82. Ordinary Resilience

Jeff Hunt:

Welcome to the human capital podcast, I'm Jeff Hunt. Today, we're going to talk about resilience. As you think about your life or career, have you ever faced a significant setback that made you question your path? How did you bounce back? And what did you learn from that experience? Maya Angelou has a quote that I appreciate and it reads: you may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, and how you can still come out of it. My guest today defines resilience as the ability to adapt well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress.

It involves not only bouncing back from difficult experiences, but also growing and improving because of them. Today, we'll explore how overcoming obstacles can shape us into more effective leaders, employees, and better human beings. Research indicates that executives who encounter and overcome significant career setbacks often develop greater resilience, adaptability and problem-solving skills, which can lead to greater long-term success. These leaders are not only just surviving, they are thriving, having turned their challenges into stepping stones for growth. My guest today is Luis Velasquez, author of the book, Ordinary Resilience. Luis is a seasoned executive, resilience expert, executive coach, he's a leadership facilitator at Stanford University, and he has personally faced significant life challenges which have given him profound insights into the nature of resilience and the power it holds in transforming our personal and professional lives. In addition to his role at Stanford, Luis coaches well-known executives in Silicon Valley, helping them navigate through adversity and emerge stronger. In his book, Luis shares not only his own journey, but also practical strategies for building resilience in the face of adversity. He brings a blend of personal experience and professional expertise, making him the perfect guest to help us understand how we can cultivate resilience in our own lives and workplaces. Welcome Luis.

Luis Velasquez:

Thank you, Jeff. Thank you for having me. I gotta say, you know, this introduction is uh, it's overwhelming. It's like, wow. You know, thank you. It's just, wow. I am humbled.

Topic 1. Who or what inspired you the most? (02:41)

Jeff Hunt:

I'm so thrilled to have you on the show today. And as we were chatting before we hit the record button.

I'm in the process of reading your book. And I think one of the things I love about your book is it's very practical and pragmatic and appropriate for a business context, but the personal aspects of it that you highlight are so important and so. I'm wanting to hear about your personal story of resilience, but before we get into that, and before you share about that, tell me who has inspired you most during your lifetime so far.

Luis Velasquez:

I think that I, there are so many people and so many things that have inspired me. But if I go back and say, you know, who are the most, the people that have left an indelible mark in my life, I think that are my parents. Both my father and my mother, and they are, oh my gosh, that in the book, I don't know if you have read it, you know, there is the story of my dad, there in an accident that he had.

And I think that that was basically the biggest example of resilience that helped me. Through, go through my own dark days and my mother, she's an incredible human being, but also incredibly resilient. And I think that both of them were, had been the most significant people, that shaped who I am today.

Topic 2. Luis’ personal story of ordinary resilience (04:09)

Jeff Hunt:

I love how you weave those into your book, and it's also sort of part of your own resilience story. But take a few minutes just to tell our listeners about your own personal story of resilience.

Luis Velasquez:

So I grew up in Guatemala, Central America in the 19, 70s and 80s. And if you remember during that time, we were, the United States was in the, in the midst of the Cold War, which wasn't fought in the United States or Russia, but the battles were fought in Latin America.

So we had the area where I used to live was affected by violence, political violence, and we were also really, really poor. My dad, I think that was making at that time an equivalent of about 40 a month. My mom's day's wage was about 2 a day, and that didn't go very far. It was hard.

It was, it was looking back. I realized, oh my gosh, how did we survive. But the reality is that I remember and I had the most happy, most happy childhood, you know, I mean, my kid, my brothers and I were always very happy, I always thought that I, that my journey wasn't going to end in what I grew up.

And my dad encouraged me, yeah, you, you're smart, you need to go somewhere else. You need to go find your path. And when the war ended, there was an agreement, and the United States set up a program that was called Scholarships for Peace, and that was bringing young people from those areas, and then teach them a trade and English, and then they could go back and be beacons of change.

And I was fortunate to be selected. So I came to the United States and learned English and went to community college and learned food science. And then when I finished that, I went back for the commitment that I had about going back for a number of years. But what that did to me, Jeff, I realized that, oh my gosh, there is so much else I could do beyond where I was living.

And when my commitment ended and I decided I need to go back, I need to go back and I came back and went to Florida A& M University where I finished my degree. And then I started a master's and then I moved to Michigan where I became, where I did a PhD in molecular biology and became a professor there.

An assistant professor of fungal genetics. I thought that I had it all made and then life is very interesting. Life throws you, curveballs and my curveball came in the form of a brain tumor. Long story short I survived the tumor which I still have and I still live with it. But, neither my professional dreams nor my marriage survived.

So I had to reinvent myself. And I had to figure out, what else I could do. And so this is my third act. You know, I started a company. I bankrupted that company. I started another company. I sold that company. And here I am today. In the process, I also, the doctor told me, you have to accept your new reality.

And your new reality is that you probably won't be able to run. I mean, walk straight. Or go back to teaching anymore. And that was a very hard, hard thing for me to accept. That was about a hundred marathons ago and many Ironman triathlons that I run now. But going back to your question about resilience, and one of the reasons why I call it ordinary resilience, because when people tell me exactly what you tell me to use a resilient, you do this, you do that.

I realized that I wasn't doing anything different. I wasn't doing anything extraordinary. And as I started, learning about this, I realized that we all have access to these things that we have inside of being resilient and all we need to do is to unlock the resilience and we don't need to go through major changes in life to unlock that resilience. And I hope that we can talk about that for a minute.

Jeff Hunt:

Absolutely. Well, and I, that was the first thing that struck me when I picked up your book was that you put the word ordinary before resilience. And so. Is the premise behind that, Luis, that that's accessible by all of us? So all human beings have the ability to achieve and build their resilience muscle. Is that correct?

Luis Velasquez:

That is correct. And I think that, the idea is that we don't need anything else right now to take the first step. And the reality is that, we are, the most resilient Species in the world, I mean, if you think about us as human beings, we live in every single part of the world.

We have become who we've become because we are resilient and resilience comes from adaptation and we have adapted to our environment and the adaptation happens over a long time. And by nature, we are very resilient. So, what we need to do is to remember and unlock that resilience and take advantage of what we already have.

And that's why I call it ordinary because it's nothing extraordinary about being resilient. We have it already.

Topic 3. How to unlock resilience? The five pillars of resilience (09:15)

Jeff Hunt:

Sure. And so if you break it down, because it is accessible to everybody, tell us a little bit about how we can achieve that. You have that really well articulated in your book. And like I said, I'm about halfway through your book right now, so I haven't.

I haven't gotten to the finish line, but what I've experienced so far is the sort of breakdown of resilience in a way that allows us to understand the different things that we can do to really become more resilient as things come our way. What are some of those?

Luis Velasquez:

I describe resilience, it has five pillars. And, and those five pillars are accessible for everyone to everyone. And number one is I call it embrace the suck and basically embrace the challenge, embrace where we are, I mean, I remember when I was in the darkest time of that journey that I was describing earlier, you know, and I was comparing myself to who I was before, oh my god, I was a professor, I was this, I was that, and that just kept me down.

And then I realized, I think that the biggest change and the biggest shift in my life was when I realized that, I am who I am, tumor included. And I even gave my tumor a funny name. You know, I call it my precious. Oh, okay. It's my precious, you know, and, uh, it made me, it made, it is part of my journey. And I think that a lot of times we think that we need X to move forward.

The reality is we don't. This is where we are, and we need to move on. Now, there is a mantra behind that element, and that is, what am I going to do about this? When I was growing up, every time that I would complain about something, every time that I did something, my dad would ask me, so what are you going to do about that?

What do I want to do about that? And I think that that is a call to action for me. Whenever I am in a situation that I don't like, the first thing I ask myself is, what am I going to do about this? So that's number one. Number two is, embracing fear. And if you look at, you read, you know, reading my book now, there is so many times in there that I'm absolutely scared about all the many things that are happening.

You know, scared of death, scared of losing a job, scared of, being lonely, scared of, losing a wife and many, many things that happen in there. And the reality is that. A lot of times, we, this is a funny story, I'm a runner, as I shared with you earlier, and I was running one day, you know, I was running, and then I saw a couple like they were walking holding hands, but I guess I was running so silent that they didn't notice me until I was upon them. And this is what happened. The guy didn't even look back. He heard me and he took off running. And the woman just look at me and laugh, and the guy, like, A few seconds later, he came back with his leg, with his hair down, you know, he was ashamed of leaving his wife there.

But I think that that's what we do a lot of times, when we're afraid of something, we just run or we come back fighting. And I think that the way I described in the book and the mantra is we don't need to be fearless, but to fear less. So a lot of times these things that scare us, they're not as, they're not as scary if we try it once.

If we try it, and in that process we become stronger and we start facing our fears. So that's number two. Number three is relationships. All the pivotal moments of my life have been catalyzed by a person. They have given me an opportunity, they have pushed me, they have challenged me, and even they have left me.

But I think that that is key is, building relationships. And I think that that is something that we. Don't do well enough is, building relationships. So we have the social resilience when we need it. The other thing that other element that I think that is accessible to everyone is the idea that we are stronger than we think we are, and the way I describe sometimes is a lot of times we confuse pain with discomfort.

It is so painful. It is so painful to do that. No, it's not painful. It might be discomfort. It might be uncomfortable. So I think that recognizing what is discomfort, what is pain, gives us the ability, yeah, I can be, I can be uncomfortable to keep going. And the last component is the idea that, that we tend to look for, satisfaction, when I have this, you know, I work on cars.

That is my passion, and I think that that is a little bit of a kind of selfish. And I think that the way I describe it is that in order for us to go through the discomfort of many things is to realize that we're doing something for something bigger than ourselves. And the biggest example, or the biggest thing that I, that I can tell you is that when I was in my darkest moment, I actually thought about killing myself, you know, committing suicide.

And there was a moment where I saw the image of my mother and I said to myself, I cannot do this to her. If I do this, she will suffer. She will be in pain. So I said, no, I cannot do that. So that allowed me to, I'm going to get better. You see what I'm saying? And I know it's going to be difficult and it's going to be painful, but I have something else bigger than myself that I can commit to.

So those are the five elements of what I call the resilient builders.

Jeff Hunt:

I really love that Luis. And as I'm reflecting on it, a couple of things are coming to mind for me. One is if you really look at the greatest, sort of spiritual teachers and the best leaders in the world. Oftentimes those are the people that have the ability to embrace the suck.

I love that whole concept of embracing the suck. And what you just shared that's behind that is our ability to instead of resist, accept what's there. So when you remove the resistance, then all of a sudden, there's a lower burden in our own internal system. We're not fighting things as much.

We're accepting where we are. And the other thing that I'm reflecting on is that when you embrace the suck for long enough, oftentimes the suck will go away, it'll minimize, it'll go down, it'll reduce. In other words, things aren't permanent. For many people, they'll be in extremely difficult situations, just as what you described, even to the point where you were thinking that it might be better to take your own life.

You got to a point where that's no longer probably the case anymore. So, we're not ever in one situation forever, right?

Luis Velasquez:

That is correct. And I think that, you brought a very interesting point here. And, and resilience is usually a mirror or associated with survival. You know, he survived.

He's so resilient. I think that the way, the way I describe resilience, the book is that it has three different stages is survival. Is what you say, you know, I'm gonna go on, you know, do this. And then it's adapting. To your point earlier, it is like, you know, things are not as difficult as they seem to be.

But then there is another element that is called thriving. I am going to be more successful because of it. People will tell me sometimes are you wish, do you wish you never had a tumor? And I am like, absolutely no. You know, it's part of my journey now and I am so glad I, have it because it made it possible for me to be who I am today.

So the way I describe, resilience is has those three elements is number one is survival, adaptation, and then thriving. And the way I say it, and the way I think about it is that the less time we spend on survival mode, the more resilient we are.

Topic 4. Who I am vs what I do (17:09)

Jeff Hunt:

I love that. Yeah, that's great. And one of the things you mentioned in your book too, is The importance of separating out the difference between who I am and what I do, how can, if I am too closely associated with what I do, in other words, that's really become part of my identity.

How can that actually work against me in terms of building my resilience muscle?

Luis Velasquez:

I think that, as I mentioned earlier, for me. Is when I was at one of darkest time was the realization that I wasn't the person that I used to be. I was a professor. I'm not anymore. I was married to a very incredible, amazing woman.

I wasn't known anymore. And that brought a lot of self-doubt and and the question of my worthiness as a human being. And it wasn't until I realized. That what I do, what I have doesn't define me, but rather is who I am. And when I, when we started talking about it and before the recording, you asked me who I am, and I said, I am a resilient mofo, you know, and there are three things that I can, you know, I am committed, I am persistent and I am optimistic.

And I think that we all have. That identity. I mean, I did. One of the things that I do with my coaches is to ask them, who are you? Let's talk about it. Who are you? What are the three things that you have done in your life that made you successful or to get you where you are here? And they say, I am a hard worker.

I make sense. That is who you are. What you do with that is different. And the idea of associating your identity with what you do is very dangerous for that particular reason, because a lot of times, especially now, the economy is different, there are a lot of things that are happening, and you can lose a job.

The minute you lose your job, it's like, oh my gosh, now I'm worthless or less worthy because I should have kept my job. So I think that, to be resilient, I think that we need to be in touch with who we are and not necessarily associated with what we do.

Jeff Hunt:

I was also thinking about how misconstrued this sort of if-then concept is.

In other words, If I achieve X amount of sales, then I will be happy. Or if I achieve this position, then I will get more esteem or respect. And really a lot of what you seem to be saying is that it's really more about being in the moment. It's the here and now, it's being present, it's being able to accept where we are and work hard for our goals, of course, because you just mentioned purpose and the importance of purpose, but not placing too much on the outcome. Is that right?

Luis Velasquez:

Yes. Yeah. There are two elements that you mentioned, one is outcome. And there is another element that is the output.

Output is what you measure, the tangibles, the number of sales, the number of money, that is output. And the output has a lot of things that we cannot control, like the market has changed, the competition has improved. There are so many things that will affect the output, but the outcome is, did I do my best?

Am I doing the best I can to be a great seller? Let's put it that way, you know, so those are the two different things. And I think that we need to, we need to disassociate the outcome, the output from the outcome. Yeah, I think that the, the, a lot of times we put a lot of emphasis on the output and people say if you cannot measure it, if you cannot measure it, it cannot be improved.

And I don't think that that is totally right. I think that a lot of times the measurements come from things that we cannot control but the outcome for me is I'm gonna, one thing that I do, whenever I go into a meeting or a business development, you know, at the end of the day, I asked myself, did I do my best?

And if I, if I did great, I'm not going to think about it. This is what it is, but if I do, why am I not different next time? But. Thinking about the output as the only metric for success. It has, it could be damaging for our perceived worthiness and most importantly, uh, self-compassion

Topic 5. Commitment + persistence = resilience (22:01)

Jeff Hunt:

I appreciate that. And in fact, one of the things that you mentioned in your book is this equation for resilience, which is. You put it, correct me if I'm wrong, but optimism times commitment plus persistence equals resilience. That's right. Say a little bit more about that and what this looks like.

Luis Velasquez:

As I mentioned earlier we have already everything that we need to get started. The key here is to have the desire. To move forward. And commitment is expressing that desire.

But now the commitment is has an emotional component of that, I'm committed to my wife, I am committed to my children. Therefore, that will allow me to make decisions. about things that might not be relevant to that particular commitment. Sometimes we try to do a lot of stuff, when we do a lot of stuff, we, what are we committed to?

So that's number one. Number two is persistence. And Jeff, life is hard, work is hard and there are so many, and I think that a lot of times, we tend to optimize for comfort, tend to optimize for easiness. And it isn't like that. So I think that when you're persistent, you realize that things are not gonna be easy all the time.

Now, if you have only those two, that is a recipe for overwhelm and uh, burnout. You know, you're committed to this and you're going to go all the way and the hard, what it makes it even much, much better. And I call it, you know, it's a multiplier is the optimism is the hope. And I, what I call it, that's why I say it has to be a multiplier because if you don't have optimism and you don't have hope, you have zero resilience.

And you stay in that area, what I mentioned earlier about survival. And survival will kill you. The optimism is the idea, to your point earlier, is , right now, is not gonna last forever. The optimism and the hope allow us to, oh my God, I see the finish line. I see the light.

This, where I am right now, isn't uh, permanent. One question that I ask, a few of my clients when they're going through, hard times or when they're having a hard time is like, what can you do today? So two years from now, you can say that this crisis that you're having right now is the best thing that happened to your career.

Jeff Hunt:

I love that. Yeah. And I'm just thinking about how we're in the middle of another COVID surge here in the U S COVID started four and a half years ago it's, summer, late summer of 2024, four and a half years into the pandemic. And if you think about in the midst of pandemic, so many people experienced a burnout instead of resilience.

And is that because. They were missing one of those elements of the equation. What's your theory about why burnout has been so prevalent?

Luis Velasquez:

There are many different, things that are happening, for many different people. One thing that I think that is, uh, that I've seen a lot of times is the, is the idea that people feel that they are not in control.

I cannot control, this, therefore I am stuck in my house. I cannot control that, therefore this. And I think that when people feel out of control is when they, we're going to dark places. And I think that being resilient is to being It's having a choice, it's having the ability to choose, if I could describe the book in one sentence, and the way I would like people to see that is that, in order for us to act differently, we need to think differently, and in order for us to think differently, we need to see differently.

So when we see things from a different perspective, then opportunities arise. appear. I'll give you a quick example. For a long time when my kid, when my youngest kid was born, I dreaded the change diapers. I hated chipping diapers. It wasn't something that I enjoyed. And then one day I realized that no many parents, no many fathers have the opportunity to change the diapers because they go to work, they don't have time, you know, blah, blah.

And I'm like, wow, this is a privilege. So I reframed that and then all of a sudden, yeah, I want to change more diapers. So that's what I think that what happens when we are in a, in, in a situation that is, that is horrible. Sometimes that's one way of seeing it, but there are other ways that we can see.

And all we need to do is to sit back, realizing how, what else I can, how else I can see this in a way that, allowed me to look at it from a different perspective.

Jeff Hunt:

I love that whole concept of reframing. And it just feels like so important if we're feeling stuck in a, in a situation, the ability to reframe, especially what you were talking about earlier, Luis, with having purpose.

If we have purpose, Then maybe we can do a little bit better with optimism and hope. And then that can provide a greater ability for us to reframe our current situation. And even give ourselves more self-compassion versus self-condemnation, right?

Luis Velasquez:

So compassion is I cannot tell you how much I I really have thought about this and the way I see the compassion is to my give myself permission, not to be perfect, give myself permission to I messed up and that's okay.

It's part of a human experience. And to your point earlier, if you were talking, if you were talking about the idea that, you know, that. People always want to achieve things and the minute things are not going well, then we're going to that dark place. So compassion is the Is the recipe for that is the is the cure for that is to realize that. Hey, listen, I'm human. All humans fail.

Topic 6. Lightning round questions (28:32)

Jeff Hunt:

Absolutely… One more question before I throw some lightning-around questions at you.

Luis Velasquez:

Yeah.

Jeff Hunt:

So what is the problem with comparing ourselves to others when trying to build resilience? How does this get in the way of things?

Luis Velasquez:

When I joined a group a while ago in this particular group, there were people that were incredibly successful, I'm like, Oh my gosh, I realized that I was in diapers compared to them, and I started to put a lot of pressure on myself to do the things that I needed to do to get there.

And I made a decision at that point. And I made a decision and I said, I am not going to be. intimidated by them because that's where the comparison comes in. I'm going to be inspired by them. So I use them as inspiration rather as a source of stress and comparison to myself to them, so like, wow, they, I see what they have done.

I can do it too. As opposed to I want to be like them, that puts a lot of pressure on myself. So I think that is, I think that it's about reframing, reframing the idea that, hey, that person is gotten there. I mean, that is an inspirational for me as opposed to I want to have what he has.

Jeff Hunt:

Yes. So one is envy and the other is reframing and inspiration, right? Envy versus inspiration. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Okay, are you ready for the lightning round? Oh my gosh, yeah, yeah. What are you most grateful for? My health and my family. What's the most difficult leadership lesson you've learned over your career?

Luis Velasquez:

I think that the biggest leadership lesson is, trying to fix things that are not in my control.

Jeff Hunt:

Who is one person you would interview if you could, living or not?

Luis Velasquez:

Martin Luther King.

Jeff Hunt:

What's your top book recommendation? One of my top book recommendations right now, by the way, is Ordinary Resilience. So, if you haven't bought it, go buy a copy and read it. It's a very good book. But Luis, what's yours?

Luis Velasquez:

The book that I have read more than once, and I think that I read it over nine times and I have gifted like over 30 times. It's it's a children's book. It's The Alchemist by Paolo Cohelo. Ah, I've seen that. Yeah. Yeah. And there is one passage that I think that is amazing.

It is when you want something so hard, the world will conspire. To give it to you. The only thing that we need to do is to read the signs. And I think that I take that very seriously because I think that, sometimes we miss the signs and and resilience is like that, you know, resilience is about adopting and trying to realize what is easier and what is hard and what is hard, is survival, what is easier is adapting.

Jeff Hunt:

I love that. What's the best piece of advice. You've ever received?

Luis Velasquez:

Go run. You’re a better husband when you're running. I know. I think that the best piece of advice that I have gotten is be yourself.

Jeff Hunt:

Very good piece of advice. Like if you could distill everything down to one of the most important things in life, like the life lessons, it's be yourself, right?

Luis Velasquez:

Be yourself. Always, always attempt to be better. Uh,

Jeff Hunt:

huh. For sure. So I love this book and our conversation. If you had to encapsulate a few really key important takeaways for our listeners, what would those be?

Luis Velasquez:

I think that, it's a few of the things that we already talk about it.

And what I hope that the, any reader can see is that when we challenge our assumptions, when we are optimistic, and when we decide that we want to make a change in our lives, the options will appear. That's number one. Number two, I think that, you know, my philosophy of life, the philosophy of my coaching is, is encapsulated in how I describe the book is for me to act differently.

I need to think differently. And for me to think differently, I need to see differently. And I hope that the book challenges, how people see their most small challenges and big challenges.

Jeff Hunt:

Luis, thank you for coming on the show and sharing this incredible wisdom, and also for being vulnerable about your own story. So, that you can help others transform. I loved having our conversation today.

Luis Velasquez:

Thank you, Jeff. I really appreciate it. That'd be an honor and privilege to be in your show.