Career Resilience

It's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day demands of your current job and lose sight of the big picture, but with a typical career spanning fifty years or more, you do so at your own peril. It's up to you to chart your own course to professional success. We've combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the 10 most important ones to help you develop yourself, make the right career moves, navigate inevitable detours and disruptions, and turn your professional dreams into reality.

How do some people bounce back with vigor from daily setbacks, professional crises, or even intense personal trauma? This collection of articles from HBR includes "How Resilience Works", by Diane Coutu; "Resilience for the Rest of Us", by Daniel Goleman; "How to Evaluate, Manage, and Strengthen Your Resilience", by David Kopans; "Find the Coaching in Criticism", by Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone; and much more.

Hugh van Cuylenburg was a primary school teacher volunteering in northern India when he had a life-changing realisation: despite the underprivileged community the children were from, they were remarkably positive. By contrast, back in Australia Hugh knew that all too many children struggled with depression, social anxieties and mental illness. His own little sister had been ravaged by anorexia nervosa. How was it that young people he knew at home, who had food, shelter, friends and a loving family, struggled with their mental health, while these kids seemed so contented and resilient?

From best-selling author and mental toughness expert Jason Selk comes a mind-training regimen for reframing every problem into an opportunity for productive action. The one characteristic all phenomenally successful people share is mental toughness. Mentally tough people are better at making decisions more quickly and with better results. They possess the uncanny ability to control what goes on between their ears.

How to be human at work. This four-volume set includes Happiness, Resilience, Mindfulness, and Empathy.

Peak-performance psychologist Dr Alia Bojilova draws on her work with the SAS, Olympic athletes, modern leaders and successful entrepreneurs to help you unlock your potential in everyday life. Guiding you through a four-step process - to develop clearer awareness, deeper belonging, broader curiosity and stronger drive - The Resilience Toolkit will help you to embrace the unknown with greater confidence and teach you to recover faster from setbacks.

Through wide-ranging, and often deeply personal conversation, Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Perry explore how what happens to us in early childhood–both good and bad–influences the people we become. They challenge us to shift from focusing on, “What’s wrong with you?” or “Why are you behaving that way?,” to asking, “What happened to you?”

Ed Beltran, the CEO of a powerhouse leadership communication company, believes the antidote to stressed-out workplaces starts with conversation. Beltran has developed a science-based model to reduce stress and help people build what he calls fierce resilience. By leveraging the power of conversations, individuals discover their unique stressors, master skills to neutralize stressors, and build unwavering resilience that elevates their emotional well-being.

Rising to the challenges of corporate culture and leadership can feel like an impossible challenge, especially when you're striving to align your team with the company’s core values. Guess what? Creating a thriving, motivated, and resilient organization that aligns fully with your corporate vision is entirely achievable. This book is your roadmap for realizing that vision. Drawing from years of hands-on experience, the author shares insights and strategies as someone who has been in your position and understands exactly what it takes to transform your organization.

From beloved performance expert, executive coach, and coauthor of Peak Performance Steve Magness comes a radical rethinking of how we perceive toughness and what it means to achieve our high ambitions in the face of hard things.

Drawing on the insights of 50 inspiring people who have suffered a wide range of trauma but are thriving nonetheless, Emma J. Bell has extracted nine enlightening secrets from their experiences. You’ll listen as they talk about how they found renewed purpose in life; how they learned to forgive rather than hold on to resentment; and how they developed practices to create calm and live authentically.

Professor Sir David Omand, formerly both a director of GCHQ and the UK's Security and Intelligence Coordinator, shows how to manage crises in myriad forms, using methodologies employed by the British intelligence agencies. Through gripping examples from Professor Omand's storied career, this book will equip you with military intelligence techniques such as situational awareness and adaptive resilience that can be used in any crisis, from the professional to the personal.

Performance facilitator and elite mindset coach Gareth Timmins was one of only 0.1% of Royal Marines Commando applicants to reach the end of the intensive and gruelling training, and to earn the coveted Green Beret, a world-renowned symbol of excellence. By drawing on his life experiences after reaching this elite status, his subsequent research into psychological theory and observations shared with him from many elite athletes, Timmins aims to break the commonly held assumption that people who achieve consistent successes, do so with ease.

What type of leadership is needed in a moment that demands adaptive change? Tod Bolsinger, author of Canoeing the Mountains, is uniquely positioned to explore the qualities of adaptive leadership in contexts ranging from churches to nonprofit organizations. He deftly examines both the external challenges we face and the internal resistance that holds us back. When reflection and relationships are combined into a life of deliberate practice, leaders become both stronger and more flexible.

As a leader, do you feel you face a straight choice between high performance versus wellbeing? Strategic resilience allows you to achieve both, without compromise. At The Resilience Engine, we believe that everyone deserves to perform well without compromising their wellbeing. We know our approach works because it’s backed up by 10 years of research and experience with thousands of clients in more than 75 organisations.

This is a different book about leadership. Leadership where mistakes are made. Leadership where mistakes are learnt from. Over a period, Allan Sicard developed a leadership style that created a workplace and a community where people do their best because they know they are trusted, included, supported, and cared for.

The emergence of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements have awakened society and encouraged women to find their voice and claim back their power. Contending with a host of difficult issues that demand psychological strength - in this crucial book, international best-selling author, prominent psychotherapist and licensed clinical social worker Amy Morin gives women the techniques to build mental muscle in 13 steps. Delving into critical issues like sexism, social media, social comparison, and social pressure, Amy offers thoughtful, intelligent advice, practical tips, and specific strategies....

This book will inspire you to: thrive on pressure like an Olympic athlete; manage and overcome negative emotions by acknowledging them; plan short-term goals to achieve long-term aspirations; surround yourself with the people who will push you the hardest; use challenges to become a better leader; use creativity to move past trauma; and understand the tools your mind uses to recover from setbacks.

Bolstered with research, exercises, self-assessments, and real-life stories from people with natural burnout immu­nity and those who’ve cultivated it, Burnout Immunity teaches workers how to positively cope with stress and to enjoy healthier and happier relationships with work.

Lisa Lisson's life seemed perfect: she had married her high school sweetheart, applied her marketing degree to a position at FedEx Express Canada, and would ultimately become president of the company. One night, after putting their four children to bed, her husband, Patrick, marvelled at their lives. Just a few hours later, Patrick had a massive heart attack and was in a coma. Part leadership guide, part memoir of loss, and part personal empowerment primer on how to achieve your goals, Resilience is an inspirational story.