How Can We Help You?
What is resilience?
Great question! So good, in fact, that even the academics can’t quite settle on a universally agreed definition. In spite of this, there are two things we know for sure. Firstly, for resilience to exist, there needs to be some form of stress. And secondly, you need to come out the other side of the stress event in one piece.
Given this, we like Dr Lies Notebaert’s definition of resilience as ‘an outcome better than expected given the adversity being faced’.
What is The Resilience Shield in 100 words?
It’s recognising that the world isn’t supposed to be fair or make sense, but is incredible in spite of this. It’s defining your own happiness, owning your story and drawing strength from everything you’ve done to get you this far. It’s developing an unconquerable mind that will go, always, a little further. It’s utilising, recognising and celebrating whatever incredible feats your body can perform. It’s separating your role from your identity and choosing who you want to share your foxhole with. It’s finding your purpose and pursuing virtuosity within it. It’s overcoming anything that life throws at you.
Why a shield?
Because a shield provides protection – not just for you, but also for those around you. And also because we also love the tales of the famous Spartan warriors who dominated Greece in the 5th Century BC. They used their 90-centimetre wooden and bronze shields (known as hoplons) to close ranks during engagements in order to achieve passive protection in a phalanx. Spartan shields surrounded the warriors on the fronts and flanks of the formation, with additional shields raised overhead for those in the middle. Interlocked in this manner, the hoplons were almost impenetrable.
Spartan hoplons were hereditary, passed to successive generations of warrior from the maternal side of their family. As you will learn a component of our resilience is genetic, and thus analogous to the literal handing down of a shield in Spartan culture. The parting words from a mother to a Spartan warrior departing for battle were understood to be ‘return with your shield, or on it’. To drop the shield was to endanger your fellow warriors as much as yourself and was considered the mark of a deserter. Such was the importance of the shield; it was more honourable to die and be carried out of battle on your own shield than to lose it.
Wielding a shield also leaves a hand spare to carry a weapon.
Naturally, the material used in the construction of a shield is crucial to its strength and many different materials have been used to construct shields; and still are! But no matter the material used; it is the attention to detail in manufacturing the shield that provides the ultimate strength. Your Resilience Shield is no different
Which layer is most important?
All layers are created equal. But we order innate first as you can’t typically modify this and then the mind layer as it drives attitudes, motivations and behaviours. But bias any one layer to the detriment of others and you will likely see your overall resilience degraded.
Who won't the Resilience Shield work for?
We believe that the Resilience Shield is universal. Its applicability spans elite athletes, accountants, grand parents and school children. The methodology will work for any person regardless of gender, age or geography and all of the techniques are scalable.
As always if in doubt on the applicability of techniques please consult your own physicians and specialists
Does the Resilience Shield replace my doctor or therapist?
No. But we believe it is highly complementary. In fact, we are so confident of this that we encourage you to take your newfound Resilience Action Plan to your next appointment and outline it to your specialist- and get their feedback.
My problem is I can’t get into any routine…. How will it be possible to improve all layers of my Resilience Shield if I can’t do that?
Thinking about ‘routine’ is wrong – it’s ‘maximum-ist’. We encourage you in the book to think about habits and take the minimal-ist approach (going always a little further). What are all the small things that you do each day that contribute to resilience? The sum total of these is your routine. The beauty of thinking about it this way is that if one of those small things falls away then you haven’t lost your ‘routine’.
Remember: Habit + habit + habit + ….. = routine.
I have a 350lb deadlift. Do I need any more resilience than that?
What happens when you blow a fetlock and can’t deadlift anymore? Or can’t go to the gym at all? What happens when you age gracefully, find a partner and have wonderful children (or pets) and your priorities are no longer your deadlift? And what happens when you go to a dinner party – what do you even talk about!?
We know plenty of people who have outstanding capacity in one or two of the layers of their Resilience Shield but enormous gaps in others. This can work for a while, but life has a funny way of targeting the gaps in your defences – over time, the weaknesses tend to be exposed.