I thought resilience was the capacity to endure pain, so I asked Adam how I could figure out how much I had. He explained that our amount of resilience isn’t fixed, so I should be asking instead how I could become resilient. Resilience is the strength and speed of our response to adversity — and we can build it. It isn’t about having a backbone. It’s about strengthening the muscles around our backbone.

Resilience is the ability to embrace what happened.

Resilience is the strength and speed of our response to adversity — and we can build it. It isn’t about having a backbone. It’s about strengthening the muscles around our backbone.

Resilience is based on the ability to embrace the extremes—while not becoming an extremist. Most companies don't do paradox very well.

Being resilient is the ability to thrive and to survive,” Voraakhom said. “We have that ability as human beings, but our urban infrastructure does not have it and doesn’t allow us to have it.

Mental resources like determination, self-worth, and kindness are what make us resilient: able to cope with adversity and push through challenges in the pursuit of opportunities. While resilience helps us recover from loss and trauma, it offers much more than that. True resilience fosters well-being, an underlying sense of happiness, love, and peace. Remarkably, as you internalize experiences of well-being, that builds inner strengths which in turn make you more resilient. Well-being and resilience promote each other in an upward spiral.

For us, resilience is quite simply the difference between life and death, between regression and progress

Resilience comes from deep within us and from support outside us. It comes from gratitude for what’s good in our lives and from leaning in to the suck. It comes from analyzing how we process grief and from simply accepting that grief. Sometimes we have less control than we think. Other times we have more. I learned that when life pulls you under, you can kick against the bottom, break the surface, and breathe again.

The concept of resilience is an important component of our security, as well as a key factor in protecting democracy.

To bring a gift for people to know that resilience is something that you can actually live to achieve, and that the fear of the unknown doesn’t need to be something that limits your ability to thrive in life...Those qualities will be important for everybody to be able to take in.

The ability to overcome adversity and failure is an evolved capacity that is essential to countless organisms, including humans. The capacity to develop an anti-fragile response to repeated failures is a fundamental, necessary, and beneficial feature of life. No meaningful goal can ever be achieved without resilience and effort.

A governance structure that is resilient acts as a shield, enabling organizations to withstand shocks, adapt to unforeseen circumstances, and emerge stronger from disruptions. Resilience is not merely about bouncing back; it is about proactively preparing for and navigating through the ever-evolving challenges that define the modern age.

None of us should have to be resilient to systemic racism, sexism, homophobia, any kind of harm being done to our communities. We shouldn't have to be resilient in the face of violence, or hunger, or homelessness. Resilience, and our ability to survive injustices, are never reasons to stop fighting for justice.

HERE’S WHAT MAKES A BUSINESS RESILIENT: Low (preferably zero) outstanding debt Low overhead, fixed costs, and operating expenses Substantial cash reserves for unexpected contingencies Multiple independent products/industries/lines of business Flexible workers/employees who can handle many responsibilities well No single points of failure Fail-safes/backup systems for all core processes