Resilience Weathers Challenges (Like AI)

Cinder to Flame’s vision is to open the gateway to sustainable, quality living. Multiple, global challenges threaten this vision and humans need to continually muster resilience to navigate through life. Varied competencies underpin resilience such as courage, flexibility, and persistence that apply to human work and corporate culture across public and private service and industry sectors, from large corporations to small organizations. We will review different perspectives of resilience.

The philosophy of several prominent thinkers and researchers link resilience to overcoming failure. John C. Maxwell said: “failure teaches resilience” and “the one quality all successful people have in common.” Adam Grant stated there is strong evidence that we actually learn more from our failures than our successes. The reason is that failure forces us to stop, reflect and revise our plan or approach.

Let’s inject a bit of humour: Johannes Haushofer published a CV of his career failures to help students who were feeling discouraged. He wrote: “This darn CV of Failures has received way more attention than my entire body of academic work.”

Reflect upon these quotations about resilience and identify what resonates with you:

“A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.” (Franklin D. Roosevelt)

“The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.”                         (Robert Jordan)

“On the other side of a storm is the strength that comes from having navigated it.” (Gregory S. Williams)                              

“She stood in the storm and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails.” “Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it's less good than the one you had before.” (Elizabeth Edwards)

“I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.”                          (Maya Angelou)

“Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”   “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”                          (Nelson Mandela)

“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying ‘I will try again tomorrow’.” (Mary Anne Radmacher)

“Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.”                  (Robert Louis Stevenson)

“If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” (Martin Luther King Jr.)

“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.”                          (Thomas A. Edison)

“Energy and persistence conquer all things.”  (Benjamin Franklin)

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, but the most adaptable.”  (Charles Darwin)

“Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don't have the strength.” (Theodore Roosevelt)

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”                          “If you're going through hell, keep going.”   (Winston Churchill)

Authors of these quotations are unknown:

• “Fall seven times, stand up eight.” (Japanese Proverb)

• "Hard times show us what we are made of, but they also show us what we can become."

• "Resilience is the virtue of champions."

• “Be like a diamond, which can withstand immense pressure and still shine."

• "The internal flame burns brighter when the outer world gets darker."

Let’s close with Cinder to Flame’s perspective:

The paradox of resilience is that it keeps us anchored while helping us to move forward during turbulent times. Resilience is inseparable from health, well-being and a growth mindset. Resilience must be nurtured; it requires practicing self-care, exercising courage to take risks and embracing failure as a flexible opportunity for continuous learning.

Cinder to Flame helps Corporations solve complex challenges with strategic services that energize people, fuel a healthy corporate culture and ignite major innovation.

We are rapidly transitioning from the information age into the new age of intelligence (AI). It is critical that this paradigm shift maintains a primary focus on people. Perspectives and quotations based upon life experience are relevant to humans, not technology. Resilient people make up a resilient corporate culture, aligned for success. Resilience is a human concept that endures over time. Don’t miss the opportunity to participate in Cinder to Flame’s workshop series that can help you build the human side of an AI roadmap to complement your technological planning.

Here’s your invitation to connect: https://www.cindertoflame.ca/contact

This article revisits resilience, peruse this earlier Cinder to Flame perspective: https://www.cindertoflame.ca/post/armour-of-resilience

© Deborah (Ellen) Wildish, Cinder to Flame 2022-Present. All Rights Reserved.

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