What are the most innovative ways to develop resilience in executives?

Mindfulness and meditation are incredible tools, but they’re not for everyone. Sometimes, a client may have a nervous system wired in such a way that meditation would be counterproductive and harmful. Can meditation improve a person’s awareness and resilience? Absolutely, but let’s know when to recommend meditation, and when to propose other methods to help our clients build resilience.

Hypnosis, as a form of guided meditation, can help in building Emotional Intelligence by understanding and managing their responses to particular triggering events. 2-3 hypnosis sessions with hypnosis specialist can bring fast results in building resilience, compared to weeks or months of other practices. This happens mainly because hypnosis work is performed on the deep level of subconscious, allowing to rapidly build new neural paths in person's mind, resulting in different behaviour in the same challenging situations

Developing self awareness also allows identification of stress triggers and promotes healthy coping strategies. Breathwork and visualisation are also very helpful techniques to promote mindfulness!

Very often, there is a significant gap in how we think we will react in a specific situation v/s how we actually end up reacting under pressure. Practice makes perfect for this one and simulation exercises can be key to developing the confidence to address hard situations.

Prompting the client to generate alternative narratives for a new or different story can be a gamechanger if the client is open to this approach. As an example, I once had a client tell me a story: "I have to do everything my boss tells me to do, and it's stressful." I helped the client create a new narrative: Q: Have you always done everything every boss told you to do? A: No Q: Did you ever pay any price for this? A: No Q: Do you think you'll always do everything your future bosses may ask of you? A: No Q: Do you still think you must do everything your boss tells you to do? A: No. The client's new story: "Part of my job is to prioritize which tasks to pursue and which ones to delay."

It’s important that the coaching/mentoring experience entails varied perspectives. Very often, executives are coached by those having similar life experiences and viewpoints than themselves. This is a lost opportunity for growth as the more different your mentor’s background, the more value it can bring!

One of the things I found helpful in my busy schedule is binaural beats. Apart from being a bit lazy taking time out, I prefer walking in nature, but my mind also needs self-care. Binaural beats are great as I plug my earbuds in, and I can fall asleep in no time, and the magic is being done. I sleep as a baby and wake up relaxed and full of energy.

According to Carol Dweck, who coined the term growth mindset, it is a tool to help you find value in what you're doing regardless of outcomes. Therefore, to implement your own growth mindset, you can practice ways to produce internal rewards for yourself (such as building stronger relationships, knowing that you've expanded your skills, or learning for the sake of learning). Creating and recognizing your own internal rewards (or outcomes) sets you up for autonomy and resilience. Too much focus on external rewards will leave you depedent on outside factors that you don't control. This inhibits resilience!

Reverse mentorship is another very powerful mechanism for executives to grow. This refers to a system where more junior employees coach/mentor executives on areas which they may not be fully familiar with. This could be technology, diversity or employee experienc. Some companies have adopted the concept of shadow boards as a use case of this principle.