Besides the very real practicalities of surviving – let alone thriving – in difficult circumstances, there exists in all of us a resilience mindset that binds body and soul together. That mindset, whether individual or collective, stems from an embedded set of beliefs and behaviours. It is a core concept, like courage, which gives strength when dangers threaten. Resilience encapsulates both mental and physical acuity. Yet the concept has been around for millennia: ancient philosophers were well aware of its principles and modern proponents have built upon their foundations.
The Resilience Mindset: A Philosophical Journey, takes a deep dive into the human aspects of resilience. As we live in a world of constant change, both self-imposed and inflicted, philosophy can help us understand how to cope positively and rise to the challenges. It offers pointers to a better life. From an organizational perspective, having employees with high resilience feeds into strong organizational resilience.
The book examines such topics as being stoical, facing our fears, realising our virtues, finding our values, seeking truth and trust, coping with change, and shifting from mindset to skillset. Drawing from teachings throughout the ages, it provides valuable lessons for dealing with today’s crises and challenges.
In this introductory article, four of the eight milestones that summarise the book’s core ideas are outlined.
Milestone A
We can lessen our fears of uncertainty and change by focusing on resilience rather than risk.
Tackling our fears and addressing potential risks is part of being resilient. It is the ability to bounce forward in the face of challenges. According to the Greek thinker Epictetus, if philosophy is to help us make sense of our fears, it should give us the capacity to determine whether our fears are valid and prepare accordingly.
Unprecedented change in the modern world means we have fewer historical reference points to assess future events and gauge probabilities with accuracy. As a result, there is growing interest in moving away from traditional risk management models and adopting threat-neutral or threat-agnostic approaches that prioritise managing consequences rather than causes. This is more a resilience management issue. When applied, it shifts our focus from fears we cannot control to actions we can take.
This shift in thinking will not be easy. Traditions are always hard to surrender. The ‘risk-industrial complex’ has a strong hold on our thinking but is increasingly found wanting in our precarious world. The principle of Occam’s Razor – that the simplest explanation is usually correct – has much to recommend when seeking clarity in complexity.
Milestone B
Truth and trust can bind people together in a robust social contract that facilitates resilience in the round.
A resilient approach relies heavily on trust between people and in authorities. Trust depends on the truth that is communicated; and is undermined by the spread of misinformation or post-truth narratives. Social media is both an amplifier and a hindrance: it can spread truth or disguise falsehoods, unite or polarise, calm or inflame.
To repair the social fabric and build a meaningful social contract, those in authority must engage with people at all levels, answering ground-level questions as well as strategic ones. Enabling people to build resilience from the ground up, beyond top-down strategies, protocols, and standards, is a key role of government. Albert Einstein reportedly said, “Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.”
One of the most influential aspects of Aristotelian philosophy is the enabling role of the state – the belief that the function of the state is to support the development and well-being of the individual. Yet only through society can individuals fulfil their potential. This speaks to the importance of societal resilience, underpinned by political commitment to an open and free society.
Milestone C
Change can be an engine of progress but requires agility and adaptation to operate in partnership if resilience, rather than resistance, is to shine through.
The patterns of the past are no longer good indicators of the future because today’s pace and scale of change are unprecedented. At the same time, history shows that people – across eras, cultures, and creeds – share common fears, ambitions, and emotional responses, and often repeat similar mistakes. We should learn from history but not be limited by it. As Wayne Dyer observed, “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
Our two greatest assets for coping with change are agility and adaptability. These qualities must be cultivated through empowerment, delegation, redundancy, reorganization, and the strategic use of technology. In evolutionary terms, Charles Darwin noted that survival depends not on strength but on the ability to adapt. This principle applies not just to biology but to businesses, communities, and institutions.
Milestone D
The meta-skills of knowledge, communication, perception, and people will play an ever-increasing role in shaping the resilience mindset.
Carol Dweck argues that it is not intelligence, talent, or education that sets successful people apart but mindset – especially a growth mindset. Those with a growth mindset view intelligence and ability as improvable through effort. They focus on knowledge and learning, communication and language, perception and awareness, and social and interpersonal skills.
These meta-skills are transferable capabilities that help people adapt and succeed in life, study, and work. The demands of the modern workplace will increasingly require upskilling and reskilling, involving both practical (hard) and emotional (soft) skills. Technology will both help and hinder: artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and cloud technologies offer productivity and forecasting benefits but also raise new ethical and dependency risks. All this change places an added importance on the skills of anticipation (foresight) and preparation (prevention), as well as education and training to understand the consequences if adaptation (insight) becomes necessary. The American philosopher John Dewey believed that the problem-solving approach – what he called ‘learning by doing’ – was the best one to improve the growth mindset as it combined the practical with the importance of theory. He argued that the combination encouraged people to be imaginative and, above all, would train them in general competence in all fields of human activity. His ideas became – and remain – influential in education worldwide
Overview
The less manageable the issues become – whether local, national, or global – the more resilient we must strive to be. This applies to citizens, communities, businesses, and governments alike. Resilience allows us to bounce forward, whatever the crisis. It should be generic, not tailored only to specific threats, because others will inevitably arise, either sequentially or simultaneously.
Resilience is not automatic. It must be cultivated. Each of us has a role in balancing self and society. It’s more than having spare batteries at home if the lights go out. It’s about fundamentally rethinking our behaviours and preparing for the changes ahead, lights or no lights. As the early Greek philosophers recommended, we must look backwards, forwards, and inward simultaneously. Søren Kierkegaard wrote, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”
The author
Robert Hall is cofounder and former executive director of Resilience First Ltd.
The Resilience Mindset (2025) is published on 20 June and can be preordered from Austin Macauley Publishers or through bookstores. It is the second book in a series, following Building Resilient Futures (2023). The third title, Nature’s Resilience, will appear next month.
