Notes on Resilience

Send us Fan Mail Your systems can be back online while your people are still underwater. That gap, the space between operational recovery and human recovery, is where a lot of what people think of as resilience fails. I take you inside the question that changed my work: How confident are you that your business continuity plan will hold up when the team executing it is terrified, traumatized, or nu...

Send us Fan Mail Ambiguity from leaders can teach people to hesitate, to gossip, and to lower their standards.  I sit down with Kirk Driver, a 34-year veteran of the Fort Worth Police Department and the creator of the Zero Gray Leadership system, to get practical about what clear leadership looks like when the stakes are high and the pressure is real.  If you lead a team, manage a department, or s...

Send us Fan Mail A CEO calls employees “low-value human capital,” companies brag about AI while cutting people loose, and somehow, workers are told to just be resilient. To be honest about what that does to trust and what leaders can do differently, I sat down with Tamar Cohen, founder of Halo Effect, to talk about the real human cost of fear-based management and the very real business costs that...

Send us Fan Mail If you’ve ever looked at your career and thought, “I did everything right, so why do I feel so wrong?” this conversation is for you. We sit down with Graham Skidmore, co-founder of Harmony Health, to unpack what happens when corporate success collides with wellbeing and why the system can feel fine until you step outside the lanes it was built for. We talk about the moment Graham...

Send us Fan Mail We sit down with Chase Sterling, workplace well-being expert and founder of the Wellbeing Think Tank, to get honest about what support actually looks like when someone is stressed, grieving, or barely holding it together. The throughline is resilience—a human process that requires time, space, and genuine psychological safety at work. We talk human-centered leadership in practical...

Send us Fan Mail Your first move as a leader is probably not what you think.  Before the strategy deck, before the new plan, the faster path to trust and better results is to be genuinely curious and listen like you mean it. I’m joined by executive advisor Chris March, who helps founder-led companies scale beyond the founder without losing operational control, and we dig into what resilient leader...

Send us Fan Mail One screw in a piece of drywall doesn't usually feel profound. This time it did. Standing in a gutted house in Altadena, California, more than a year after the Eaton Fire, I felt the absurd weight of wildfire recovery and the despair that comes from doing something tiny to address an enormous problem. Then my mind shifted: rebuilding is not made of big, triumphant moments. It...

Send us Fan Mail You can feel it everywhere right now: more stress, less sleep, shorter tempers, and a quiet sense that a lot of people are barely holding it together.  We sit down with Cynthia Conigliaro to talk about what resilience actually looks like when life hits hard and does not let up. Cynthia shares the real work behind being positive, and why that label often hides a long history of eff...

Send us Fan Mail Most organizations don’t fail because they don't have a plan. They fail because they can’t imagine they would ever need a plan. We sit down with Keith Erwood to talk about what real risk looks like and why business continuity and crisis management have to be more than checklists and compliance. Keith shares how his experience in EMS during 9/11 shaped the way he thinks about...

Send us Fan Mail The strange part of a crisis is not the first week. It’s the months after, when the debris is cleared, the headlines move on, and your body finally stops running on adrenaline. That’s when many people begin to notice the insomnia, anxiety, irritability, brain fog, and avoidance they couldn’t afford to feel earlier. And too often, that’s exactly when the surge of support has alread...

Send us Fan Mail Would you follow someone up the hill if they’ve never taken one themselves?  That question sits at the center of our conversation with executive coach and keynote speaker Chris Harris, whose warrior mindset approach strips leadership down to what people actually feel: credibility, trust, and the calm confidence that comes from real resilience. We get personal fast. Chris shares a...

Send us Fan Mail Doctor visits can feel like a high-stakes performance: you get 15 minutes, you are anxious, and you only remember the perfect question after you leave.  We sit down with Dana Sherwin, a healthcare management consultant and speaker specializing in patient-physician communication, to make those minutes count and to make the relationship feel like a partnership instead of a power str...

Send us Fan Mail A bomb explodes across the street, and you walk away with both your legs. People call that fine. But your body tells a different story for years. On the 13th anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing, I share what that day felt like from the bleachers, what came after, and why invisible injuries like trauma, PTSD symptoms, and nervous system triggers can be so hard to explain to...

Send us Fan Mail What if leadership were less about being impressive and more about being useful?  Robin Goad joins me to get painfully honest about how most of us learn leadership the wrong way, then spend years unlearning it. She’s a technology executive at Amazon Web Services, a speaker and coach, and the author of Girl By Birth, Woman By Fire , and she brings a clear message: leading well is s...

Send us Fan Mail The strongest leaders change what people believe about themselves.  That’s the thread running through my conversation with Dr. Daniel Tataje, founder and CEO of Mercy Dental Group and author of T he Leader Humanity Needs , a leader who’s built an award-winning workplace culture by treating compassion as a responsibility, not a strategy. For Daniel, leadership means putting your ta...

Send us Fan Mail The finish line gets repainted, the cameras come back, and the speeches sound certain: we’re stronger, we’ve recovered, we’ve moved forward.  But what happens when a community’s timeline keeps marching and a person’s nervous system does not?  We take a close look at the recovery gap that shows up after public tragedies and large disruptions, using the Boston Marathon bombing anniv...

Send us Fan Mail Your boss doesn’t know what’s coming next. Neither do you.  That’s not a crisis; it’s the new starting point for modern leadership, where real agency can finally show up. We sit down with Allister Frost , former Microsoft leader, speaker, and author of Ready Already , to talk about what to do when you have an idea, and you’re not sure it’s ready. He shares what changed when he mov...

Send us Fan Mail Good intentions can still break trust. After a crisis, many leaders speak with calm certainty, hoping to steady the room, only to discover it doesn't work the way they thought. We unpack why offering reassurance can backfire, how timing and tone shape meaning, and what it takes to communicate in a way that doesn't unintentionally push people away.  Guided by the lived re...

Send us Fan Mail Balance isn’t the finish line. It's the pendulum that’s almost never centered, the butterfly that needs resistance to fly, and the swimmer who learns to win with water in his goggles. We sat down with coach, author, and financial services executive Kenyada Meadows to rethink resilience through values, emotional integrity, and the power of community. From a career on Wall Stre...

Send us Fan Mail When the headlines fade and the urgent meetings stop, most leaders exhale—and miss the most important phase of recovery.  We unpack the quiet phase, that deceptive calm where people finally feel the impact and disengagement takes root long before anyone speaks up or turns in a resignation letter.  Drawing on the Boston Marathon bombing as a case study, we examine why acute respons...

Send us Fan Mail When a crisis engulfs your community, the urge to go quiet can be powerful—and costly.  We sit down with Ayme Zemke, Chief Client Officer and Certified Crisis Communication Leader at Beehive Strategic Communication, to break down how leaders can speak with clarity, protect trust, and support employees without getting pulled into partisan crossfire. From the current turbulence in M...

Send us Fan Mail Pressure tests every organization, and Tony Crescenzo believes resilience isn’t a perk—it’s the infrastructure that keeps the mission alive.  We sit down with the Marine veteran turned CEO of Intelligent Waves and founder of Peak Neuro to unpack a practical, values‑driven approach to leadership that holds up under pressure. Tony draws a clear line between management and leadership...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when the crisis is no longer in the news? We dig into that uneasy stretch when calendars fill back up and leaders feel the urge to get back to normal. And why that push can cause mistrust and leave people alone with their pain. Drawing from a survivor-informed lens, we unpack how disruption changes beliefs, expectations, and bodies. We walk through the invisible press...

Send us Fan Mail What if we stopped treating trauma like a forbidden topic and started treating it like a leadership skill set?  That’s the spark for a candid, practical conversation with physician and public health expert Kemia Sarraf on how to show up for others—and ourselves—when life overwhelms.  We unpack a core distinction that changes everything: traumatic stress exposure is inevitable; tra...

Send us Fan Mail What if compassion without boundaries is the very thing burning leaders out? We sit down with organizational psychologist and executive coach Kathryn McEwen to unpack resilience at work as a living system. Kathryn leads the Working with Resilience Consortium and helped develop the Resilience at Work Toolkit, and she brings stories that reveal why good intentions often backfire—and...