Resilience – meaning the strength and speed on how we respond to hardship, recovering from those events and learning from them – has always been one of my favorite topics in training and coaching.
Lately, I have been preparing for an online live session on the topic with an international audience of a great corporate client of mine. While sorting my ideas and researching on the latest development in the area of resilience, I have come across a great website offering support and resources for people who had been facing very tough situations in their lives. www.optionb.org.
Option B was founded by Sheryl Sandberg (yes, the famous COO of facebook) and her psychologist Adam Grant who had helped her deal with the sudden death of her husband and father of her kids in 2015. I was not aware of her story and at first I found myself a little sceptical looking for the business model behind. But not so: There are very impressive personal stories of people who help others by sharing their lives and what helped them cope. There are great resources like how to talk to a friend who had lost a beloved one. There is a nice filter depending whether one is personally facing a challenge, one is wanting to help someone else or if one is looking to build everyday resilience. The offers are touching and enlighting at the same time. Visiting the website made me feel more grateful, more at peace and more open to what counts for others, not myself. Thank you, team of Option B.
One very simple advice I would like to share from my reading with you: Imagine you are talking to a friend or a colleague who is going through very tough times. Maybe you are not sure whether to address the situation or just act normal and not talk about it at all. One thing you can at least do is asking “How are you today?” instead of “How are you?”. Thus, by using this one more word with a kind voice, you express acknowledgement, care and interest in the other person. And – wait for the answer.
How are you today?
Looking forward to seeing you virtually or f2f soon.
Yours sincerely,
