When I was a kid, a company called Wham-O came out with the “Super Ball”. It was advertised as having 50,000 pounds of compressed energy. and to bounce higher than any other ball. I just had to have it! So, I worked hard and earned the money.

I loved playing with that ball! The harder I would throw the ball against a hard surface, the higher it would bounce. It was amazing to watch it soar way up into the sky. It was extraordinarily resilient! I had to quickly learn to bounce it straight because, when bounced at an angle, it would go where I didn’t want it to go. This meant I spent time chasing it here, there, and everywhere. The Super Ball was very resilient!

At this time in human history, many are finding it ​difficult to bounce back to ‘normal’. But, who’s to say what’s ‘normal’? Was the previous ‘normal’ really all that great? Could there be a better ‘normal’ that we can aspire to?

Lack of Resilience

Resilience is defined as: “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” Apparently, this characteristic is missing from the masses. As a voracious reader, I constantly see articles and posts on Social Media about people feeling burned out, over stressed, unable to cope, and depressed.  They feel overwhelmed by life. They struggle to make choices and decisions. They often feel stuck, adrift, or thwarted. Here are some of the causes that are mentioned over and over:

Working from an officeWorking from homeBeing on too many video callsBeing in the same jobInterviewing for, and starting, a new jobBeing marriedBeing divorcedThe pandemic, global warming, terrorist attacks, and the list goes on.

What is the underlying cause for all of this? The common thread is fear and uncertainty. People are afraid of what they feel no control over. Let’s face it, we always have reasons to be stressed, fearful and uncertain. That’s life. And when people feel this way, they develop strategies for feeling in control and certain, and some of these make little sense, like hoarding toilet paper. But, hey, if it makes them feel a sense of control and it isn’t hurting anyone, more power to them!

What you can control

One of the greatest stories of resilience is Viktor Frankl. His book, “Man’s Search for Meaning” is amazing from beginning to end. According to the Library of Congress, his book is among “the ten most influential books in the United States.”

Frankl was in some of the worst Nazi concentration camps, his wife, daughter, and siblings were killed by the Nazis, he witnessed his fellow prisoners be tortured and torture their own people, and many more atrocities. Yet, within this chaos and mayhem came some of the most significant discoveries about the human psyche when in the most desperate of times.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Ultimately, the question is: “What meaning will you create in this moment?”

Frankl elaborated on this question:

“Living itself means nothing other than being questioned [What will you choose to create?]; our whole act of being is nothing more than responding to — of being responsible toward — life. With this mental standpoint nothing can scare us anymore, no future, no apparent lack of a future. Because now the present is everything as it holds the eternally new question of life for us.”

True resilience is powered by living in the present moment and each of us making the choice of what we will create in this moment. As I have taught for years:

” Now is your point of personal power. Five minutes ago means nothing. An hour, a week, a year ago is irrelevant. Now is your moment where you get to choose what your future will be. Now is your point of personal power!”

It takes a person who has a firm grip on their Core Personality, their mission and vision of their life, and to allow their ego to leave behind the times when they were less than the best that they can be to be strong and resilient. These people aren’t burnt out, overwhelmed, stuck, or unable to cope. They don’t struggle to make choices and decisions. They aren’t adrift and they don’t feel thwarted.

This is how people become when they are my client. They are like that Super Ball with 50,000 pounds of compressed energy that bounces them into the stratosphere of life. They are controlled and directed to get maximum results. They are business owners, executives, entrepreneurs, and high-ticket salespeople who decided that it was time to unleash their full potential. They come from many walks of life: Self-made billionaires to executives in Fortune 100 companies to people who decided to dominate their industry as an entrepreneur or salesperson.

Would you like to join them?

Call me at 972.900.9207, email me at ed@trans-think,com, or reach out to me here on LinkedIn.

Dr. Edward Lewellen is the leading peak performance and mindset expert, a Master Executive Coach, leadership and sales expert, and a keynote speaker for some of the largest global organizations. His list of clients include executives from small to Fortune 500 companies, as well as the NFL, MMA, Professional Boxing, and more.

 

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