This week’s blog post draws on the seventh, and final, core value from
Community as a Safe Place to Land (2019).
Resilience: The ability to connect adaptability, recovery, growth, and discovery.

The Seven Core Values for Purpose and Growth provide interconnected stepping-stones for vibrant, communicative, and respectful communities. You will find it difficult to discuss one without focusing on two or three other “Rs.”

The book’s first transformational story focused on the power of relationships and how they contributed to the resurrection and sustainability of a spiritual community.  Relationships play a pivotal role in establishing, bolstering, and sustaining resilience for individuals, groups, the workplace, and neighborhoods as well.

Whether it is a cancer support group providing resources and companionship, or community exercise group pulling each other through a five a.m. workout, or, forward-looking leaders promoting authentic and continuous growth opportunities for their followers, resilience requires attention.

The typical definition of resilience points to one’s ability to rise above, recover from, move on from, and learn from adversity. Does that mean we only can develop resilience as a result of—maybe especially because of—difficult and horrific situations? Are there strategies your community members can or do employ before adversity hits to strengthen their grit and resolve? While traumatic stressors can have a devastating impact on our health, it’s the mounting smaller stressors and crises that take a toll on our bodies.

In short, we must be pay attention. Be mindful. Establish a plan. Execute the plan. Evaluate the plan.

What resilience plan do you have for the coming week? What is the autobiography you have created for yourself? Will there be a revision? What about your community?

Your Call-to-Action

In what ways does your community contribute to its own growth and resilience? Conversely, what do your struggling communities lack when it comes to resilience? What kind of support (emotional, physical, spiritual, or financial) is available in challenging situations? Do your communities provide opportunities to have difficult conversations about difficult topics to heal and grow?

Create two lists. Title one: “Our Community Has a Sense of….” Title the other list: “Our Community Struggles When It Comes to….”

Exorcise that which no longer serves or nourishes your community. How can you minimize or eliminate the pernicious effects? Where does this fit with your prioritization of resources and actions? Who will help you identify these factors? Where will this fit in your prioritization?

Where can you make changes?

Podcast Recommendation for the Week

In this brief clip (120 seconds) Bobbi de Cordova-Hanks (founder of Bosom Buddies a support group for people diagnosed with breast cancer) talks about building resilience as a victor–never a victim. Thriving is a mindset.

Relationships. That matter. Resilience.

My book,
Community as a Safe Place to Land,
has been released! At this point, you can purchase it on Amazon. More purchasing options coming. More information at www.stevepiscitelli.com.

Make it an inspiring and grateful week and H.T.R.B. as needed.

You can still order my book Stories about Teaching, Learning, and Resilience: No Need to be an Island (2017). Another university recently (February 2019) adopted it for training and coaching purposes. Contact me if you and your team are interested in doing the same.

The paperback price on Amazon is now $12.00 and the Kindle version stands at $3.99. Consider it for a faculty orientation or a mentoring program. The accompanying videos would serve to stimulate community-building conversations at the beginning of a meeting.

My podcasts can be found at The Growth and Resilience Network® (http://stevepiscitelli.com/media-broadcast/podcast).

You will find more about what I do at www.stevepiscitelli.com.

©2019. Steve Piscitelli
The Growth and Resilience Network®