Resilience and Self-Awareness: Turning Setbacks into Strength

Part 2 of our 4-part conversation on turning adversity into opportunity at work.

Failure feels personal — but it doesn’t have to define you. In this episode, executive coach Whitney Faires talks with host Russel Lolacher about reframing adversity through mindset and self-reflection. Whitney shares how to separate emotion from fact, regulate your response, and see setbacks as chances for growth. Learn why resilience starts with self-awareness and how leaders can build strength on the other side of adversity.

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Transcript

Russel Lolacher: You mentioned it a few times there in your, I believe it's called the excellence equation, you frame adversity being a opportunity. And that's kind of what I want, why I wanted to reframe things earlier about drowning is not an opportunity to learn, to learn how to swim. So bringing it back more of that workplace adversity, setback, challenge. How do you reframe that in the moment? If we're looking at these adversities as opportunities.

Whitney Faires: Yeah, so, you may not be able to in the moment, go from. Oh my gosh, this is a career limiting issue to, oh, this is great. That's not realistic. But the idea is, is your mindset and how you approach it. So even when you're in a really bad spot, I, I encourage people to just first of all, separate the emotion from what's actually happening.

Now I wanna be clear. I am not saying emotion is bad. I think that's said too often in the workplace, that emotion is bad. People are so afraid of the stigma that they're emotional. Emotion is bad when it causes us to act or show up or do something that is not in, in the best interest of, of us and others, right?

That's when emotion is bad. We have emotion, so when adversity hits, it's natural, we're gonna have some emotion. So we have to know what it takes to process that in the moment enough to set it aside. I don't mean bury it, set it aside so we can come back to it, but we're not paralyzed by it. Once you can set it aside, then you can say to yourself, what is actually the problem here?

What's the setback, the challenge? What, what am I actually solving for? Because emotion often muddies the waters and it makes us feel like we're solving for our career being over. We're not. We're solving for this thing that we are working on, that we are the owner of going sideways and, and we have to define what that is.

From there, then you can ask yourself. What is the true impact? How much do I need to put into a solution for this? Does it just impact me? Does it impact the organization, my team? So you have to define that impact. And then I always encourage people to look for multiple options as a way forward. And that way 'cause, 'cause sometimes our gut response is the easy thing or the safe thing.

So if you brainstorm out five to seven solutions, probably two or three of 'em are, are pretty out there. But you can find pieces of a variety of the options that make up your best possible way forward. But as you're going through that, the question is what can I learn? How can I grow? What's the value I can derive from this adversity?

And sometimes you can identify it right up front, right? Other times it takes you some time and space. But what I know going into it is my mindset is I will be stronger on the other side of this, and I truly believe that. I didn't believe it 20 years ago, but I believe it now from experience. And it's a mindset I try to instill in my clients and those that I've, I've led.

Russel Lolacher: Well, perfectionist. I'm gonna ask you another question. How do you process failure when you think it might be a personal flaw? Like it's great to feel like you are removing yourself from a situation, and you sound really analytical, but when you're in it, and we've already stressed the humanity of all this.

People take things personally. People think, what did I do wrong? What? They really own the failure and that gets in the way. It can get in the way of that process that you're talking about. How do you overcome that?

Whitney Faires: Yeah, I think you gotta sit in it for a minute, to be honest. And the best thing you could do in that moment is truly reflect and you have to ask the question like you have to ask, ask yourself a lot of questions. Okay. Why do I think that? First of all, what is the, the personal flaw or the miss of mine that led to this?

And you have to truly be willing to hear the answer, which, which may be, yeah, I totally missed. That was a blind spot. I handled that incorrectly. And, and then I think from there you're just asking yourself, okay, how can I, how would I have done it differently? What is the learning from this?

What's the real impact of it? And it, it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. I mean, if, if you, if you actually did make a mistake that caused the adversity, first of all, it's life, it does happen. But the second thing is, is like you, you, you have to own it and then move forward. And a lot of times it's it's probably gonna take someone as a sounding board to help get you through it.

A friend, a mentor, a leader where you just say, Hey here's, here's how I perceive what happened. I think I really messed up. Here's what I own about it. Here's what I'm unclear about. Help me, help me with your perspective. Don't just tell me what I wanna hear. Help me through this. And usually that type of dialogue can get us to a place where we can at least move forward.

But it's one of those things I always say, like there's a lot of learning that happens when you get a little space from it, when you could not see the, the emotion, the pain and you can actually just see it for what it was and understand what led to where you to, to where you took the, the misstep.

Russel Lolacher: Emotional regulation. You kind of mentioned it earlier as well, that, that we, emotions are good, but it can stop. So when I ask, I asked the question off the earlier about what's your best or worst? Most times outta 10, I get the worst and most times outta 10. It's from 30 years ago, so it could be this horrible, but it's this trauma that people have carried with them for decades. This failure either of themselves or the leadership that they had back then. So working with emotional regulation and being kinder to yourself, which I think is that human piece before we get into the analytical curiosity piece is so essential, but that emotional regulation is not something a lot of people are... get the tools. How many leaders go into leadership positions and, oh, emotional regulations. We just care if you do the job or not. How do you, how do you take that first step into understanding emotion regulation?

Whitney Faires: Yeah, well, the easiest way to answer that is if you don't have a deep understanding of yourself before you need emotional regulation. It's really hard. That's one of the reasons I have a job as a coach is because I, I, I try to help people understand that the, the deeply rooted behaviors, issues that drive the symptoms because as leaders often we treat the symptoms, we're not gonna go deep into, something like, what, what is it that's making you feel that way, that's causing you to show up that way?

We're just like, Hey, why do you communicate like this? We need to, we need to fix it. Here's some ideas. Let, let's talk through it. Can you do this differently? Are we good? Yes. Okay. So. It's a long way of saying that you have to understand your tendencies and how you're gonna show up where your mind is gonna go in those moments where you're not at your best, where when you make a mistake, because oftentimes I can talk myself down and regulate my emotions by saying, Hey, I know when I make a mistake, I get very upset at myself. I go to worst case scenario. I think, I, I'm, I'm, I'm going to spiral into all the things that are probably gonna go wrong and what people think of me. And I know that's not true. But if you don't do that reflection upfront of knowing yourself deeply, understanding your tendencies, and knowing what is true and what is not true in the moment, it's very hard to, to have that regulation.

Russel Lolacher: I've noticed you talk about a thing called a magnetic mindset when it comes to getting more opportunity or collect, could you define what that even means in relation to adversity to opportunity.

Whitney Faires: Yeah. So, adversity is, is part of that. So essentially a magnetic mindset. I have eight components in there that if you do these things like authenticity, finding your power zone it, it's a, it's a an acronym. Then you'll be able to attract more of what you want and, repel more of what you don't want.

And I say that because magnetic mindset is all about things, things that we do that will enable us to be at our best and make it... I don't wanna say easier, but it's going to feel easier to accomplish those big goals, to show up in a way that best represents us to be influential and to, to feel really good while doing it.

I think that's something that's so often missed. I, I think back to myself or people I've led and on the outside they're like, wow, that person has got it together. They're executing, they're confident, but inside. You don't feel the same way that you're showing up, you're anxious, you're nervous, you're beating yourself up.

And let's be honest, like it's way more fun for your outside to match your inside versus it looks good, but you walk outta the meetings still going, here's all the things I did wrong. And that's what magnetic mindset is about, is adopting different practices that anybody can do at any level so that you can, you can crush it and feel good doing it essentially.

Russel Lolacher: So from a personal standpoint as a leader, going through and establishing a magnetic mindset establishing any sort of mindset to be more curious with ourselves, have that self-awareness. How do we know we're being successful in flipping through that adversary and setback into an area of opportunity and advancement?

So you're in it. How do you know you're on the other side of it?

Whitney Faires: Yeah. I think first of all, you're gonna know how you, based on how you feel. So, I always in the case of adversity, when I look back and I say, gosh, you know, used to, I would, I would be stuck for a, a day or two. Even if I was moving towards a solution, I would be very emotional. I would maybe be, irritable and it would just stick with me and drag me down.

Now, I, I like had this process where I feel like, okay, I've worked through it. I'm moving forward, and I'm, I'm kind of at peace with that. So a big part of it is how you feel. I'd say the second thing is get feedback from other people. I'm a big proponent. Of when there's something that you're working on.

We all have a trust tree at work and at home or in our personal lives where we say, I'll say to somebody that I trust in that meeting who I have a, a, a close relationship with. I'm really working on navigating objections in a meeting and not appearing defensive, not speeding up my pace of how I talk, changing my tone, but just being me.

Tell me how I'm doing. Well, you can do that with adversity. I, maybe someone that works for you that that is someone you're developing to do more. Hey, tell me how I'm showing up in these situations when it pops up on a team call, when it pops up in our business. And getting that feedback as to how you're coming off to other people.

I think those are the, the two best ways is how you feel and how it's manifesting externally. You'll know, I think you, you people definitely know. It's one of those things that it just feels different and it feels more process oriented than emotionally driven.