On Resilience – ElPropósito6 min de lectura

An experience and a lesson

Photo by Markus Tinner on Unsplash

I want to dedicate this post to everyone who has, at some point, faced an extreme situation and set out on the road with fear running through every part of them, far from feeling brave. Today I’m thinking about all the people, teams, organizations and companies that went through every kind of situation without imagining it, wanting it or seeing it coming. What we share in the end is how much stronger we came out, and that includes those who didn’t make it. In one way or another, all of us have been resilient.

My short-term memory is on my mind as I write this. It often fails me and makes me forget details that marked big moments and big chapters of my life. Exactly one year ago, before anyone could imagine it or prepare as fully as we would have liked, the COVID-19 pandemic was wreaking havoc around the world. We never pictured what it could cause, and above all, how sharply it would force us to change direction.

It sounds easy to say, but a year has 365 days and nights. For many people they felt endless, and for others they meant the lights going out for good. A few questions come to mind. What makes us resilient? What lets us get back to where we were, only stronger, more human, better as business owners and better as a team? Part of the answer lies in the memory we carry in our DNA, the memory that lets us return to our original position. That position is never the same, though. It’s always better and always stronger.

Fear, darkness, falls: we forget the emotions we live through along the way surprisingly fast, maybe because of our human nature and our drive to keep taking chances, keep living and keep moving forward. Once the road is behind us and we’ve made it through the jungle, the finish line is sometimes full of praise and hugs, and sometimes it’s lonely. Even so, our DNA keeps the memory, whether we’re aware of it or not, of having lived through something extreme. When it happens again, we instantly remember how capable we were, how strategic, how much of a team, how much of a family. In short, how we pulled it off.

So why write about resilience today? This morning, after a year without swimming with my team and almost two years without an open-water swim, I took the plunge and swam two kilometers in Laguna del Pino, Guatemala. While I swam in complete darkness, I remembered how I honored the memory of my son Juan Diego by doing an Ironman in Santa Rosa, California. I thought about everyone who never imagined how dark the COVID days could get, about those we lost to COVID, about teams that broke up, business owners who watched their companies close, families who still haven’t been able to see each other, and so much more.

I should say I’ve kept exercising. Still, it had been a long time since I’d swum, especially in open water, where you can’t see a thing and it feels like Godzilla could surface at any moment. My Sunday lesson, my life lesson today, is that we’re all moving through life these days (walking, swimming, sailing, getting by) with our heads a bit underwater. We can’t see anything, it’s hard to breathe, and maybe we feel we’ve lost our bearings.

I’m just as sure that at the heart of resilience lies something essential: purpose. It’s our true north, the lighthouse, the compass that guides us and always points us where we need to go. During the swim I paused a couple of times to check my course and make sure my strokes were taking me where I wanted to go. Today more than ever, we can see very little clearly. What we can do, and what is in our hands, is take those pauses to recalibrate our course and our north, to reflect and keep going, whether we’re a person, a company, an organization or a team. This morning my mind brought back all my fears, and at the same time it reminded me of all my strengths and skills. A few final thoughts:

• How can we remind ourselves, every day, how well we’ve done?
• How can we recalibrate our purpose with every step we take toward where we want to be?
• How can we trust that we’ve already done it well, that we’re resilient, that we’re good at what we do, and that if we have to do it again, we can do it over and over?

Laguna del Pino, Guatemala. February 21, 2021

Warm regards,

Rodrigo Baccaro

P.S. This week’s VELA:

• What I was Watching: The culture of cancellation. A TED talk that caught my attention mainly because of its title. It clarified my position on much of what is happening around what people think and say, and on how far censorship is going. Worth watching.
• What I was Listening to: Breathholding is the new black. Another discovery that came through Wim Hof. The more I dig into the benefits of these routines, the more I want to keep trying them, especially for what they’ve done for my health.
• What I was Reading: Unfortunately, I had to put A Pillar of Iron on hold. Steven Kotler’s long-awaited new book, The Art of Impossible, landed in my hands (he’s one of my favorite authors). I’m devouring it, slowly, and I hope to share some of the main takeaways next Sunday. What I love most about Kotler is how he explains FLOW in Stealing Fire, and in this latest book he combines it with new findings. It fascinates me and makes me want to read it until I understand it completely.
• What I was Learning: Cold shower therapy. This video complements a lot of what I’ve learned from the Wim Hof method. Deciding first thing in the morning to step into a seemingly uncomfortable situation with a cold shower is a key choice, and its effect multiplies. My maternal grandfather lived to almost 100, and one habit he kept probably every day of his life was a cold shower. Always.

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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