Resilience & Intuitive Learning

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
--Confucius

I watched the animated movie The Incredibles with a friend last week. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen the film, of course. I watched it multiple times with my extended family when it released in 2004. Both of my oldest nephews, who were four at the time, became Dash, for at least a year. To complete this transformation, my sister created costumes for both families, including one for my dad, who transformed into “Grandpa Incredible.”

This time as I watched the movie, I found myself viewing it through my leadership lens. I still enjoyed the humor, applauded Mr. Incredible’s need to work in a field that best used his talents rather than wasting away in a cubicle in the insurance company, and of course cheered when the Incredibles kicked some serious bad-guy butt. But it was the omnidroid that caught my attention --the intelligent destructive robot designed to adjust rapidly to its own failure, quickly learn new behaviors, and through this rapid learning, defeat all superheroes.

This type of rapid learning and resilience, although displayed in The Incredibles in a villainous robot designed by Syndrome, is exactly what today’s leaders need to grow and thrive. With rapid advances in technology and consumer knowledge, constant change and increasingly stressful conditions, it is getting more and more difficult for leaders in all sectors to rely on experience alone.

Resilience, defined by Merriam-Webster, is “the ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.” This article in Psychiatric News, discloses that graduating from the school of hard knocks may be more than just a cliché. The article discusses the brain circuitry underlying resilience, and states, “Successfully coping with a stressful situation can prime one for dealing with subsequent stressful situations that are not controllable. The brain circuitry that underlies this transfer of resiliency includes the prefrontal cortex and brainstem.” The good news is that other research shows that our brain has the capability for resilience and increased intuitive learning even without suffering from too many hard knocks –by reprogramming connections between the pre-frontal cortex and areas in the “reptilian brain”.

Studies increasingly show that regular meditation is one way to increase the capacity for both intuitive learning and resiliency. Regular practice of experiential emotional intelligence techniques can also help re-program old pathways that may cause emotional hijacking which gets in the way of intuition and learning.

Resilient people are more likely to be willing to risk failure, adjust to change, stand up for their beliefs, and persevere through obstacles. Intuition enables you to tap into wisdom that goes beyond your own experience. Don’t those sound like qualities everyone could use?

For more information about increasing your levels of resilience, for techniques that can combat emotional hijacking, or to learn how to increase intuition and wisdom, contact me or view my website.