilient people learn and know how to weather the storms of life that come along. They have also learned how to set themselves back on even ground after a stressful event.

Joyce Marter, LCPC, a therapist and owner of a counseling practice, describes resilience as the strength to continue on the path that you know to be true, despite challenges and obstacles (Marter, 2019).

Your level of resilience determines how quickly you get back up when the air gets knocked out of you. It helps you push through life’s circumstances and meet challenges head-on.

Resilience has even been compared to learning how to play the guitar. When you first try to play, your fingers get sore and you get frustrated. Some may even quit after the second or third lesson.

A resilient person pushes past that initial discomfort and soon begins to realize that there are greater joy and satisfaction ahead.

As part of this process, your fingers get tougher and stronger the more you practice. Pretty soon the process becomes effortless and even enjoyable.

In essence, your fingers become more resilient the more you practice. The more you play, the more your fingers are able to tolerate the string tension, and the strength required to play well.

Learning to play the guitar is a great metaphor for resilience. What it tells us is that resilience is a character trait and a strength that can be learned.

The Four S’ of Resilience is a tool that allows individuals to draw on resilience sources they have used in the past and create a plan for tackling adversity in the future.

There are two parts to the plan.

In Part A, the individual reflects on a past difficulty they overcame and identifies the Four S’ (supports, strategies, sagacity, and solution-seeking) they drew on at that time.

Part B uses those responses to create a plan of resilience for any present or future difficulties.

The beauty of this tool is that the resources identified will always be relevant to the individual, no matter how ridiculous they may seem to another person. If an individual finds comfort in listening to the same pop song on repeat, they can include that in their resilience plan, knowing it will help them. In this way, these resilience plans are highly individualized and thus personally meaningful and useful.

Sydney Ey, Ph.D. an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Oregon Health & Science University has developed a Resilience Building webinar . Viewers will come to recognize what builds and what depletes resilience.

Going through the below exercise can help you create a plan for managing resilience and help you learn more about yourself in terms of your strengths and weaknesses.

Resilience Building Plan Worksheet

Where do you feel stress in your body?
What are some of the bad habits you engage in when feeling stressed?
What kind of small changes can you invest in to improve your health? (Better sleep, better nutrition, hydration, exercise, etc.)
List one small change you can make now.
List some activities at home that could help you relax.
List some activities at work that could help you relax.
Try out some new relaxation skills such as mindfulness or meditation apps such as Calm or Headspace .
Tactile (Holding something comforting or soothing)
Smell (Smell of lavender, fresh air)
Visual (Puppy or kitten photos, looking out the window, etc.)
Auditory (Listen to music, listen to sounds of nature)
Taste (Drinking some tea, eating chocolate)
Describe a time when you were able to overcome or handle a major challenge in life.
What did you learn about yourself?
What personal strengths did you draw upon?
Draw upon an image of when you were the most resilient.
How might you apply this strength now?
Identify sources of humor or joy.
Express gratitude, visit someone or write a letter.
List your accomplishments.
Notice what happened in your day that was meaningful on a regular basis.
What kinds of activities did you find meaningful?
Identify activities that put you in the flow . (Enjoyable things you do that cause you to lose track of time.)
Write down what you are thinking about when you get stressed and then ask: What is the worst that can happen and could I survive it? What is the best that could happen? What would I tell a friend in a similar situation?
If you can’t stop thinking about something, write about it a couple of times over a 4-week period for about 15 minutes each time. Notice how your story changes or your perspective becomes clearer each time.
If you are being hard on yourself, practice self-compassion and learn to be kind to yourself. Give yourself a mental break or a pat on the back.
Remember a hero, a coach or a mentor that encouraged you when you doubted yourself.
Connect with friends and family on a regular basis.
In the community.
Practice good communication and conflict resolution skills.

Another great option for building resilience is the 4-factor approach created by Deborah Serani, Psy. D. The 4-factor approach is a great option for helping clients better understand the concept of resilience. Serani, a clinical psychologist, uses this approach with her clients (Serani, 2011).

The 4-factor Approach

Stating the facts.
Placing blame where it belongs.
Giving yourself time.

This unique approach can help you learn how to develop skills of resilience. Serani uses the idea of a bad car crash as a tool for building resilience.

Let’s assume you crashed your car and have some injuries. As a result of this, you may even need to miss work for a few days in order to heal.

The first step involves simply listing or talking about the trauma without magnifying it. For example, you might say to yourself, “I wrecked my car and I got hurt. However, I was able to call for help and get myself patched up and get the car fixed.”

The second step involves taking ownership, but not beating yourself up. Instead of blaming yourself, you could simply say: “OK, I wrecked my car. It happens. It was dark and it was an accident. I’m OK.”

The third step involves reframing and re-evaluating the event in your mind. This might also be known as looking for the silver lining. Things could have been worse. You could have been seriously injured or hurt someone else. Reframing involves looking for the bright side of the situation and finding something to be grateful for.

Finally, the last step involves giving yourself some time to heal and adjust after the trauma.

Engaging in this simple process can go a long way to helping you heal and feel more resilient.

By going through this 4-step process, you can train your brain and your mind to think differently. You can learn to look at situations differently and find that silver lining. The more you engage in this process, the more resilient you will be overall.

The Realizing Resilience Masterclass

The Realizing Resilience course does so much more than just teach you the six pillars of mastering resilience. It also equips you to help others deal with the challenges in life.

This highly acclaimed masterclass provides you with ample tools and materials to apply the science behind resilience in a mindful way.

Consisting of six modules, you will earn a certificate upon completion of the online course and join an elite group of HR Managers, counselors, therapists, coaches, teachers and healthcare workers who are all passionate about helping others build-up their resilience.

Resilience Skills, Factors and Strategies

It’s also important to be aware of counselor burnout, according to Irene Rosenberg Javors, a psychotherapist in private practice in New York City.

According to Javors, there are some basic tips therapists can follow that can act as a toolbox for developing strategies for resilience skills for combatting fatigue and burnout. (Javors, 2015)

Self-care plan for therapists who experience counseling burnout:

Make time for solitude.
Engage in positive self-talk.
Get out more and experience life.
Learn from failure.
Cultivate both humor and curiosity.
Have realistic expectations for yourself and your client.

It can be exhausting working with those who are struggling in life. As therapists, it’s important to remember to engage in good self-care habits to prevent burnout. These may seem like simple tips, but they are important ones to keep in mind.

Exercise provides a wonderful opportunity for stress relief. Doing some kind of daily exercise like taking a walk or doing some stretching or yoga can go a long way to helping you cope with counseling burnout.

It’s also important to make time for solitude and remember to engage in positive self-talk. A therapist is literally entering into a client’s world, which can be psychologically intensive.

Because of that, it’s important to take some time to detox and self-reflect. Taking time to meditate, journal and to repeat positive suggestions can go a long way to helping you feel more balanced.

There will be setbacks and failures over time, so it’s also important to learn when to take a step back and spend time with family and friends. When all else fails, the best strategy might be one of humor and curiosity because it helps you remember that learning to be more resilient is a process.

World’s Largest Positive Psychology Resource

The Positive Psychology Toolkit© is a groundbreaking practitioner resource containing over 500 science-based exercises , activities, interventions, questionnaires, and assessments created by experts using the latest positive psychology research.

Updated monthly. 100% Science-based.

“The best positive psychology resource out there!” — Emiliya Zhivotovskaya , Flourishing Center CEO

According to Genie Joseph, M.A. adjunct professor at Chaminade University in Hawaii, and the creator of the Act Resilient program, there are three basic types of resilience (Joseph, 2012).

1. Natural Resilience

Natural resilience is that resilience you are born with and the resilience that comes naturally. This is your human nature and your life force.

Those with natural resilience are enthusiastic about life’s experiences and they are happy to play and learn and explore. Natural resilience allows you to go forth and do your best even if you get knocked down and taken off track.

One example of natural resilience is that of young children under the age of seven. Assuming they have not had any major trauma in life, children of this age typically have an abundant and inspiring approach to life.

2. Adaptive Resilience

Adaptive resilience is the second type. This might also be thought of as ‘trial by fire.’ This occurs when challenging circumstances force you to learn and change and adapt. Learning how to roll with life’s punches can help you build resilience and grow stronger as a result.

3. Restored Resilience

The third type of resilience is known as restored resilience. This is also known as learned resilience.

You can learn techniques that help build resilience, and, as a result, restore that natural resilience you had as a child. Doing so can help you deal with past, present and future traumas in a healthier fashion.

Each of these methods can be thought of as a resilient tank. Although it would be great if someone were strong in all three types of resilience, it’s not always necessary. Greater amounts of resilience in one type can compensate for lower amounts in others.

Stress and trauma tend to lower resilience over time, especially multiple repeated incidents of trauma. Trauma tends to get stuck in the brain leaving you on high alert or fight or flight mode continually. This can continue to manifest, even if the trauma is no longer present.

Being in a constant state of trauma can be emotionally and physically draining.

Each of us is, in essence, hard-wired for survival. The oldest part of your brain, the reptilian brain, is always working to protect you and guard you. While this may have served the caveman well, it doesn’t necessarily help you feel calm or relaxed.

Dr. Herbert Benson, director emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital has devoted much of his career to learning how people can counter the stress response.

Benson recommends several techniques that can help elicit the relaxation response , which includes:

Deep abdominal breathing.
Focusing on a soothing word like peace or calm .
Visualizing a tranquil scene like a beach or a park.
Engaging in repetitive prayer.
Doing something physical like Yoga or Tai-Chi.

Many people find it hard to manage stress, because stress has become a way of life. A certain amount of stress can serve as a motivating factor, but a little goes a long way.

When you sense danger, whether it is real or imagined, your body’s fight or flight response and your nervous system kick into high gear.

Your body is well-equipped and even hardwired to handle most types of stressful situations but too much stress can cause you to break down. In a sense, stress is your body’s warning system and a signal that something needs to be addressed.

The relaxation response is a simple technique that you can learn that can help you counteract the toxic effects of chronic stress. It slows your breathing rate, relaxes your muscles and can even help reduce your blood pressure.

Chronic stress can take a toll on your mind and body. According to the Harvard Medical School, low-grade chronic stress can even lead to things like high blood pressure, increased muscle tension and an increased heart rate. (According to Harvard Medical School, 2011)

People who have low resilience may feel:

Demoralized
Disconnected
Tired or fatigued
Stressed out
Find it difficult to continue

According to Shing (2016), one major factor that contributes to resilience is the experience of harnessing positive emotions, even in the midst of an especially trying or stressful time.

Positivity improves resilience in a number of ways according to Shing. First, positive emotions help you build up social, psychological, and physical resources over time, which could help you develop coping skills during future times of stress.

According to Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson, 1998), positive emotions can help broaden your momentary thoughts, actions, and attention to your surroundings. One example of this is the emotions of joy and interest, which help encourage you to approach loved ones and forge stronger bonds and interpersonal connections.

Positive emotions help build personal resources, which can act as a buffer from psychological distress in stressful situations. Positive emotions may even undo the harmful effects of negative emotions when experienced in the midst of a stressful situation.

Beyond positive emotions, resilience is also associated with the experience of autonomy, mastery, and vitality (Shing, 2016) This can help you be more effective at managing challenging tasks and help you live life with more energy and vitality.

Decades of research in well-being suggest that satisfaction in life may not solely be derived from positive emotions alone, but also through feeling a sense of independence and competence, as it pertains to personal goals and values.

This tendency is known as eudaimonic well-being and it has to do with your individual perception of fulfillment in life. This eudaimonic perspective on resilience is coupled with other psychological constructs as well, such as hardiness.

Those who are hardy tend to possess a greater sense of control over their surroundings and event outcomes. As a result, they view stressors as less distressing overall. Those who are hardy also tend to believe they have more personal resources at their disposal, which helps them feel more resilient.

Henry Emmons M.D. talks about creating the chemistry of calm. As an integrative holistic psychiatrist Emmons has worked with thousands of patients, many with severe disabling conditions.

Emmons has treated many of his patients with medications, but also believes there are other factors for healing and recovery beyond medication.

Emmons believes that is within our human nature to be resilient and to be able to face the stressors and losses of life. There are things we can do according to Emmons to help bolster our skills of resilience. These are known as the seven roots of resilience.

Seven Roots of Resilience

Balancing brain chemistry.
Managing energy.
Aligning with nature.
Calming the mind.
Skillfully facing emotions.
Cultivating a good heart.
Creating deep connections.

Emmons also refers to something called the whole person change process, as a way to build resilience. Emotions such as anxiety and depression affect both the emotional and physical body in a sense. Because of this, all aspects of yourself need to be incorporated into the healing process.

The whole person change process involves several principles. The first core principle is the idea of the pathway. This pathway leads to a more joyful and resilient life and it also requires a dose of self-acceptance .

This is much more than a simple self-improvement project. It involves accepting yourself and your life exactly as they are at this moment in time.

This is the opposite approach of someone who is continually striving for self-improvement. Self-improvement often involves criticism and a drive to be better.

The Japanese call this idea of the tension created by acceptance and the desire for change ‘ arugamama ‘, or a state of unconditional acceptance (Ikigai Tribe, n.d.).

This means accepting yourself and your life in the moment. This can also be combined with the intention to act in positive ways to create change.

The next core principle of the whole person change process is the idea that change begins within. This might involve honoring yourself and being willing to listen deeply. It might also involve connecting mindfully and compassionately with your inner suffering.

The next core principle is the idea of being resistant to change.

Some amount of resistance is natural and normal, but it must be dealt with if you have a desire to build resilience. The ability to look deep within and look at even those parts of yourself that are resistant is an important part of this process.

Change is a process and a messy one at best. Looking at change as a process is the next principle.

The truth is that change is not a simple linear process for most people. We don’t always experience continuous and sequential improvement. Each of us imagines that perfect life, but we usually experience setbacks along the way. Being resilient can help you manage your expectations.

Change often happens with connections, which is another core principle. In the individualistic Western culture, the onus is often put on the individual. Aligning with this principle means accepting the role of others in your pursuit of success.

Success often involves building a network of connections that can help you achieve your goal. This network might include family, friends or those in the community.

17 Tools To Build Resilience and Coping Skills

Empower others with the skills to manage and learn from inevitable life challenges using these 17 Resilience & Coping Exercises [PDF] , so you can increase their ability to thrive.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

There are many examples of resilient behavior. Some characteristics of resilient behavior include:

Viewing setbacks as impermanent.
Reframing setbacks as opportunities for growth.
Recognizing cognitive distortions as false beliefs.
Managing strong emotions and impulses.
Focusing on events you can control.
Not seeing yourself as a victim.
Committing to all aspects of your life.
Having a positive outlook on the future and developing a growth mindset.

One example of viewing a setback as impermanent would be a salesperson losing a client. They could either look at this as a troubling event or as something that is only temporary. In the end, losing one client, even a large one, is not the end of the world. Staying flexible and having some perspective, can help you realize that there are millions of clients for you to attract.

Reframing is another wonderful technique. Let’s say someone went on a job interview but didn’t get the job. A resilient person would realize that perhaps that wasn’t the job for them. They would pull their resources together and begin looking at alternative options for opportunities.

Cognitive distortions also come into play. Cognitive distortions are basically false beliefs. These are things we convince ourselves are true which reinforce negative thinking. The challenge is in reframing these distortions into a more resilient frame of mind.

One example is someone who is experiencing a flight delay on an airline. A non-resilient person might think that bad stuff always happens to them. They might also think a flight delay is terribly inconvenient. As a result of this thinking, they might then experience anger or stress.

A resilient person could change their thinking, upon recognizing the negative frame of mind. As a result, they could tell themselves that instead of getting anxious they could stop and have a nice meal or read a good book. These new resilient thoughts can help them manage the inconveniences of life and reduce stress.

Managing strong emotions and impulses is another key factor in resilience. Let’s say someone gets angry. They could either take their anger out on someone nearby or learn to move on and stay focused.

Focusing on events you can control is another great example of resilient behavior. Some things are simply out of our control. Traffic would be one of those things. You can either get angry and yell at fellow drivers, or turn on some music or think of new ideas for your next project. The choice is yours.

Not seeing yourself as a victim is also key. If you continually see yourself as a victim in life, you will keep building on that mindset. A resilient person would understand that sometimes things just happen. They are not a victim.

Committing to all aspects of your life means understanding that everything in your life is interconnected. What this means is that there isn’t any one thing that will suddenly make you happy. For example, getting the perfect job or finding that perfect love relationship may not be enough to counteract other difficulties in life.

A resilient person understands that success or failure in one area of life often affects all the other areas of life as well.

Having a positive outlook of the future and developing a growth mindset is probably one of the simplest things you can do to build resilience. Cultivating a growth mindset involves the desire to be open and adaptable and learning to change.

There are many ways to build resilience so that it becomes your natural tendency. Try some of these strategies the next time you feel your resilience needs a boost.

Turn off the news and seek other sources of inspiration.
Allow yourself to express and feel your emotions. Sometimes having a good cry can be emotionally cleansing.
Take a walk and get moving. Exercise and movement can help increase your energy level, and release endorphins into your system.
Remember a time when you felt resilient in the past. Tap into what allowed you to find a sense of courage, strength, and hardiness.
Talk with someone you love and trust. Have a meaningful and honest conversation.
Take some time off to recharge. Unplug the electronic devices and give yourself a moment to rest and reflect.
Think of someone who exudes resiliency and model his or her behavior.
Go within and connect with your higher power through meditation or prayer.
Write it down. Writing down your thoughts and feelings can help you feel better about where you are on this journey.
Reconnect with others and help build their resiliency.
Be kind to yourself. Have some compassion and ease up on your expectations.
Listen to empowering music.
Take some deep breaths. Breathing deeply is very healing and cleansing.
Take some inspired action. When you’re feeling overwhelmed, doing one small thing can help you move forward.
Practice mindfulness in your day-to-day life. The more you practice being in the moment the happier and more joyful you will feel.
The moment you start believing that you can bounce back is the same moment things will start going your way. Your belief is everything. You can learn to be more resilient.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Resilience Exercises for free .

American Psychological Association. (2018). The Road to Resilience. [Online]. [18 December 2018]. Available from: https://www.apa.org/helpcenter/road-resilience.aspx
Cohen, H. (2017). What is Resilience? [Online]. [12/18/18]. Available from: https://psychcentral.com/lib/what-is-resilience/
Compas, B. E., Banez, G. A., Malcarne, V., & Worsham, N. (1991). Perceived control and coping with stress: A developmental perspective. Journal of Social Issues, 47 (4), 23-34.
Conner, K. M., & Jonathan, D. R. (2003). Development of a new resilience scale: The Connor‐Davidson Resilience Scale (CD‐RISC). Depression and Anxiety, 18 (2), 76-82. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
Emmons, H. (2010). The Chemistry of Calm: Restoring the Elements of a Resilient Life . [Online]. [12/18/18]. Available from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-chemistry-calm/201010/the-chemistry-calm-restoring-the-elements-resilient-life
Ey., S. (n.d.). Resilience Building Plan Worksheet. Retrieved December 22, 2018, from https://www.ohsu.edu/people/sydney-ey/CDB7A65DBCA64011AAFB2DAEC0F57C07
Friedman, H. L., & Robbins, B. D. (2012). Humanistic Psychologist . 40(1), 87-102. 16p.
Harvard health publishing. (2018). Understanding the stress response. [Online]. [12/18/18]. Available from: https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding-the-stress-response
Horneffer-Ginter, K. (2013). 25 Ways to Boost Resilience. [Online]. [12/18/18]. Available from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/design-your-path/201305/25-ways-boost-resilience.
Igikai Tribe. (n.d.) Arugumama as it is . Retrieved from https://ikigaitribe.com/blogpost/arugamama-as-it-is/.
Javors, I. R. (2015). Annals of Psychotherapy & Integrative Health . p1-2. 2p., Database: Academic Search Complete
Joseph, G. (2012). The Three Types of Resilience. [Online]. [12/18/18]. Available from: http://act-resilient.org/Site/Blog/Entries/2012/8/28_The_Three_Types_of_Resilience.html
Martin, B. (2016). Fight or Flight. [Online]. [12/18/18]. Available from: https://psychcentral.com/lib/fight-or-flight/
Marter, J. (2021). Mental Health First Aid. Retrieved from https://www.joyce-marter.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/MHA-Mental-Health-First-Aid-Bulidling-Resilience-Positive-Mental-Health-2.pdf
Masten, A. S., & Coatsworth, J. D. (1998). The development of competence in favorable and unfavorable environments: Lessons from research on successful children. American Psychologist, 53 (2), 205-220.
Rosenberg Javors, Irene, M.Ed.; LMHC is a psychotherapist in private practice in NYC. She is the author of ‘Culture Notes: Essays on Sane Living’ (2010). Contact her at [email protected] Cultivating Resilience: Tips for Therapists.
Serani, D. (2011). Living with depression: Why biology and biography matter along the path to hope and healing . Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Shing, E. Z, Jayawickreme, E. & Waugh, C. E. (2016). Contextual Positive Coping as a Factor Contributing to Resilience After Disasters. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 72 (12).
Southwick et al. (2014). Resilience definitions, theory, and challenges: interdisciplinary perspectives. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 5 (25338).
Tartakovsky, M. (2016). Therapists Spill: How to Strengthen Your Resilience. [Online]. [12/18/18]. Available from: https://psychcentral.com/lib/therapists-spill-how-to-strengthen-your-resilience
Waters, B. (2013). 10 Traits of Emotionally Resilient People. [Online]. [12/18/18]. Available from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/design-your-path/201305/10-traits-emotionally-resilient-people

Share this article:

Article feedback

What our readers think.

This is the best information that I have read in a very, very, long time. Thanks for sharing.

I would love a copy of this book on resilience if there is a book available. And if so where can I purchase a copy.

Thank you for your question. I’d love to help.

Could you specify exactly which book you’d like to purchase? Then I can help you find a link.

Thanks in advance. -Caroline | Community Manager

hello maam your article was very informative and effective. I am Planning for a research in this topic can you plz tell me how do i relate it to wellbeing of employees . How can i test it

Hi Sujatha,

So glad you found this post useful. So you’re looking to assess resilience as a predictor of wellbeing? Your approach should depend, in part, on whether you plan to run a natural field study or an experiment. For instance, if you’re interested in an experiment, you could look at running some resilience training with staff and then measure changes in subjective well-being pre- and post- the training.

For advice on how best to measure wellbeing in this context, definitely take a look at our dedicated blog post on subjective well-being scales.

– Nicole | Community Manager

Very impressive nd helpful. And can relate totally with this. Amazing work.

This is one of the best articles on resilience, I have read, well done professor Leslie for posting such a good articles to motivate people. It is real community help to build positive energy. Narendra Kushwaha.

Let us know your thoughts Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Overcoming Trauma Bonding: 8 Strategies & Exercises

A young woman tries to save her father from a monster in a castle by sacrificing herself as a captive instead. She becomes his prisoner. [...]

Breaking Generational Trauma With Positive Psychology

Generational trauma, the enduring legacy of past adversities that reverberates through familial lines, presents profound challenges to mental and emotional wellbeing. Within the realm of [...]

Vicarious Trauma: The Silent Impact on Therapists

Vicarious trauma refers to the impact of repetitive encounters with indirect trauma while working as a helping professional. Most clients who attend psychotherapy will share [...]

3 Resilience Exercises Pack

Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.

All Latest Articles
Environment
Food & Water
Featured Topics
Editor’s Picks
Get Started
Online Course
Holding the Fire
What Could Possibly Go Right?
About Resilience
Fundamentals
Submission Guidelines
Commenting Guidelines
All Articles
Log in / Sign Up

Act: Inspiration

By Michelle Galimba , originally published by Anima/Soul

December 9, 2019

About six months ago my friend and mentor Donna called to ask if I would be willing to give one of the keynote speeches at this yearʻs agricultural conference. Donna is one of those people with excellent people skills, which means that it is very difficult to say No to her: one because she will already have cultivated a relationship with you; and two, she will come armed with persuasions tailor-made to your psychology. She will appeal to your higher instincts for public service and your lower instincts for ego-gratification. Also of course it was an honor to be asked. So I agreed to give a speech.

Of course that means Iʻve been worrying about it, at least a little bit, for six months. I have no natural talent for public speaking and it was not until I was well into my thirties that any instance of my public speaking, including teaching classes, was not more or less of a hideous disaster. Iʻve gotten a bit better over the years, mostly by learning to prepare and then prepare some more. I was so worked up in the hours before giving it that I lost my purse and my hotel keys, but thatʻs pretty much to be expected for me. So since it relates to this site, I thought Iʻd share it:

My name is Michelle Galimba and along with my family and employees, I operate Kuahiwi Ranch in Ka’u on Hawaii island. We are a cattle ranch that provides beef for local restaurants and markets throughout Hawai’i. We have been in business since 1993 and have been providing beef to local markets since 2007.

Agriculture is one of those deep stories that we live within, It is a story that we make and a set of practices and a way of life.

It is also at the economic foundation of our civilization. As the Welsh farmer and fierce blogger Patrick Noble says:

“Today, in spite of the marvels of aviation; of the internet and so on, we remain an agriculture.”

Agriculture harnesses nature to provide for our most fundamental need, the need to eat, and in doing so provides the foundation for all of our other accomplishments.

Those of us in agriculture, in our different ways, construct stories in the language of animacy, the language of life. These stories that we construct and live everyday, year after year, these stories are what we call farms and ranches, orchards and fishponds. The literal meaning of poetry in Greek is “to make.” Those of us in agriculture are poets as much as we are businesspeople and scientists – we are makers in the language of life.

Making agricultural stories is a tradition that I was born into and that I have also chosen. I will tell you one of the origin stories of our ranch.

My family started Kuahiwi Ranch in the summer of 1993 with one cow. She was a rather wild black cow. We hauled her in our little trailer up the side of the mountain where we had just finished fencing up a 25 acre pasture, a former sugar cane field, the first of many that we would fence to make up the core of our ranch. It was an overcast afternoon. The guinea grass in the pasture was dark green and very tall, at least eight feet tall. My brother Guy backed up the trailer to the pasture gate that we had painted blue. We opened up the trailer door and the black cow ran straight into that tall grass. We didn’t see her again for months. Not a very promising start!

That story, like most origin stories, is a little over-dramatic. I grew up around cattle on the dairies and ranches where my father worked. We always had our own backyard animals as well. So she wasn’t our first cow by a long shot, just the first cow that belonged to our ranch as a business.

Our ranch slowly grew until we now have a herd of about 3000 head of cattle, and produce half a million pounds of beef per year for the local market in Hawaii. The reason that I wanted to tell you that story was to point out how ambiguous that beginning was. One wild cow, one pasture salvaged from the wreckage of the great sugarcane economy. I wanted to point out how innovation doesn’t have to be about using the latest gadgets; it can be as simple a thing as letting a cow out of a trailer one day. And then carrying on, bringing in new ideas, learning new skills, constructing and making for twenty-five more years.

What fascinates me about ranching – and agriculture in general – is that it is a multi-species collaboration. That is the first adaptation that I would like to highlight: collaboration. As Ursula K. Le Guin, one of my favorite writers says:

To use the world well, to be able to stop wasting it and our time in it, we need to relearn our being in it. Skill in living, awareness of belonging to the world, delight in being part of the world, always tends to involve knowing our kinship as animals with animals.

To be skillful as a pastoralist, which is say, as a rancher, you must collaborate with your domesticated animals – in my case, your cattle, horses and dogs; you must collaborate with the grasses and trees on the ranch and your soil flora and fauna; you must collaborate with the forest-watershed, you must even collaborate with the undomesticated, feral or invasive animals and plants – your weeds and wild pigs, your butterflies and two-lined spittlebugs. You need to know them, know their ways, and how to respond to them.

Agriculture is a very intimate zone between nature and culture, between human and nonhuman. Intimate to the point of being quite often uncomfortable and even dangerous, and not just on a physical level. You are dealing with life and death, with eating and being eaten, on a daily basis.

Agriculture is a hinge vocation and we in agriculture act as hinges and mediators – mediators between the human world and the natural world. And nature can be as small as the microbes in your cattle’s amazing four-part rumen or as large as a ranch landscape or watershed – or the planetary climate.

To be skillful as a rancher you have to think with the landscape, with the many, many animate and inanimate beings on the landscape. Think with them and work with them. As the Native American ecologist Robin Wall Kimmerer says:

“The animacy of the world is something that we already know, but the language of animacy teeters on extinction – not just for Native peoples but for everyone.”

Ranching, for me, is one way to revive and live this language of animacy, with all its sharp edges of life and death, and in all its mesmerizing beauty.

The district of Ka’u where I ranch is a very special place. It’s a wild place. It’s bigger than this entire island of Oahu but there’s not a single stoplight or Starbucks in it. Instead of stores, highways, military bases, and hotels, we have what we used to call “archeology” but we now call “cultural resources,” which is to say the powerful physical and spiritual presence of the past. The coastal pastures on our ranch are dotted with house-sites, caves, he’i’au, makahiki grounds, animal enclosures, petroglyphs, and other artifacts of all kinds intact on the landscape.

It is in the context that I would like to talk about another collaboration, this time between multiple (human) stakeholders.

Our ranch is very much the collaborative endeavor of many different organizations and programs, public and private, that helped us to keep going and keep building the ranch over the years. The collaborative project that I would like to highlight has to do with the intersection of conservation, culture, and agriculture, and about strengthening the special qualities of our landscape and our community. Our ranch recently had the opportunity to purchase a piece of land that we have been grazing for many years. As I mentioned before, it is common for ranch land in Ka’u to be rich in cultural resources and such is the case for this piece of land. We had the further opportunity to place this parcel under an agricultural conservation easement.

An agricultural conservation easement means that you dedicate your land to agriculture in perpetuity. Our ranch still owns the land but we have sold the development rights to a non-profit that agrees to steward the easement and verify – on an annual basis – that the easement is still being honored.

Conservation and Agricultural Easements are relatively unknown in Hawaii, but with the help of multiple community partners acting as a team, Conservation Easements can be a powerful way to support agriculture and protect important working farm lands. We have been fortunate to work with the Trust for Public Land who championed and facilitated the details of the deal, with funding support from the Freeman Foundation which has a special interest in helping farmers and ranchers here in Hawaii, and lastly with stewardship support from Ala Kahakai Trail Association who will be the primary holder of the conservation easement.

An agricultural conservation easement made sense for us by lessening the financial burden of the land purchase and by ensuring that the land will remain in agriculture which is something that we value as a family and that our Ka’u community values as well. The conservation easement also provides for non-profit stewardship of the archeological and cultural sites, so that we can do right by the cultural legacy that is present on our ranch. This agricultural conservation easement works on many levels: it lets us continue ranching and gives us secure land tenure so that we can implement the best possible practices for our land and soils; it relocalizes land ownership and helps us to provide food and employment for our local community; it protects the cultural resources of the place; and it protects the land itself, to be itself with minimal disturbance, in perpetuity.

In perpetuity means forever, so in drafting our conservation easement I’ve had to attempt to think about agriculture and land-use in terms of forever, and try to make practical decisions for that infinite timeline. Of course I don’t have the brain power to forecast forever. Even trying to think forward a century is tough.

What will agriculture be like 100 years from now? 500 years from now?

One way of trying to think about it is the question my daughter taught me to ask: what does the land want? What kind of agriculture is right, not just for human interests, but for nature too, for the long run?

Another way is to ask: what do we want it to to look like? What kind of agriculture do we want to shape in the next 100 years?

We are heading towards increasingly wicked problems associated with environmental limits. There is no question about that, it’s the simplest kind of logic. Exponential growth meets finite planet.

Which brings me back to that idea of paradox that I talked about earlier: this co-existence of two seemingly incongruous things at once. Because working with paradox or as the philosopher Donna Haraway puts it “staying with the trouble” is going to be an important adaptive skill as we face these wicked problems on a global scale.

What will agriculture be like in 100 years? I don’t know but I do know what I would like it to be, and that is: an ecological agriculture as part of an ecological civilization.

The anthropologist James C. Scott has written about the complex inter-relation between political systems and agricultural systems in Asia. Intensive grain cultivation such as rice, wheat, and corn support the classic centralized state with its taxes, bureaucracy, military, and concentration of power in cities. On the other hand, hill tribes and other decentralized groups often adopt an agriculture based on root crops and other plant species that are inconspicuous, perennial, and not easily taxed. The point is that the kind of agriculture that we create, in turn creates us and the kind of social and political systems that we live within.

The concept of an ecological civilization is, in itself, a bit of a paradox. Our economic systems assume infinite natural resources and our right to exploit them in order to achieve growth. Of course this planet does not have infinite resources, and part of the dissonance that we are experiencing comes from our inability to deal with that reality within our current economic and social paradigm. At the same time, civilization – this mode of organizing ourselves and working together on complex systems for the common good – this is a valuable skill that we humans have been working on for thousands of years. There have been many civilizations, some of them more ecologically sound than others.The one we happen to live within, is, as we are discovering, one of the more unsound ones. Highly successful, yes, but ecologically unsound.

And one of the keys to our success and our unsoundness is this story of economic growth that we tell ourselves over and over again. We must turn a critical eye on the pursuit of growth through ever increasing levels of resource extraction and consumption. It’s not that growing is bad in itself. There are ways to “grow” that do not require increasing extraction and the short-sighted extermination of biodiversity, of life.

We in agriculture probably know more about sustainability and resource limits than any other sector – the Chinese developed and practiced a agriculture that supported a high civilization for 4000 years, and here in Hawaii, indigenous agriculture fed a large population within the strict resource limitations of these remote islands for well over a thousand years. In contrast, industrial civilization is running into terminal problems after less than two hundred years.

The paradox is that we must practice a resilient, re-localized, low-emission agriculture that is, at the same time, an agriculture that draws on and contributes to a global network of knowledge, technical skills, and best practices.

We must embrace technological innovations and data-driven tools, but also recover and value what is best in traditional and indigenous agriculture.

We must become re-enchanted by and passionately protective of the environment and its complex ecologies, but also be tough-minded, scientific, and pragmatic in evaluating the best courses of action at a global scale.

We must look at agriculture holistically, not just as the production of material goods at any cost, but as an activity that shapes us socially, culturally, and environmentally.

An ecological agriculture as part of an ecological civilization must work with these paradoxes, among many others.

Paradox can be a way of finding generative spaces to think and work towards more ecologically sound ways of living on this planet. Paradox can be a space of innovation and creativity.

We will need courage, a lot of courage, to face the often frightening contradictions of our times, the courage to turn fear and defensiveness into an embrace of paradox, to turn our anxiety into creativity, the courage to stay with the trouble.

Finally I would like to leave you with an idea that is both very exotic and very familiar. It is something that we probably have all experienced – but the word for it comes from the Yolngu people of North Australia as translated by the anthropologist Deborah Bird Rose. This word bir’yun can be translated as brilliance or shimmer.

Bir’yun is the shimmer, the brilliance, and the artists say, it is a kind of motion. Brilliance actually grabs you. Brilliance allows you, or brings you, into the experience of being part of a vibrant and vibrating world. When a painting reaches brilliance, for example, people say that it captures the eye much in the way that the eye is captured by sun glinting on water.

Or, in my case, by the waving of the tall grasses in the Kuehulepo wind of Ka’u.

If we do our job right as agriculturalists we get to be there when the brilliance or shimmer happens, we get to be a part of the poetry of the living world. The poetry of healthy soils, healthy animals, healthy communities, and a healthier environment.

Thank you very much for your time, and for being involved in agriculture.

Bird Rose. Deborah, “Shimmer: When All You Love is Being Trashed” in Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet.

Haraway, Donna J.. Staying With the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2016.

Harjo, Joy. Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2015

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom Scientific Knowledge and TheTeachings of Plants. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2013

LeGuin, Ursula. “Deep in Admiration” in Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet.

Noble, Patrick. www.convivialeconomy.com

Scoot, James C. The Art of Not Bing Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.

Tsing, Anna et al, eds. , Arts of Living on A Damaged Planet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017.

Michelle Galimba

“Healing A Polarized World”: Jennifer McCoy On Creating Unity From Division

By Jennifer McCoy , Rachel Donald , Resilience

Jennifer McCoy, professor of political science at Georgia State University and nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, discusses the influence of “political entrepreneurs” and the implications of a world facing increasing resource constraints, which can exacerbate polarization and conflict within and between nations. Professor McCoy offers examples of nations that overcame pernicious polarization and points to “win-win” strategies for navigating the 21st century’s challenges.

September 11, 2024

Keys to Building Human Bridges to the Past

By Deborah Barsky , Resilience.org

Human technologies have continued to evolve exponentially since the end of the Paleolithic: today we are using them to learn more about the past.

Warren Anthony “Gus” Yellowhair of Tatanka Rez Tourz just after sharing the creation story of the Lakota peoples outside the visitor center at Wind Cave National Park.

‘Land Back’ at the Center of Debates Over How to Preserve the Biosphere

By Greg Harman , Deceleration

Gathering in the last week of August in the Black Hills of South Dakota, or Hé Sapa in Lakota, speakers and organizers of the 12th convening of the World Wilderness Congress say the extinction crisis is intrinsically tied to both the dispossession of Indigenous peoples and the rising heat generated by the burning of fossil fuels.

European Central Bank Supervisory Board Speech on Banks' Operational Resilience

The European Central Bank has published a speech by Frank Elderson, ECB Executive Board member and Supervisory Board Vice-Chair, on banks' operational resilience. Operational resilience has become a key priority for regulators globally. Mr Elderson notes that EU's Digital Operational Resilience Act, which applies from January 17, 2025, will significantly enhance IT and cyber risk management. However, the ECB's cyber resilience stress test earlier this year illustrated that there is scope for improvement, and the ECB appeals to Eurozone banks to prioritize operational and cyber resilience. Mr Elderson also referred to cloud outsourcing risk where, in order to gain better insight into risk controls at cloud service providers, ECB banking supervision has started conducting on-site inspections of CSPs. The ECB recently consulted on a draft guide on outsourcing cloud services to cloud service providers, with the aim of clarifying the ECB's expectations for the banks it supervises. Noting that concentration risk may arise where financial institutions outsource critical functions to a common critical service provider, the ECB encourages prudential supervisors to coordinate with other supervisory authorities, such as competition authorities, to understand the dynamic market forces at play. Coordination is crucial for ensuring that the drive towards digitalization, which may result in an increase in market concentration, does not undermine financial stability. Cloud outsourcing risk affects multiple jurisdictions; as such, the ECB has teamed up with other prudential authorities to conduct a joint review into cloud outsourcing practices. This will enable them to better understand how banks are adopting cloud technology and the risks it may pose. Finally, Mr Elderson emphasized that banks must continue investing in building their operational resilience by, for instance, replacing legacy systems with state-of-the-art IT infrastructure, including in the areas of IT risk management and cyber hygiene, as well as ensuring that business continuity plans and third-party dependency management are implemented consistently. In addition, banks must ensure that employees at all levels of the organization have the appropriate skillset, whether they are experts or managers, including boards and management bodies.

[ View source .]

Latest Posts

Financial Conduct Authority Talks about a Targeted and Outcomes-Based Approach to Tackling Financial Crime
UK Payments Regulator Consults on Reducing Maximum Level of Reimbursement for APP Scams
UK Financial Conduct Authority Reports on Payment Account Access and Closures
UK Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 (Commencement No 7) Regulations 2024 Published

DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations. Attorney Advertising.

Refine your interests »

Written by:

PUBLISH YOUR CONTENT ON JD SUPRA NOW

Increased visibility
Actionable analytics
Ongoing guidance

Published In:

A&o shearman on:.

"My best business intelligence, in one easy email…"

Building a Green, Resilient, and Inclusive Recovery: Speech by World Bank Group President David Malpass

World Bank Group President David Malpass Speech at the London School of Economics

As Prepared for Delivery

You can watch the replay of the event here

Introduction

Thank you, Baroness Shafik. It’s a pleasure to be here with you, a distinguished alumna of the World Bank Group, and other distinguished World Bank alumni at LSE including Lord Stern, our former Chief Economist. And thanks to the London School of Economics for hosting me virtually. Today, I will set the stage ahead of the World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings. This provides an opportunity to engage partners on urgent matters, including work on climate change, debt, and inequality, working toward a green, resilient, and inclusive recovery.

Let me begin by acknowledging the importance of the United Kingdom within the World Bank Group. The UK is the largest contributor to IDA. It is the IBRD’s fifth-largest shareholder, and I enjoy strong relationships with Prime Minister Johnson, Secretary of State Raab, Chancellor of the Exchequer Sunak, Bank of England Governor Bailey, President of COP26 Alok Sharma, and members of Parliament, civil society, the private sector, academia, and media. Our office in London works to promote consensus around the international development agenda and build a platform for collaboration on shared priorities.

More than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, the scale of the tragedy is unprecedented: 127 million infections, 2.8 million deaths, more than 100 million people pushed into extreme poverty, the equivalent of 250 million jobs lost, and a quarter-billion people driven into acute hunger. Besides its immediate harm, COVID-19 is leaving lasting “scars:” closed schools and physical stunting of children; collapsed businesses and lost jobs; the depletion of savings and assets; and debt overhangs that will depress investment and squeeze out urgent social spending.

COVID-19 descended on the poor like wildfire. It was layered on several slow-burning crises—rising conflict and violence, refugee camps, stagnant median incomes, reckless lending and poorly chosen debt contracts, and damage caused by climate change. Because these crises struck at different speeds, the natural tendency everywhere was to tackle them separately—one-at-a-time, without sufficient attention to cross-connections that might have enabled a more effective response.

The world is developing a better line of sight forward. Our collective responses to poverty, climate change, and inequality will be the defining choices of our age. It is time to move urgently toward opportunities and solutions that achieve sustainable and broad-based economic growth without harming climate, degrading the environment, or leaving hundreds of millions of families in poverty. We’re calling our approach to these interlinked crises GRID—Green, Resilient, Inclusive Development.

In previous addresses, I’ve detailed some of the World Bank Group’s actions in helping countries respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, tackle what I’ve called the “pandemic of inequality,” and work toward recovery. These include new COVID-related emergency health programs in 112 countries, vaccination operations that we expect will reach $4 billion of commitments available in 50 countries by mid-year, and a quick doubling of our trade and working capital finance to help fill the banking vacuum that hit private sectors. Despite COVID-related work-from-home restrictions, the World Bank had record 65% growth in program delivery in 2020—an even bigger surge than the height of the global financial crisis response in 2009—and this elevated level of delivery is continuing in 2021. It’s important that every commitment has the greatest possible development impact and robust operational policies and review processes. And we’re building a culture of contestability, where we encourage our highly diverse, multi-disciplinary and globally experienced staff to challenge each other’s perspectives and help to enhance the quality of operations, throughout both preparation and implementation.

External input is vital too, including from development professionals and schools such as yours. Each of our Country Partnership Frameworks is developed with citizen participation. We’re working to help countries build “Country Platforms” to engage with a wider groups of development actors as they develop the programs we support. External experts frequently participate in the development of our projects and programs. And in the past year, we’ve taken significant steps to enhance the accountability mechanisms for both the World Bank, and for IFC and MIGA. It’s worth mentioning that IFC has committed $330 billion in long term finance from 1960-2021, and over half of this has been delivered just in the last 10 years.

I encourage each of you to read World Bank country programs, project documents, and our knowledge sharing to think about what works—and possibly what doesn’t. Good development outcomes in countries are at the heart of the Bank’s mission and activities. The challenge extends to every academic discipline, and we need faster progress across the board—in water, nutrition, education, health, infrastructure, electricity access, governance, regulation, taxation, connectivity, inclusion, tolerance, and a host of other critical issues.

I’m going to focus today on three of the most pressing challenges – climate, debt, and inequality. But first allow me to give you some of the background and context.

The World Bank was created with the IMF in 1944 before World War II was over. The first goal for the Bank was post-war reconstruction and development, and the first arm of the World Bank Group was IBRD, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Today, it’s made up of 189 member countries, or shareholders, and operates somewhat like a non-profit bank, making floating and fixed rate loans to governments for development purposes, for example to support expenditures on clean water, climate, or education.

A second important arm of the Bank is IDA, the International Development Association, which started in 1960 explicitly to help the world’s poorest countries. IDA aims to reduce poverty by providing grants and very long-term, zero-rate or near-zero-rate loans. In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2020, IDA made commitments for 305 projects totaling $30 billion, of which 26% was provided on grant terms. Since its inception, IDA has provided about $450 billion for investments in 114 countries. It is an effective way for donors to provide highly concessional financing to poorer nations. Due to the severity of the pandemic, IDA was able to accelerate its financing commitments dramatically in 2020, and I’m happy to say our shareholders have agreed to an early replenishment of IDA in order to continue current elevated levels of assistance to the poorest countries. We’re working to conclude an ambitious IDA20 replenishment by December, with the support of major contributors including the UK.

The WBG is the largest of the multilateral development banks, making over $100 billion in grants and loans over the last year and raising nearly $100 billion in global bond markets. In addition to IBRD and IDA, we have an important arm to support the private sector, IFC, and a guarantee agency to support investment in developing countries, MIGA.

During my tenure as President, we’ve made several important changes at the WBG to make our work as effective as possible. I’d like to mention the realignment that was completed last June. It increases management accountability and brings staff closer to clients and country programs. The realignment created a greater focus on country-level impact, supported by more operationally relevant and policy-focused knowledge programs and research. The organizational goal is to apply the Bank’s global knowledge in client countries to achieve development outcomes that will be transformational and scalable. At the country-level, we are focusing more on countries afflicted by fragility, conflict, and violence. We have expanded our presence and our delivery in these FCV countries, which will be critical in our work to support refugees, reduce migration and violence, and help countries and regions stabilize. In the next few years, these steps will lead to a smaller footprint in Washington and a growing majority of our globally and locally recruited staff in developing countries.

Topic 1: Climate

Now let me turn to climate, one of my three focus topics today. I know climate is on all our minds, and perhaps particularly in the UK as the hosts of COP26 in Glasgow this November. The World Bank is actively supporting developing countries to achieve significant progress on the climate agenda through the lens that investing in climate offers development opportunities.

The World Bank Group is the biggest provider of climate finance to the developing world. My first year as President saw the biggest climate investments in our history—and investments in my second year are on track to be bigger still. We’ve set an ambitious new target of 35% for climate investments on average over the next five years—meaning that 35% of the financing within our investments as a whole is supporting developing country climate benefits. To give you a sense of the scale of the ambition, over the previous 5 years the World Bank Group climate finance was 26% of a significantly smaller amount of lending.

Our climate financing will be used toward “mitigation” efforts, to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions and their impacts; and for “adaptation” efforts, to help countries prepare for negative climate effects. We’ve set a second important target in that regard. Of our total climate finance over the next five years, at least 50% on average will be for adaptation. I’d expect the share of adaptation to be particularly large in the IDA countries, which currently account for just 4% of global emissions, even as many of them suffer life-threatening climate change impacts.

In addition to these high targets for financing, we are working to achieve the most impact in terms of results—actual improvements in the trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions and lives and livelihoods saved through adaptation. To help this effort, we’re moving to integrate climate into all our country diagnostics and country strategies. Over the next year, we plan to complete up to 25 Country Climate and Development Reports. We’ll aim to include in this first wave those developing countries with the largest carbon emissions and those with the greatest climate-vulnerabilities. We’re also working to improve results-measurement to help make sure that our financing and strategies deliver impact.

A key part of our climate action is to support countries with their Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs, and long-term low carbon development plans. Countries have widely varying approaches, and we want to help them integrate climate and development as effectively as possible, including through fiscal policy and plans for sustainable growth. For some countries, carbon taxation will be an effective way to help guide capital and respond to the distributive impact of the response to climate change. Every year, G20 countries alone put tens of billions of dollars into subsidizing high carbon industries. If these billions could instead be used to fund a “just transition,” just think how much faster we could progress toward a low-carbon, net-zero world.

Green growth will involve several key systemic transformations—for example, in energy, food systems, manufacturing, transportation and urban infrastructure. Each transformation is complicated, but these sectors account for 90% of GHG emissions, so they are the key to GHG reduction. One of the most challenging and important transformations is for countries to achieve a just transition from coal to affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy. The Bank can help countries with this, but it is complicated for a number of reasons including: economic dependence on coal, worker displacement as the transition occurs, the cost of new infrastructure and writing off many large, recent investments, and the importance of identifying ways to provide rapid growth in affordable, reliable and year-round base load to replace coal in the national grids of developing countries facing energy poverty. The world needs to make further technological breakthroughs before we can achieve a zero-carbon world.

Climate presents several big challenges and opportunities for economics, finance, and development. I’d like to mention several and encourage public discussion. First, how does the world help poorer countries make large investments in global public goods such as their reduction in coal usage? Should the costs be shared worldwide? If so, how? Second, how can national incentives be aligned and financed to help people transition to greener fuels and jobs, for example using carbon and gasoline taxes? Third, can an effective carbon credit market be created that allows greenhouse gas emissions for some while paying for reductions elsewhere—not just certificates of notional carbon reduction but actual measurable and sustainable decarbonization? Fourth, how can we properly measure the full life-cycle costs and benefits of various climate policy choices? Fifth, how can people in poorer countries best make the necessary but expensive adaptations to climate change and how can they best prepare for future pandemics and natural disasters – knowing that preparation is much better than after-the-fact disaster relief? And lastly, how can the necessary progress on global public goods be best integrated with development and the necessary reductions in poverty and increases in shared prosperity?

These are key questions and challenges at the core of combatting climate change. The Bank is addressing these challenges in our analytical work in low- and middle-income countries, and in our rapidly expanding climate operations.

Topic 2: Debt

I also want to comment on the debt situation facing poorer countries. At the outset, let me mention the progress that is occurring in Sudan, one of the most heavily indebted and poorest countries in Africa. Sudan already bears scars from decades of conflict. And its people face deep peril from climate change: food security depends on rainfall, especially in rural areas, which are home to 65% of population. Sudan has made strong economic progress, including the unification of its exchange rate. That is a key ingredient in a country’s recipe toward stabilization, price stability, and productive and equitable resource allocation. In addition to these and other policy reforms, the Republic of Sudan has cleared its arrears to IDA, with help from the United States Government, enabling its full re-engagement with the World Bank Group after nearly three decades, and paving the way for the country to access nearly $2 billion in IDA grants for poverty reduction and sustainable economic recovery.

By clearing its arrears and working with the IMF, Sudan has also completed a key step for receiving comprehensive external debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative. I’ve talked about Sudan at length because this is such a breakthrough at a time when Sudan needs the world’s help to support its development progress. Countries like Sudan – crushed by a burden of over $50 billion of external debt – can’t tackle poverty and respond to the climate emergency until the world finds better ways to tackle unsustainable debt.

While some progress on debt is underway, many of the poorer countries are coping with record debt burdens. Even before the pandemic, the World Bank report on Global Waves of Debt — which studied the causes and consequences of the four waves of debt accumulation that the global economy has experienced over the past fifty years—found that half of all low-income countries were already in debt distress or at a high risk of it. The pandemic has only exacerbated the debt burden on people, many of whom would be poor even without having to pay the interest and principle on their governments’ debt.

Every day, high debt-service payments are diverting scarce resources that could be used for urgent needs: for health, education, nutrition – and also climate action.

Since the outbreak of COVID, the World Bank has been the largest provider of net transfers to IDA and least-developed countries. From April to December 2020, our net transfers to these countries alone were close to $17 billion, of which $5.8 billion were on grant terms, and our new commitments were almost $30 billion. But much more is needed.

The G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI)—which I and IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva called for almost exactly one year ago—has helped. It has enabled 43 countries to postpone around $5.7 billion in debt-service payments between May and December of last year, with further savings of up to $7.3 billion expected between then and its current end-date of June.

Yet so far, the relief has been less than anticipated because not all creditors participated. Large non-Paris Club bilateral creditors have only partially participated in the DSSI and, most troubling of all, bondholders and other private creditors have continued to collect full repayments throughout the crisis.

The recent DSSI experience shows that commercial creditors won’t comply with calls for “voluntary participation” in debt relief initiatives. As the implementation of the Common Framework commences, G20 countries need to instruct and create incentives for all their public bilateral creditors to participate in debt relief efforts, including national policy banks. They also need to forcefully encourage the private creditors under their jurisdiction to participate fully in sovereign debt relief efforts for low-income countries.

There are specific measures that should be considered by G7 countries to encourage more participation. To give just one example, sovereign immunity laws might be amended to include immunity from attachment by commercial creditors who refuse to participate in a Common Framework treatment in which their Government is participating.

I believe the DSSI should be extended one more time—by six months, through the end of 2021 as many countries are still battling COVID and facing a liquidity squeeze. But it’s also time to encourage overindebted countries to adopt a debt strategy that allows them to achieve a moderate debt position. Debt sustainability needs to achieve more than just short-term solvency—the ability to not default, while providing only minimal social and economic priorities. History tells us that countries with no way out of overhanging burdens of debt don’t grow and don’t achieve lasting reductions in poverty. The G20 Common Framework for Debt Treatments—which goes beyond the DSSI—can make an important difference here.

Interest-rate reductions could play a big role in some of the debt restructurings to be done under the Common Framework. Some countries are paying interest rates of 6 or 7% on their official bilateral debt—and that simply cannot be justified in today’s conditions. Over the past two decades, high-income advanced economies have benefited from an extraordinary decline in both short- and long-term interest rates—these have dropped to nearly zero from a range of 4 to 6%. Shouldn’t the poorest countries also benefit from this “low for long” decline? Negotiating longer maturity loans could also help.

Through the Common Framework and the DSSI, we can identify unsustainable debt where it exists and help restructure it to moderate levels. For countries with high risk of debt distress, but still sustainable debt levels, we should consider reprofiling it—by extending maturities, for example. But all of this will require more participation than we have seen so far from the private sector, and some official bilateral creditors.

As in the climate area, the economic and finance challenges surrounding debt are huge and worthy of your attention and public discussion. First, what are the tradeoffs between assistance during liquidity crises for near-term debt payments versus longer-term support for sustainability that allows the people to make progress against poverty? For which countries is it appropriate to delay principle and interest payments but without reducing the stock of debt or the interest rates on it? For which countries should the total debt burden be reduced given ‘low for long’ outlook? Second, how can accountability be achieved given the difference in time horizons of those signing debt and investment contracts and those that bear the burden? For example, how can a system of contracts work when it is strongly in the interest of government officials to accept stringent contract terms for debt even though the long-term payments will be difficult? Third, how should the international financial system operate when there is no bankruptcy process for sovereign debt? How can the system resolve the glaring imbalance between creditors, who have the power and the responsibility to fully enforce contracts; and debtor countries, who are often poorer and have less capacity to resolve disagreements?

Clearly, transparency is going to be a key part of the solution to these problems. The resistance to debt transparency is intense. Airtight nondisclosure agreements often protect contracts, leaving their terms – and sometimes even their existence – secret. Some contracts include almost the reverse of a collective action clause – a clause requiring debtors to exempt the creditor from any comparable treatment, where debt restructuring, for example with the Paris Club, is agreed. In debt, as in so many areas, sunlight is truly the best remedy. Given our long-track record in helping countries to address their debt problems, the Bank, together with the Fund, will continue to engage and support countries in their efforts to achieve a moderate debt position.

Topic 3: Inequality

I’ve discussed climate and debt in some detail and some of the economic challenges they present. I’d like to close with a discussion of inequality. As I said at the outset, our response to poverty, climate change, and inequality will be defining choices of our age. Inequality is most apparent in the direct effects of COVID, that hits informal workers and the vulnerable the most; and in the unequal access to vaccines for developing countries. It is also worsening due to the focus of fiscal and monetary stimulus on support for the formal sector and selected assets at the expensive of debt owed by future generations. That problem is most applicable to advanced economies, but a similar effect hits the indebted people in the developing countries because sovereign debts and debt rollovers have their biggest positive impact on those signing the contracts – creditors and debtors – whereas the burden of the debt often falls on the poor.

I spoke at length about Reversing the Inequality Pandemic in October 2020 ahead of our Annual Meetings last year. I explained the work that we are doing to address the challenges posed by inequality, including our financial support through COVID-related emergency health programs and cash transfer programs.

These inequalities raise a third set of economic challenges I’d like to raise to your attention. First, what’s the fastest, most effective path to better vaccine distribution? It’s important for the vaccination process to start in more countries because vaccinations will take many months due to constraints in delivery capacity. The World Bank will have arranged vaccine financing for 50 developing countries by mid-year, but the supply issues are unresolved. Second, as I discussed in the climate section, how does the world finance the necessary investments in global public goods by poorer countries? Third, is there any pathway to developing countries for the massive fiscal stimulus and run-up in national debt being applied by the advanced economies? On the one hand, greater demand in the advanced economies will help create markets. But on the other hand, the loss of investments, skills and schooling during the pandemic has been catastrophic. The data is clear that poorer countries are not making the gains in living standards that were expected pre-crisis and are falling further behind. And, fourth, because the asset purchases by advanced economies are so large, long-term and selective, can the purchases be spread out more fairly to improve global capital allocation, benefit smaller businesses and new entrants, and allow borrowers needing short-term financing to have more access?

Let me conclude with this: COVID-19 has brought us to a crossroads. In our policy choices, as we look to the future, we can avoid errors of the past. To repair the damage, we will need integrated, long-run strategies that emphasize green, resilient, and inclusive development. This must be aligned with the need for policies that help countries increase literacy, reduce stunting and malnutrition, ensure clean water and energy access, and provide better health care. We must help countries improve their readiness for future pandemics. We need to help them accelerate the development and adoption of digital technologies. We need to work to improve and expand local supply chains and strengthen biodiversity and ecosystems.

There’s an important role for both the public and the private sector in all of this. Governments can help to lay the foundations, ensuring financing of health and education and investing in core public goods and basic infrastructure. Governments can also do much to clear the way by enacting appropriate legislation and creating space for the private sector wherever possible. They should enact policy reforms to spur private investment—including FDI. They should help financial institutions resolve non-performing loans as quickly as possible. Private investment will be key in addressing climate change challenges, debt issues, and inequality – each of which require innovation, which the private sector can bring. The private sector also needs to accept corporate responsibility – whether that’s applying robust environmental and social standards, paying taxes, or playing its part in debt resolution. Government and the private sector will need to cooperate in many sectors such as energy, considering joint public-private initiatives with fair burden sharing and good governance.

As I’ve emphasized during this address, cooperation between academics, development practitioners and policy makers also has a key role to play. The world faces overwhelming challenges. In some cases, the answers are clear, and the challenge is to communicate these clearly to policy makers. In other cases, academics – including those at LSE – can help to break new ground, in tackling the unanswered questions – and in doing so help to invent a greener, more resilient, and inclusive model of prosperity for the 21 st century. The World Bank Group can be a key champion in helping to address climate change, debt, and inequality bringing to the table public and private sector solutions, as well as the unique combination of analytics, financial support, and convening power.

Today, we have a historic opportunity to change course—to improve development outcomes for countries, to overcome the rising dangers of climate change, systemic inequality, social instability, and conflict. In our efforts to rebuild, we can generate a recovery that ensures a broad and lasting rise in prosperity especially for the poorest and most marginalized. It’s an opportunity we cannot afford to pass up.

an image, when javascript is unavailable

site categories

Judd apatow & steven spielberg join coke vs. pepsi film ‘cola wars’ at sony, ‘the last of the sea women’ producer malala yousafzai praises “bravery and resilience” of unique group of sea divers – toronto studio.

By Matthew Carey

Matthew Carey

Documentary Editor, Awards

In New Documentary, Andrea Bocelli Shares Brilliant Voice And Hidden Talents - Horseback Riding And Echolocation - Toronto Film Festival

Jia Zhangke Talks 'Caught By The Tides,' Teases Plot For Next Film -- Toronto

Watch on deadline.

Distributor: Apple TV+

Premiered: Sunday, Sept. 8

Key Quotes: Malala Yousafzai: “I fell in love with the story. I fell in love with the bravery and resilience of these incredible sea women who in the ages of, like, 80 and 70 and 90 are still diving into the ocean water. And they remain there without any oxygen for two to three minutes, and they’re there for hours and hours. But there’s more to their story about how they’re advocating for the safety of their ocean and how they want to protect it, how they are hoping that they can tell their story to other women and girls out there.”

Sue Kim on how the release of radioactive water from Japan’s damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant is impacting the haenyeo: “That is really what we are covering in our film is how the haenyeo are confronting this environmental crisis that is threatening their way of life, their culture, and the health of the ocean and the health of marine life. So, as you see in the film, they are doing their part to protest and to try and stop this water release from happening.”

Must Read Stories

Trump-harris debate draws 67.1m viewers, far more than trump-biden.

Judd Apatow & Steven Spielberg Join Coke Vs. Pepsi Film At Sony

Taylor swift, chappell roan, sabrina carpenter top winners; red carpet photos, ‘baby reindeer’ $170m defamation case against netflix gets trial date, read more about:, subscribe to deadline.

Get our Breaking News Alerts and Keep your inbox happy.

No Comments

An official website of the United States government

Here’s how you know

Official websites use .gov

A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS

A lock ( Lock A locked padlock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. .

Juneteenth: A Celebration of Freedom and Resilience

When Frederick Douglass delivered his speech “What to the slave is the 4th of July?” in 1852 before the start of the Civil War, he laid bare the distance between the country’s founding ideals and the reality of life for millions of enslaved people. Thirteen years later, on June 19, 1865, 2,000 Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, to announce the end of both the Civil War and slavery to 250,000 people still in bondage.

Juneteenth, sometimes referred to as our country’s second Independence Day, became a time of celebration in Texas that has spread across the nation to recognize the resilience and freedom of African Americans.

With the stroke of a pen in 2021, President Biden made June 19th the newest federal holiday, which he described it one year later as, “a day to reflect on both bondage and freedom — a day of both pain and purpose. It is, in equal measure, a remembrance of both the long, hard night of slavery and subjugation, as well as a celebration of the promise of a brighter morning to come.”

Arriving two weeks before Independence Day, Juneteenth confronts a hard truth about U.S. history. Especially considering that 250,000 Texas slaves – and countless others around our country – were denied their freedom during the period after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. This miscarriage of justice ran counter to the American ideal and the beliefs of people who considered freedom and justice foundations of our nation.

FEMA serves and reflects a nation that is strengthened by its diversity and enhanced when we strive to make equity our North Star. Our mission, our core values and our service to those who turn to us in their times of greatest need and distress represent the best parts of our humanity as we help people before, during and after disasters.

“Great nations do not ignore their most painful moments — they face them,” President Biden noted in the 2022 White House Juneteenth Proclamation. “We grow stronger as a country when we honestly confront our past injustices, including the profound suffering and injustice wrought by slavery and generations of segregation and discrimination against Black Americans. To heal, we must remember. We must never rest until the promise of our Nation is made real for all Americans.”

Or as poet Maya Angelou succinctly put it, “The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.”

If you want to learn more about Juneteenth, visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture Juneteenth collection , and the Texas State Historical Association Juneteenth page .

This week: the arXiv Accessibility Forum

Help | Advanced Search

Computer Science > Cryptography and Security

Title: d-captcha++: a study of resilience of deepfake captcha under transferable imperceptible adversarial attack.

Abstract: The advancements in generative AI have enabled the improvement of audio synthesis models, including text-to-speech and voice conversion. This raises concerns about its potential misuse in social manipulation and political interference, as synthetic speech has become indistinguishable from natural human speech. Several speech-generation programs are utilized for malicious purposes, especially impersonating individuals through phone calls. Therefore, detecting fake audio is crucial to maintain social security and safeguard the integrity of information. Recent research has proposed a D-CAPTCHA system based on the challenge-response protocol to differentiate fake phone calls from real ones. In this work, we study the resilience of this system and introduce a more robust version, D-CAPTCHA++, to defend against fake calls. Specifically, we first expose the vulnerability of the D-CAPTCHA system under transferable imperceptible adversarial attack. Secondly, we mitigate such vulnerability by improving the robustness of the system by using adversarial training in D-CAPTCHA deepfake detectors and task classifiers.

Comments:	14 pages
Subjects:	Cryptography and Security (cs.CR); Machine Learning (cs.LG); Sound (cs.SD); Audio and Speech Processing (eess.AS)
Cite as:	[cs.CR]
	(or [cs.CR] for this version)
	Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

Submission history

Access paper:.

HTML (experimental)
Other Formats

References & Citations

Google Scholar
Semantic Scholar

BibTeX formatted citation

Bibliographic and Citation Tools

Code, data and media associated with this article, recommenders and search tools.

Institution

arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators

arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.

Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.

Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs .

Celebrities

Environment

Perspectives

← Back

Pope Francis praises 'positive inclusiveness' in S'pore, warns against over-focus on pragmatism & merit

Thoughts from the Pope for Singapore.

Pope Francis spoke at the National University of Singapore (NUS) on Sep. 12, covering a range of topics such as Singapore's story and its diversity, the Catholic Church's contributions here, Singapore's role in the international order, and environmental crisis.

He also spoke about the role of the family, warning of challenges from "current social conditions".

His visit to Singapore marks the second time a Pope has visited Singapore, and the first such visit in 38 years.

Praised Singapore's story as one of 'growth & resilience'

To a packed auditorium at the NUS Cultural Centre, Pope Francis thanked Singapore authorities for welcoming him to the nation.

Those present at the address included Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, former Presidents Tony Tan and Halimah Yacob, Ministers Vivian Balakrishnan, Edwin Tong, Grace Fu, and Josephine Teo, and Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh.

Pope Francis highlighted that Singapore's story is one of "growth and resilience" from humble beginnings — the result of rational decisions and not by chance.

He remarked that anyone arriving in Singapore cannot fail to be impressed by its "mass of ultra-modern skyscrapers that seem to rise from the sea".

Pope Francis pointed out that 2024 marks the 101st anniversary of founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew's birth, and noted that he "gave a strong impetus to the country's rapid growth and transformation".

Amidst Singapore's economic prosperity, Pope Francis said it was important that the nation has strived to build a society that holds social justice and the common good in high regard.

He praised Singapore's commitment to improving citizens' quality of life through its public housing, education and healthcare policies.

"I hope that these efforts will continue until all Singaporeans are able to benefit from them fully," he said.

Warned against over-focusing on pragmatism & merit

That said, Pope Francis acknowledged that a focus on pragmatism and merit above all things can have unintended consequences, like justifying the exclusion of those on the margins from benefiting from progress.

While commending the policies and initiatives in place to protect the most vulnerable, Pope Francis expressed his hope that special attention will be paid to the poor and the elderly, and to protect the dignity of migrant workers.

"These workers contribute a great deal to society and should be guaranteed a fair wage".

Pope Francis also cautioned that the digital age and the rise of artificial intelligence should not lead us to forget "the essential need" to cultivate real and concrete human relationships.

"These technologies should be used to bring closer together by promoting understanding and solidarity, and never to isolate ourselves in a dangerously false and intangible reality," he added.

Praised Singapore's 'positive inclusiveness'

Earlier, before Pope Francis's speech, President Tharman Shanmugaratnam had spoken on Singapore's status as a a multi-racial, multi-religious, and multi-cultural society.

He lauded Pope Francis for consistently calling for efforts to promote harmony and dialogue between different groups and faiths.

"Our religious leaders play a key role in guiding their communities in understanding and practising their own religious beliefs, while also fostering shared norms and values with others," Tharman said.

Pope Francis similarly acknowledged Singapore's make-up as a "mosaic of ethnicities, cultures and religions living together in harmony".

He said that this "positive inclusiveness" could only be achieved and preserved through impartial public authorities who engage in constructive dialogue with all.

This, he said, helped to counter extremism and intolerance.

Pope Francis also stressed the importance of "mutual respect, cooperation, dialogue and the freedom to exercise one's beliefs within the confines of the law".

Family may be threatened by social conditions: Pope Francis

President Tharman took the opportunity in his speech to thank the Catholic Church for its contributions to Singapore over the decades.

Similarly, Pope Francis referenced the contributions made by the Catholic Church, especially in the areas of education and healthcare.

Pope Francis pointed out that the Catholic community continues to contribute to humanitarian efforts and manages several healthcare and humanitarian institutions.

He added that the church has continued to promote interreligious dialogue and cooperation in multi-cultural Singapore, in a spirit of openness and mutual respect.

Noting the importance of the family in teaching young people values and how to relate to one another, Pope Francis warned that the foundations on which families are built are being challenged by "current social conditions".

He thus commended efforts by various institutions to promote, protect and support family unity.

Singapore has a role to play in the world

President Tharman noted that the world faces critical challenges today, such as the weakening of the global order, unabated conflict and aggression, and growing intolerance within societies.

Pope Francis similarly highlighted the threats of conflicts and "wars that have spilled much blood", and said Singapore has a "specific role" to play on the international front.

He welcomed Singapore's promotion of multilateralism and a rules-based order, and encouraged the nation to work for the common good of all peoples and all nations.

In his speech, President Tharman shared his appreciation for the Catholic Church in serving as a strong voice for environmental sustainability.

He said that Pope Francis's support for the 2015 Paris Agreement and his call to action for an agreement on climate action at the COP28 climate change conference have inspired many.

On this, Pope Francis noted we live in an era of "environmental crisis", and said Singapore should not underestimate the impact it can have in this area.

"Your unique location gives you access to capital, technology and talent, resources that can drive innovation in order to take better care of our common home," he said.

Pope Francis landed in Singapore on Sep. 11.

He arrived at Parliament House at about 9am on Sep. 12, and was given a ceremonial welcome.

Pope Francis will also be presiding over a Mass held at the National Stadium.

On Sep. 13, he will be visiting a group of the sick and elderly at Saint Theresa's Home and take part in an interreligious dialogue with youths in a closed-door event at Catholic Junior College.

Top image by Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore / YouTube

If you like what you read, follow us on Facebook , Instagram , Twitter and Telegram to get the latest updates.

Motorcyclist, 28, dies after accident with truck along TPE

The accident happened around 10:25pm on Sep. 11.

Pope Francis greets well-wishers in the morning in Punggol

The earliest well-wisher arrived and waited for the Pope since 6:30am.

POV: We followed the police & SAF on an overnight bomb sweep of National Stadium for Pope Francis' mass

All systems go.

Don Don Donki to stop selling plastic bags at 16 S'pore outlets from Oct. 1, 2024

M'sian man, 28, fled to m'sia after fatal bke hit-&-run, jailed 3 years & 10 months.

Court documents revealed that he travelled "at an extreme speed of 141kmh" before the accident took place.

Free breakfast bundles for PSLE students at Cheers, FairPrice Xpress outlets from Sep. 20-21

Each bundle is worth more than S$20, according to FairPrice Group.

M'sia Airlines flight to Bali turns back to KL shortly after taking off

What caused the plane to turn back has not been confirmed.

M'sia woman, 40, attacked by romp of otters while jogging in Sabah

She said she did not know why she was attacked as she did not provoke them.

Pope Francis' visit will showcase S’pore’s unique brand of multiculturalism & diversity: Edwin Tong

Tong noted the theme of the papal visit, "Unity and Hope", calling it "apt and timely" for Singapore.

About | Advertise with us | Contact us | We Are Hiring | Privacy policy

Tata Motors share price
976.00 -5.74%
Tata Steel share price
148.15 -0.87%
NTPC share price
389.70 -1.76%
State Bank Of India share price
768.30 -1.83%
ITC share price
514.25 0.16%

SEMICON India 2024: Indian-made chips to investment boost, 5 key takeaways from PM Modi's speech

At semicon india 2024, pm modi highlighted india's commitment of over ₹1.5 lakh crore in semiconductor investments, emphasizing the need for supply chain resilience and aiming for an indian-made chip in every device globally..

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses a gathering during the inauguration of SEMICON India 2024, in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh on Sept 11, 2024. (PTI via Narendra Modi on X)

In a significant address at SEMICON India 2024, held on the outskirts of the national capital, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasized the critical role of supply chain resilience in the global economy and pitched for India's semiconductor manufacturing capabilities.

Here are the top five takeaways from the Prime Minister's speech at the event:

Investment Boost for Semiconductor Manufacturing

Modi highlighted that India has already secured commitments of over ₹ 1.5 lakh crore in investments towards semiconductor manufacturing. This is a major step towards positioning India as a global semiconductor hub, with several new projects in the pipeline to further accelerate growth.

Focus on Supply Chain Resilience

Drawing lessons from the supply chain disruptions witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic, Modi stressed the importance of building resilient supply chains across various sectors. He underlined India's efforts to strengthen its own supply chains, particularly in semiconductor manufacturing, to avoid future global shocks.

'Indian-made Chip in Every Device' Dream

The Prime Minister articulated an ambitious vision for India, stating that the government’s goal is to see an Indian-made semiconductor chip in every electronic device worldwide. This reflects India's aspirations to play a leading role in the global semiconductor supply chain.

India's 'Three-D Power' for Semiconductor Industry

Modi also pointed out the three critical factors driving India's semiconductor ambitions— a reformist government, a robust and growing manufacturing base, and a tech-savvy market eager to adopt cutting-edge innovations. He referred to these as the "Three-D Power ," which provides a strong foundation for India’s semiconductor industry.

India as a Global Semiconductor Powerhouse

PM Modi positioned India as a reliable and attractive destination for semiconductor investments, showcasing the country’s stable policies, reform-oriented governance, and expanding manufacturing ecosystem. He assured global investors that India would do whatever it takes to become a semiconductor powerhouse.

(With inputs from

Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world 🌏 Click here to know more.

3.6 Crore Indians visited in a single day choosing us as India's undisputed platform for General Election Results. Explore the latest updates here!

Wait for it…

You are just one step away from creating your watchlist!

Oops! Looks like you have exceeded the limit to bookmark the image. Remove some to bookmark this image.

Your session has expired, please login again.

Congratulations!

You are now subscribed to our newsletters. In case you can’t find any email from our side, please check the spam folder.

Subscribe to continue

This is a subscriber only feature Subscribe Now to get daily updates on WhatsApp

Entertainment
Life & Style

To enjoy additional benefits

CONNECT WITH US

PM Modi pitches India to chip makers, talks of supply chain resilience

Prime minister modi emphasises importance of resilient supply chains and boosting investments in semiconductor manufacturing for economic growth.

Updated - September 11, 2024 05:35 pm IST - Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses a gathering during the inauguration of SEMICON India 2024, in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, Wednesday, September 11, 2024. | Photo Credit: PTI

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday (September 11, 2024) said resilience of supply chains is critical for the economy as he made a pitch to boost investments in domestic manufacturing of semiconductors – the foundation of everything from smartphone to EV and AI.

Speaking at the SEMICON 2024 conference on the outskirts of the national capital, the Prime Minister said the COVID pandemic showed the importance of the supply chain and underscored the need to act to ward off any disruption.

“Resilience of the supply chain is very important,” he said. “India is working to create the same in different sectors of the economy.”

The world witnessed supply shocks during COVID-19, as stringent measures to control the spread of pandemic in China affected the industries and sectors dependent on imports from that country. One of the sectors impacted was chips that form a critical part of every electronic device.

Prime Minister showcased India’s reformist regime, stable policies and a market that has tasted technology to make a strong pitch for investments in semiconductor manufacturing.

“It is our dream to have an Indian-made chip in every device in the world,” he said and added that “We will do everything that is needed to make India a semiconductor powerhouse.”

Talking of steps taken by his government to boost semiconductor manufacturing, he said a reformist government, a growing manufacturing base and an aspirational market that has tasted technology provide a ‘Three-D Power’ for chip making in the country.

“Today’s India inspires confidence in the world. When the chips are down, you can bet on India,” he said.

He said investment of over ₹1.5 lakh crore has already been committed in semiconductor manufacturing and many projects are in pipeline.

Published - September 11, 2024 02:06 pm IST

Top News Today

Access 10 free stories every month
Save stories to read later
Access to comment on every story
Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products

Terms & conditions | Institutional Subscriber

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.

IMAGES

54 Most Inspiring Quotes on Resilience (LEADERSHIP)
The Best Resilience Quotes to Give You The Strength You Need
Impact of Resilience and Optimism on Life Satisfaction Free Essay Example
Jamais Cascio Quote: “Resilience is all about being able to overcome
71 Best Resilience Quotes for Bouncing Back
30+ Resilience Quotes and Resilient Quotes

VIDEO

FORCE YOURSELF TO STAY DISCIPLINED, CONSISTENT and STRONG
Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are
Discover True Power: Mastering Self & Emotions
Transform Your Mindset: Embracing Resilience & New Insights
The Inspiring Journey of Sarah: A Story of Resilience
Turning Pain into Purpose

COMMENTS

10 Powerful TED Talks on Resilience, Empathy, & Compassion
Powerful TED Talks on resilience, empathy, compassion, and related topics for clinical/educational use or for self-help. For more recommended TED Talks, ... Sarah Knight's speech will leave you rethinking your own priorities (and fucks to give - or not to give) in life. 7. The Price of Shame | Monica Lewinsky (2015)
Essay on Resilience: Why it important & how to develop it? (1400+ words)
Why it matters. Resilience is more important than ever because of a combination of factors. The first is that humans are evolving, which means that, as a species, we are becoming more and more resilient. The second is that things, like work, relationships, and families, are becoming more and more challenging. The third is that our brains aren ...
Building Resilience Through Reflection & Gratitude: A Motivational Speech
I had the honor of being the Keynote Speaker for the Atlanta Black Nurses Association's 10th Annual Prayer Breakfast. Below is a transcript of my speech about building resilience through reflection & gratitude from that day, I hope that you enjoy it. - I won't dance. I promise. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. - [Audience] Good morning.
RESILIENCE MINDSET
RESILIENCE MINDSET! Resilience is the discipline to take the broken pieces and turn them into a work of art. One of the BEST Motivational Speeches EVER featu...
Resilience: The Power to Overcome, Adjust, and Persevere
The strength to cope with various obstacles simultaneously. Most people seem to associate resilience with consistently pushing forward, coping without emotionally breaking down, and succeeding ...
"You are not born with a fixed amount of resilience ...
"The seeds of resilience are planted in the way we process the negative events in our lives," Sandberg said, alluding to the work of psychologist Martin Seligman, who identified three "Ps ...
PDF Raphael Rose
Here is the full transcript of clinical psychologist Raphael Rose's talk titled "From Stress to Resilience" at TEDxManhattanBeach conference. In his research for NASA, Raphael finds that accepting and even welcoming stress helps us become more resilient, leading to a more meaningful, joyful, and socially connected life. Stress. Mistakes.
Resilience: Meaning, Types, Causes, and How to Develop It
Resilience is the ability to cope with and recover from setbacks. People who remain calm in the face of disaster have resilience. A resilient person is someone who has strong coping skills and is able to marshall their available resources, ask for help when needed, and find ways to manage the situation they are facing.
BE RESILIENT
Speech by Tyler Waye Go to Tyler Waye's YouTube channel for more videos on life leadership and success at work:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3tWHKc-RcOeV...
RESILIENCY
RESILIENCY! If you give up now then they'll be right about you. You need to persist through the hardest times of your life. Be unstoppable, not without failu...
The Secret to Building Resilience
Helping us to make sense of people or politics in a given situation. Helping us find the confidence to push back and self advocate. Helping us see a path forward. Providing empathic support so we ...
What Is Resilience, and Why Is It Important to Bounce Back?
Critically, the 'bounce back' is positive, often leading to the establishment or reinforcement of our inner strengths. The cognitive and emotional tools we develop when we adapt to adversity equip us to deal with what we may face in the future. A wide range of factors influence resilience.
Speech That Empowers: How to Encourage Growth and Resilience in a
And the moment that I'm entering, I'm trying to create a new container of which the conversation, whether it's a speech to an audience or a conversation among humans where I am just one of you know, I'm I'm a fraction of the of the whole I'm trying to be intentional about the the what I need to do to create a safe and welcoming and ...
Motivation Speech on Change and Resilience
Find the resilience to live life with conviction. Experience the sense of confidence and fulfillment in knowing the impossible is possible. Cope with change by adapting more quickly, modifying attitudes, and finding the courage to act rather than being acted upon. Move beyond fear to hope. Turn negatives into positives.
Resilience: A Guide to Facing Life's Challenges, Adversities, and Crises
Community resilience refers to the ability of groups of people to respond to and recover from adverse situations, such as natural disasters, acts of violence, economic hardship, and other ...
Resilience: Characteristics and Examples
Some of the main characteristics of a person who has resilience are awareness, self-control, problem-solving skills, and social support. Resilient people are aware of situations, their emotional reactions, and the behavior of those around them. By remaining aware, they can maintain control of a situation and think of new ways to tackle problems ...
43 Empowering Resilience & Adversity Quotes to Inspire You
43 Empowering Resilience & Adversity Quotes to Inspire You. Insightful quotes on resilience can inspire and motivate you to dig deeper and find your more resilient self while encouraging you to explore the vast literature on this exciting topic. Here is a list of 43 quotes drawn from a broad and in-depth literature review of research studies ...
The Power Of Resilience, And How To Develop It
To develop the necessary resilience and grit to keep moving forward, you have to first build a solid foundation for yourself. This foundation will act as a sort of mental fortress in which you can ...
Resilience Examples: What Key Skills Make You Resilient?
A Definition of the Resilient Person. There is an evolving definition when it comes to resilience. According to the American Psychological Association resilience is defined as the process of adapting well in the face of trauma or tragedy, threats or other significant sources of stress (Southwick et al., 2014)When it comes down to it, the concept of resilience is a complex one.
What Trauma Taught Me About Resilience
That resilience is one of the most important traits to have, is critical to their happiness and success, & can be learned.Adept at leveraging transparency to...
The Speech
The Speech. About six months ago my friend and mentor Donna called to ask if I would be willing to give one of the keynote speeches at this yearʻs agricultural conference. Donna is one of those people with excellent people skills, which means that it is very difficult to say No to her: one because she will already have cultivated a ...
European Central Bank Supervisory Board Speech on Banks' Operational
The European Central Bank has published a speech by Frank Elderson, ECB Executive Board member and Supervisory Board Vice-Chair, on banks' operational resilience. Operational resilience has become ...
Building a Green, Resilient, and Inclusive Recovery: Speech by World
World Bank Group President David Malpass Speech at the London School of Economics. As Prepared for Delivery. You can watch the replay of the event here. Introduction. Thank you, Baroness Shafik. It's a pleasure to be here with you, a distinguished alumna of the World Bank Group, and other distinguished World Bank alumni at LSE including Lord ...
Malala Yousafzai On Her New Documentary 'The Last Of The Sea Women'
Distributor: Apple TV+ Premiered: Sunday, Sept. 8 Key Quotes: Malala Yousafzai: "I fell in love with the story.I fell in love with the bravery and resilience of these incredible sea women who in ...
Juneteenth: A Celebration of Freedom and Resilience
When Frederick Douglass delivered his speech "What to the slave is the 4th of July?" in 1852 before the start of the Civil War, he laid bare the distance between the country's founding ideals and the reality of life for millions of enslaved people. Thirteen years later, on June 19, 1865, 2,000 Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, to announce the end of both the Civil War and ...
D-CAPTCHA++: A Study of Resilience of Deepfake CAPTCHA under
The advancements in generative AI have enabled the improvement of audio synthesis models, including text-to-speech and voice conversion. This raises concerns about its potential misuse in social manipulation and political interference, as synthetic speech has become indistinguishable from natural human speech. Several speech-generation programs are utilized for malicious purposes, especially ...
Pope Francis praises 'positive inclusiveness' in S'pore, warns against
Praised Singapore's story as one of 'growth & resilience' ... Earlier, before Pope Francis's speech, President Tharman Shanmugaratnam had spoken on Singapore's status as a a multi-racial, multi ...
SEMICON India 2024: 5 key takeaways from MP Modi's speech
At SEMICON India 2024, PM Modi highlighted India's commitment of over ₹1.5 lakh crore in semiconductor investments, emphasizing the need for supply chain resilience and aiming for an Indian-made ...
PM Modi pitches India to chip makers, talks of supply chain resilience
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday (September 11, 2024) said resilience of supply chains is critical for the economy as he made a pitch to boost investments in domestic manufacturing of ...