I was catching up with my nephew the other day when he mentioned that his pre-teen daughter had broken both her wrists over the summer.

“What,” I inquired, “How did that happen?” He told me that she fell off her scooter playing in the yard and when she went to break her fall, she fell awkwardly and “boom”, 2 broken wrists.

He told me it was a challenging summer for her but one of the good things that happened is that she developed a sense of “grit” in facing up to this adversity. He told me that she hadn’t faced much difficulties in her young life (which was great) but as a result, he wasn’t sure that she would handle difficulties very effectively

It seems like this little episode dispelled that myth and now she’s become a tried and true warrior.

In a recent piece of global  research done by Marcus Buckingham and reported in the Harvard Business Review the investigators identified some critical  factors for Pandemic resilience.  They determined that resilience was unrelated to age or gender and instead had to do with an “exposure to suffering”.

People who had contracted Covid or had a close friend or family member with the disease were 4 times more likely to score as being highly resilient. Furthermore, additional stressors like loss of a job or being on Zoom all day long actually strengthened their resilience.

One of the key takeaways is that we build our resilience when we know what our challenges are and take the responsibility for overcoming that challenge Parents, managers and even politicians should recognize that we are generally up to the challenges and will do well to tell it to us straight since we can handle it. My great niece modeled that for her family and herself and is a great role model for me. Good job, Niece!

Happenings

The Leadership Café—Seth Mason of E-Sports
Seth Mason started his entrepreneurial journey at the mere age of 10 when his parents noticed his interest in wanting to create his own business. With the help of their graphic design company, Graphic Connections, Seth started Seth’s Socks. Creating unique and custom socks that have sold on online retailers such as Amazon.  

Launching him into the small business world, eventually lead him to recently start The Esport Company. This venture provides opportunities and experience in Esports for high school and college kids in the very young and exciting e-sport industry. Check out the interview. I expect we’ll be hearing more from Seth!

As always, our thanks to our friends at Vaco for sponsoring The Leadership Cafe!