Business Spotlight 08.2019

84 Business Spotlight 6/2019 AND FINALLY...

Foto: privat

AND FINALLY...

ONE QUESTION

What is resilience?

MEDIUM

I have chosen

to live and work

in different

countries and

cultures

TIM PHILLIPS

is an English-language

trainer, coach and

consultant. Based in Germany,

he has worked in Europe and

South East Asia. He currently

represents the global

educational publisher

National Geographic Learning.

Interview: Eamonn Fitzgerald

What would you do tomorrow if your

boss came into your office and unexpect­

edly said your job was gone? After the

shock and your emotional reaction, and a

few days spent thinking on the sofa, what

would you do?

How we deal with difficulty is a mea­

sure of our resilience. When talking about

physical material, “resilience” means “the

ability to return to its usual shape after

being bent, stretched or pressed”. When

talking about humans, I would say that

after a crisis, what we learn from the expe­

rience helps us to become stronger, wiser,

more resilient.

Resilience can be learned. Lifelong

learning not only means developing new

skills as we get older, but also developing

our self­help abilities as we go through

our professional and personal lives. We

all have our choices: in the course of my

career, I have chosen to live and work

in different countries and cultures, be

self­employed, work as a full­time em­

ployee (four times) in completely diffe­

rent industries, set up and run my own

company and then lose it. And I have

been married twice. It has not been a

smooth journey, but it has certainly been

a rewarding one, as each experience has

guided me in selecting my next option at

the next crossroads.

affect sth. [əˈfekt]

, etw. beeinflussen

attainable

[əˈteɪnəb&l]

, erreichbar

crossroads

[ˈkrɒsrəʊdz]

, Kreuzung, Scheideweg

excuse [Ikˈskju:s]

, hier: Begründung

faced: be ~ with sth.

[feIst]

, etw. gegenüberstehen

goal [ɡəʊl] , Ziel

graph [ɡrɑːf]

, Diagramm, Kurve

industry [ˈɪndəstri]

, hier: Branche

press sth. [pres]

, etw. (zusammen-)

drücken

resilience

[riˈzɪliəns]

, Resilienz, Belastbarkeit

setback [(setbÄk]

, Rückschlag

v (versus) [ˈvɜːsəs]

, kontra

When faced with stress or a crisis, we need to be

strong. The emotional strength that helps people

at such times is at the heart of resilience.

We all know that life is not one straight,

constantly rising line on a graph: age v

success. There are setbacks, too. The econ­

omist Jonathan Aldred recently wrote:

“Parents teach their children that almost

all goals are attainable if you try hard

enough. This is a lie, but there is a good ex­

cuse for it: unless you try your best, many

goals will definitely remain unreachable.”

The language we use when talking

about life and its difficulties affects our

thinking: “unfair”, “waste of time”, “all

their fault”, etc. Resilience involves ac­

cepting life’s challenges, being kind to

yourself, learning lessons and moving on.

So, if your boss fired you tomorrow,

how would you celebrate?