Business Spotlight 08.2019

(Nancy Kaufman) #1

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?
Free download pdf