The Resilience Masterclass

Turn challenges into opportunities.

Turn pain into purpose and possibility.

Introduction

In 1997, I was incarcerated in a violent California prison. My mom died, my wife left me, and I hit the absolute lowest point of my life. I knew the road ahead was going to be VERY rough.

Initially, I believed my prison experience was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I later learned that prison and the challenges that came after it were also some of the best things that ever happened to me because these things taught me how to become more resilient—even in some of the worst situations imaginable.

Resilience is one of the most important life and business skills. It helps us successfully adapt to adversity and tragedy. It helps us manage major changes at our companies and organizations, such as hiring challenges, market changes, financial and operational challenges, organizational changes, and other unpredictable events. Resilience gives us the courage, wisdom, and strength to move forward after encountering big setbacks and challenges. It helps us keep a positive attitude, appreciate life, thrive during uncertainty, and live a happier, more purposeful life.

Without resilience, we’ll constantly think about things we can’t control, become negative, develop unhealthy coping mechanisms, and feel overwhelmed. In the worst cases, we can obsessively worry, develop anxiety, and watch our businesses decline.

Resilience is an odd thing. We can be resilient in some areas of life or business, but lack resilience in other critical areas. We can learn lessons and become more resilient in some situations, yet continue to make the same mistakes or allow our negative minds to continually spin out of control and make things far more difficult.

Workshop Topics

Buddhism Meets Western Psychology

Buddha believed a lot of our problems in life are caused by 2 arrows. The first arrow that hits us is a challenge. The second arrow is the story we tell ourselves about that challenge. Our monkey minds oftentimes tell us false stories about our challenges. How many times have you thought something bad would happen and it didn’t? This is our negative minds spinning out of control.

In this workshop, I’ll teach you how to use some concepts from positive and cognitive-behavioral psychology to rewire your brain to see challenges at your company and your personal life in a more realistic, empowering way. We’ll look at how our brains send us down that negative spiral and how to stop it.

Tony Robbins said, “It’s never the environment. It’s never the events of our lives, but the meaning we attach to the events – how we interpret them – that shapes who we are today and who we’ll become tomorrow.” We’ll work on creating positive mindsets by attaching the right meaning to each challenge we encounter. You’ll do some exercises to bring awareness to how you see the world and how to create stronger mindsets.

The Power of Mindfulness

Eastern Buddhists were practicing mindfulness well over 2,000 years ago, yet psychologists, researchers, doctors, and life coaches only began integrating it into Western medicine and personal development around 30 years ago. Mindfulness is a critical part of resilience because it helps us become aware of our thoughts, feelings, and emotions. It also helps us make sense of them and regulate them so we’re making the best decisions during the most difficult times.

In this workshop, you’ll learn how to use mindfulness to get more in tune with your inner world so you can manage life’s biggest challenges.

Turning Pain into Purpose & Possibility

While finding purpose in pain is one of the best ways to develop strong resilience, it goes far beyond resilience because finding our true purpose is also the path to happiness, freedom, and living your best life.

World-famous psychologist Abraham Maslow once said, “The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.” Most people sell themselves short. They don’t reach their full potential in life. They aren’t living purposeful lives or are only scratching the surface of the ideal, purposeful life they could be experiencing. Do you believe you could be doing more with your life right now?

We’ll dive deeper into the different types of purpose and help you explore your ideal purpose. I’ll teach you how me, Viktor Frankl, and many other people used our pain to find purpose. I’ll help you identify areas of pain in your life and how to turn them into possibilities.

Owning Your Story

Brene Brown said, “Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it….only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”

When I got out of prison, it took me a long time to own my story. Not owning it and avoiding my past made me less resilient, more fearful, and kept me trapped in the mental prison of shame.

When I finally owned my story, it opened many doors. Doors of healing, redemption, happiness, success, and possibility. I’ll talk about how owning your story can open these same doors for you.

Good People Soften the Landing

All of us are ultimately responsible for changing our mindsets and learning the tools we need to become more resilient. But we do need other people to support us when we go thru adversity, trauma, and tragedy in life. It’s possible to get thru these things on our own, without the support of others, but it’s a LOT harder.

I’ll talk about how we can leverage other people to help us thru tough times and help make us more resilient. What if you don’t have family members or friends to support you? I’ll talk about what to do in those situations, too.

Gratitude

Gratitude is a very simple, but powerful part of developing resilience. Unfortunately, many of us get so caught up in worry, fear, uncertainty, and anxiety, that we don’t appreciate the good things we have and the great things we’ve accomplished. We’ll revisit it and make sure everyone is using this essential tool of resilience.

Resilience Goals

How can we change our lives in a big way if we don’t set specific, measurable goals? At the end of this workshop, everyone will set their own resilience goals for themselves or their companies or organizations. This will help ensure you have a roadmap to resilience and you’re taking the action necessary to really integrate these critical resilience concepts into your life.

You’ll make a list of goals you want to accomplish so you can make big changes and become happier and more resilient.