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Ever feel like there’s a gap between your potential and your reality? Perhaps you sense there’s more to your interactions than simply going through the motions, more depth to be uncovered in your personal and professional relationships. Imagine what could be possible if you harnessed the power of resilience and brilliance—attributes that allow you to not just survive but to truly thrive in every interaction. What if you could tap into your innate creativity, intelligence, and confidence while navigating challenges with grit and perseverance? The potential for growth and transformation in your life could be limitless.

In this episode, we explore how honing relational skills can radically improve your business, life, and relationships. Discover how a blend of perseverance, creativity, and confidence can unlock new levels of personal success and organizational progress. We'll dive into the science behind emotional alignment and the critical role it plays in leadership and effectiveness. Hear compelling personal stories about mending strained relationships through emotional support and consistency. Learn practical strategies for building stronger connections and fostering environments where everyone can shine. Tune in for insights that can help you unleash your true potential and transform your interactions with others.

Simon T. Bailey is a leading expert on the topic of Brilliance. His groundbreaking research, State of Working America Report – Thriving in Resilience and Brilliance, solidifies his insights in his 11th book, Resilience@Work. Bailey left an indelible mark on 2,400-plus organizations in 54 countries and has made a remarkable impact on 120,000 professionals who’ve experienced his courses in LinkedIn Learning. He was also recognized in Success magazine’s Top 25 and leadersHum Top 200 Power List.

In this episode

07:43 What defines resilience for working Americans?

10:43 How congruence and alignment enhance leadership influence and effectiveness.

15:10 How do unresolved issues affect future relationships?

18:41 How does conscious awareness serve others?

20:48 Nurturing relationships through mindful connection.

25:48 The importance of sharing personal stories in the healing process

29:50 Learning to manage mental health through meditation, exercise, diet, and sleep (MEDS); using apps for meditation and journaling.

33:29 How prayer can shift attention from personal desires to serving others.

Your Check List of Actions to Take

• Shift to an inclusive leadership style by listening and showing emotional care to build trust.
• Regularly ensure your thoughts, feelings, and actions are aligned for better personal effectiveness.
• Implement daily self-care routines like meditation, exercise, a balanced diet, and sufficient sleep.
• Engage in therapy to address emotional traumas and improve relationships.
• Communicate with kindness and active listening to strengthen relationships.
• Provide emotional guidance and support to children instead of material gifts.
• Incorporate meditation, prayer, and journaling into your daily routine.
• Focus on serving others without expectations to enhance personal growth and mental health.

Mentioned

Resilience @ work: How to Coach Yourself Into a Thriving Future (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

Shift Your Brilliance: Harness the Power of You, Inc. (Brilliant Living) (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

Resilience is a Superpower (website) (book)

Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication

Connect with Simon T. Bailey

Websites: brilliantu.co | simontbailey.com

Facebook: facebook.com/BrilliantSimonT

X: twitter.com/SimonTBailey

YouTube: youtube.com/c/SimonTBaileyIntl

Instagram: instagram.com/simontbailey

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/simontbailey

Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins

Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship 

Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins 

Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/

Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation 

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins 

Twitter: @DrJessHiggins 

Website: drjessicahiggins.com  

Email: [email protected]

About this Episode

Simon, thank you for joining us today.

Jessica, thank you for having me. So good to be with you.

Likewise. Just in our brief chatting before getting started here, I can tell you have so much to offer, both in personal experience and also your research, also all your work in the corporate world. So I really appreciate having your voice here, as we look at topics as it relates to relationship. But also, you've done so much to support the topic of resilience and helping people have more awareness around that.

So before we dive in, for people who maybe don't know you, what would you like to share around how these topics are important to you? We could probably spend the whole episode on that. But what would you like people to know about where you're coming from?

So, Jessica, here's what I've discovered. 

So that's how I think about this whole conversation.

Wow, okay! For people who maybe might have a different definition, how would you break those terms of resilience and brilliance? Because I'm getting a vibe that the brilliance is a unique expression of an individual and their unique gifts, and the resilience is what it takes to tolerate the upsets in life and the difficulties and the challenges. But help me where you're coming from.

So we partner with a third-party company, The Center for Generational Kinetics, and we ask working Americans, how do you define resilience? Working Americans told us that they define resilience as perseverance, problem-solving, and grit. Then we turned around and we asked them, how do you define brilliance? We gave them 17 choices and qualities to really identify brilliance. And working Americans came back and ranked intelligence, creativity, and confidence, as the top things as they describe brilliance. So when I looked at that, I said to our team, wait a minute, wait a minute. When a person is in an environment where they are celebrated rather than tolerated, they unlock their confidence, their intelligence, to move the organization forward. But then when things go sideways, they tap into that perseverance and that grit, and they solve problems because of how they're wired.

Both are so important. I have known from the neuroscience that when our systems are more regulated, and I think through practice of resilience, we can be more resourced and have more awareness around how to support our systems to be more regulated, that we can tap into the creative part of ourselves, so the part of our brain that has more capacity for creativity. So it sounds like, through your research and surveying, that you recognize people are really resonating and defining these, and you're responding to how people define them for themselves.

Yes. The other interesting thing, based on what you just mentioned, Dr. Rick Snyder, who was a scholar at the University of Kansas for years, did research around hope theory. He began to teach this whole thing around willpower and waypower. When you think about that, it's when a person, in the spirit of resilience, begins to say: Wait a minute, I've been here before, I can do this! I have creativity. It's because when you have a will, you will find a way. That creates hope to look through the windshield of where you're going, instead of the rearview mirror of where you've been.

Oh, I feel my heart just responding to what you're saying. Because when we're in times where we don't believe, or we don't have hope, or we haven't had experiences of overcoming, it can be really difficult to see through the windshield. We don't actually have that vantage point of it's possible.

And when you don't see, you don't feel. And when you don't feel, you don't know. So your energy is scattered, and you're not operating in what many would call that emotional congruence. So in that emotional congruence, as Harold Kushner in his book talks about, that's when everything that you think and you say and you feel is in alignment, and you find that way forward, to be resilient wherever you are.

Wow. Just even knowing how much you are supporting people in the corporate world, and how this relates to leadership. That even though we might say the right thing, even have a good decision that is being implemented, if those aren't lined up in that congruence, it can feel wobbly and more like tuning forks as humans. So to feel that real clear congruence and alignment, I think that's compelling for people to have a felt sense. I don't know, I'm speaking a little bit more, not as concrete measurables. But do you find this to be true, that when someone is more congruent and aligned, that that impacts their ability to influence and lead?

Totally. One of my failures, when I first got promoted into a leadership role at Disney is, Jessica, I was a boss with an agenda, instead of a leader with a vision. So when people showed up in my space, I basically ran an adult daycare center, I had all the answers, and you had to come to papa in order to know how to think. So I had a lot of Ego (edging greatness out), instead of Eco (emotionally caring often). When a leader emotionally cares about a human being, you move from me to we. It's not about you forcing onto that person how to think. It's inviting them into a conversation, to hear their brilliance, to hear their resilience, to hear what's important to them. It's in that place and space, it's in the silence, where leaders begin to understand, Jessica, the same letters that spell the word listen, also spell the word silent. 

So it's that moving from Ego to Eco (emotionally caring often).

So even as you're describing this from Ego to Eco, there's so many times where I can feel inside myself, a tremendous amount of resistance when I don't feel considered or cared about when one is leading, and I just naturally will question, and I want to understand. I don't have as much trust. So when someone is in a place of leadership and I can feel their care, they are inclusive, they are drawing out, and they are trying to be in service of others, in service of the whole, the good. I'm like, you have it, you go! I don't have any resistance. I feel like you've got it, and I don't push back. So it's interesting. Thank you for sharing that.

My pleasure.

I can sense that you also were interested in talking about how you wrote a book as it relates to more heteronormative, heterosexual couples, where there's the masculine and the feminine, male and female. But also, I know I was saying, sometimes these traits, if we're talking about a heterosexual couple, might actually be exhibited more in the woman, depending on who's running more masculine energy and feminine energy. But even as you're talking, does this fit here with what you're talking about, Eco? Because I kind of get the sense of Ego is sometimes that more dominant, one-upping, needing to be in a superior position, where the Eco is a little more wraparound and the systems look. Tell me, if you will.

Yeah, totally. So I am remarried. I was married for 25 years, went through a divorce, got remarried. One of the failures in my first marriage, Jessica, is I was emotionally clueless, totally out to lunch, not dialed in at all. I mean, literally everything just went over my head, until I went to therapy. And no guy wants to sit with a therapist named Anita that has been practicing therapy for 40 years. So she was in my business, and the first thing she said was, whatever you don't deal with will eventually deal with you. There are some things that happened with you and your mother. She said, there's a lot of research out about fathers and daughters, there's emerging research out about mothers and sons. And you have been mama to death, so you need to talk to your mother. Because you're going to carry this emotional deficit into your next relationship. And what I recognized is, there was a hole in my soul, where I was looking for validation, affirmation, confirmation from mom, and it didn't come. So I filled that hole with a lot of ego and different activities, and pushing and suppressing what was really going on. Jessica, I pick up the phone, I call my mom, and my mom says: I've been waiting to have this conversation for 35 years. It became the dam that broke in our relationship, and there was a healing that took place, and mom and I are good. And in my new marriage, Jody, I married an alpha female.

First marriage or second marriage?

Second marriage. So my second marriage with Jody, she's an alpha female. I'm an alpha male. But what we have learned in just four years of both coming from divorced relationships, blended family, is how do we intentionally choose to be kind to each other by emotionally regulating whatever is going on in the moment, slowing down to the speed of that moment, and still recognizing that this is a human being and we really want this to work. And it takes a lot of work! It takes a lot of work. But it's that intention where it's that pause: 3, 2, 1. So, dear. It takes a little edge off of whatever is going to be said. But I've had to learn that. So Anita, my therapist, has helped give me some tools of listening, slowing down to the moment, saying: Jessica, here's what I heard you say. Is this what you meant? Did I miss it? Can you repeat?

Yes. A word that you said a moment ago that just echoes is, the choice or choosing. I get a sense, and maybe I'm just imagining this, with you and your wife, and both being alpha, that you have the capacity to win. Both of you have a lot of skillset, a lot of experience, and a lot of ability to probably argue or win, whatever that debate is. And to really consciously choose, even though you have all the ability to do that, to be in service of and choosing the care, choosing to really nurture the bond, which is a whole different goal. Am I hearing you?

You hit the nail on the head, that's it! Consciously choosing. One of the things, Jody has a master's in psychology, and sometimes I'll tease her and say: I am not your client. I am not on the sofa, don't go there.

I'm not available for the feedback right now, thank you very much.

Of course we'll just bust out laughing. But the reality is, to your point, it's consciously being aware of another. Not to fix, not to be right. But to be in service, to your point. 

So we have a little sign, Jody has got this little sign, that the little things really matter. So good morning, good evening, a text during the day, holding the door when she comes into a room. Chivalry is not dead, and she's not less of a woman. But I am honoring her presence by saying good morning. Something that we do, and we've done this since we got married, is we pray every day. We just take a minute, and we pray for us, we pray for our children. So when something goes south, and it may go south during the day, we at least have an anchor or a launching pad where we come back and say: Okay, did we pray in the morning?

Yes. The real ability to have that ground, as you're describing, that anchor, it does so, so much. I'm not going to name it for you, but I just can appreciate, when life presents the challenges, that we have access to strength, to faith, to courage, and there's a holding and the remembrance and a real practice. At least how I feel.

No, you're spot on. To your point, it's also the power of consistency. I heard John Maxwell say something one day, he said: consistency compounds over time. So it's that consistent effort to be conscious, to be caring, to be kind, consistently over time.

No kidding. I think that that can be minimized as like the fluffy, not very significant, and yet you're speaking around the cumulative effect and how potent and how powerful. It's a felt experience. It's a real nurturing of the relating and the bond. I mean, it's sometimes this invisible thing, the relationship, and yet, to really care for it and care for one another.

So I want to go back a moment. Because you were talking about, I don't know if you still work with her, but Anita, and just what you had learned and the slowing down and the really listening and taking the edge off, and perhaps some of what you learned in your ability to turn towards what I'm sure at the time was very tragic in a lot of ways, with your previous wife and divorce. I just find that to be incredible, myself included, that if I don't slow down, we're all human. I grew up with iMessages. I have all the degrees and master's, and I do this for a living, and I'm in it. Still, the human tendency to want to react is so, so strong. So if I don't slow down, sometimes I don't even have any clue around why I'm reacting. So if I can get into that inquiry for myself and my husband, but I can't access that unless I slow down.

It's so interesting you say what you just said, because I just went to see Anita last week. I hadn't been to her in a few years, and I went to see her because Madison, our youngest. So we have three daughters, one son, blended family, and Madison is from my previous marriage. She just graduated from college. Madison and I have had a challenge over the years as father-daughter. Part of what led to my divorce, Madison wanted to talk to me a number of years ago, she came into my home office, and Jessica, I was emotionally unavailable. She said: Daddy, I see you're busy, I'll just come back later. I said, okay. And it hit me on the plane that I missed a moment to connect with her. So when I came back out of town, I said: Madison, you wanted to talk to me? She said: Daddy, it's okay. I said: No, it's not okay. Because if I don't change my behavior, you're going to marry a joker just like me. And her mother said to me, you give everybody the best of you. But you give us the rest of you, and I don't want the leftovers anymore. So that was kind of the catalyst that led to the divorce.

But fast-forwarding, what led me back to Anita is, Madison, Jody, and Daniel, my son, we had went to church. Great time at church. We're leaving church, and we go and sit down for Sunday brunch at a restaurant. And Madison asked Jody a question, and it was on like popcorn from there. Like, it just blew up, and it was really ugly. I found myself tapping into an anger to her and Jody, so much so, we had to leave the restaurant. I did say that we had just left church right before. But we had to leave the restaurant, because it was bad. It was really, really bad. And we're in the car, and we are verbally assaulting each other. It was back and forth.

Fast-forwarding, Madison's mother was out of town, and I called her and I'm like: I don't know what happened with our daughter. So we had to call a timeout, literally, adults, and we had to meet the next day to just unpack what happened. So literally, for two hours, Madison began to unpack how she was really feeling. And what I realized, as her father, I thought I was throwing money at it. But Dennis Waitley, one of my mentors said: one of the failures is sometimes you give kids loot and things, instead of roots and wings. It hit me that I had given Madison private school, she studied in Italy for a semester abroad. But I was not hearing her heart, and she had suppressed a lot, and it came out. It was like the bottle had been shaken, and it came out.

So literally, I had to go to Anita, just like: I need some coping tools, because I showed up in an unhealthy way for my daughter. Then Jody and Madison met, they talked for three hours, and they began to unpack things. And can I tell you, we are on the other side. But how we got there, therapy taught us to use all of your words and listen and invite conversation, and don't just get stuck in your biased way, it's got to be this way, and then take it out of context. So, anyway.

Oh my goodness, I'm so, so, so grateful for what you're sharing in the personal story here. I'm very touched. I feel so much repair. I mean, that's part of what we talk a lot about. Even the most so-called “successful” couples have disagreements, arguments, fights. It's how they get back into repair that's actually the thing that brings healing and reconciliation. When we're talking about all of us experiencing intergenerational lineage of pain, wounding, family injuries, traumas, it is so powerful to have these moments to catch it. Even if we can't calibrate and fully dial it in, in the moment, to give it the focus, give it the attention, give it the care. And what you're speaking about is, what's on the surface level is one thing, and if we can hold space and really be present to what is also on the inside and what gets unpacked. How significant and life-changing, if I'm hearing you, that is!

Yes. So Madison called me yesterday and she started a new job. She's a new college graduate, started a job. And she said at the end of the call: Dad, I just want to let you know, I love you so much. And I said: I love you. When we said it, it wasn't phoned in. It was coming from that deep place of father and daughter trying to figure our way. We're flawed, perfectly imperfect. But we are better than we were two weeks ago.

Yes, we could just end the show there! Wow, what an example. And what you're helping not only provide, in the relationship, for the depth and the intimacy in father-daughter, and just the bonding and the safety I'm hearing. And also, the modeling, as you were talking about, and have been teaching people around developing emotional intelligence, awareness, building emotional resilience, and putting these into practice. I mean, if I'm hearing you, given the circumstances, and I'm so glad there was repair with your mother, but it sounds like she was also aware, whatever the circumstances. She was limited in her ability to attune to you and hold that space for you. So it sounds like things are much improved in your relationship with her.

It's like reverse parenting. Mom is 84, and what I realized is, I needed to become the parent in the moment for her, to open her up to talk. Once she saw that it was safe, and I would say: Mom, this is amazing, tell me more. I would invite her into storytelling. So she began to unpack the relationship that she had with her parents, what she didn't receive or have. So I began to understand and really honor my mom. I think, Jessica, net-net, it became healing presence for both of us. Just that healing in the moment.

Yeah. Speaking of parenting, for the parts of you that didn't maybe get what you needed, did you have to almost reparent yourself to give yourself what you needed? Or was Anita a part of the help to hold that benevolent space? Are you open to sharing?

That is such a great question. I have never had this question before! But I can speak to it. So what Anita did, from a therapy standpoint, she gave me the coping tools. But then what I recognized, and this is going to sound like an overused phrase, I had to do my work beyond Anita.

Yeah. I mean, you're living your life, that's where it happens.

So I had to learn how to take my MEDS. MEDS is: meditate, exercise, diet, and sleep. Because it's all tied together. So what I started doing is, I started getting up. There were apps out there, Headspace, Calm, I don't have any affiliation with them. But I had to start meditating, number one. Number two, I had to start journaling, beginning to write down. So I have an app called Day One Journal, that I downloaded and paid for, and I'm writing in the journal. But I'm a little old school. I also write in journals, because it's therapeutic for me, I've discovered that. But then what I realized is, my diet was jacked up, so I had to change that. Especially when I went to my doctor and my doctor said my A1C was like 13.1, where it really needed to be 6 or less. So I had to get the diet right. Then I had to start exercising. So I started walking, and I learned to swim. Who wants to swim after 50, right? But I learned to swim. Then, I was only getting three to four hours of sleep. And as you know, according to the research from the book, Why Sleep, when we have proper sleep, it's like emotional first aid for the brain. So I went from three to four hours, Jessica, to getting like six hours, solid.

And when I began to put that all together, it was like a puzzle piece. It was like the pieces emotionally falling into place. It's like when you put an old school key into a lock, and all of the tumblers start tumbling in place. It clicked! I was like, wait a minute. So Anita has helped me mentally, but I have to consistently carve out the first 15 minutes of the day to just work on me. What am I going to eat today? Am I exercising? And what I realized is, it has transformed my life. I'm not the same guy.

I don't know how anyone could be, with those changes, and really being able to attend. You talked earlier about consistency. It's not just, I ate clean or I ate a particular way that nourishes my body, and I'm good. It's a continual practice, and it's the nurturing, as you were responding to re-parenting, on all these domains helping the full system. That I believe fits with resilience, that we have way more capacity. That also fits with emotional intelligence and building more emotional capacity, that we have more bandwidth, we have more accessibility for creating more safety. We have more of that grounding through faith and prayer, that we can slow down. We do have the ability to take a pause to regulate, to then be in curiosity and hold, and have that witnessing healing presence you spoke about.

Totally. The other thing, and I would be remiss if I didn't say this, probably the glue that holds it all together for me is prayer. I started praying, not just with Jodi, just with myself in the morning. Just praying to God and saying: God, I don't know what's going to jump off today. Can you just help or something? Because I'm a hot mess at times. Can you just help me hold it together? That consistency of prayer in the morning just emotionally regulates me, and I get through the day. For me, that's been such a strong anchor.

No kidding! Does this, in your opinion, fit with the Ego versus Eco?

Absolutely. What I've realized, for me, when I pray, I am taking the focus off of what I want and need, and beginning to understand who can I serve today. Not for what I will get, but for who I will become in the process. So what I've discovered is, you are truly blessed when you choose to help another with no strings attached. When I have intentionally kind of set that focus for the day, who can I serve today, how can I help today, and it's not about me, I feel so much better. 

For me, it simply started when I focused on God and said: God, how do I become living presence in this broken world? When I come from that ethos, emotionally caring for others, it just happens. I can't even explain it. It's like second nature, because our world needs kindness and love, and individuals that will show up without an agenda to say, how do I just make the world a little bit better for you?

Thank you so much for speaking to that. I don't know, I wonder what you would say. I will add, when I am in prayer. I actually did a spiritual guidance program, which, being and sitting with others in a therapeutic space, whether or not it's coaching or even therapy, or spiritual guidance if it's framed in that way, which I don't do. But the idea was to hold higher power almost as a third. If it's me and another individual or a couple, just that there's a holding space, a higher power, just honoring that. Also, I would say, I don't lead with a lot of this. But as we're meeting in America, most Americans, and even the world, have some belief in higher power. 

So I'll just bring this back personally, that when I remember, and I try to be diligent, but I'm not always a 100%. But when I am doing my form of prayer, it's not super steeped in a religion, but it's spiritual, and I am holding and praying. That I feel I don't have to source it, it doesn't have to come from me. That I can be in service, as you're using that word, and I can be in a place of trust that it's not because of me or my efforts, it's something larger that I am participating in. That, for me, gets me out of ego, gets me out of the hustle and burnout, kind of like: I'm having to use all my life force energy. That I can be witnessed and be in process and participating with. I don't know, what do you think about that?

So what you're really articulating, and this is something I heard years ago. I was privileged to share the stage with the late great Dr. Stephen Covey, and he said something that I had never heard before. He said, we're not human beings having a spiritual experience, we're spirit beings having a human experience. So what you just articulated, Jessica, is that as a spirit being who slows down to the speed of the moment, and in that silence and in that place, you are connecting with the divine, whatever that looks like and means to you. But you know it, your spirit knows it!

Here's another way to think about it. You remember growing up and they used to say, sticks and stones may break my bones, but names and words will never hurt us. Actually, words do impact us, as we know. Because words carry energy. What is energy? Energy is that spirit. 

Thank you. I'm like, preach! I feel very touched, and even I feel like you're an example. Not only it seems like you have many words that symbolize or are acronyms that are helpful for remembering. But the way in which you're speaking and delivering, I do feel the congruence, and I feel myself responding. So thank you for that.

Well, I know we're winding down, and we've talked so, so much. Is there anything you want to speak about or describe or give, that would be helpful, before we wrap up?

The one thing I would encourage everyone listening to us today, to encapsulate this entire conversation. 

Thank you. It's wrapping up so much of what we talked about. It's beautiful.

Well, Simon, how do people get in touch with all that you're doing and teaching and leading? What would you like people to know and what do you want to direct people towards?

SimonTBailey.com is where they can find me and get connected.

Okay. And what might they find on your website?

Well, certainly we've got a number of resources there. I've got books there, and if they put my name into the podcast prompt, they'll hear some of the past podcasts that I've done and how we hug people with our words. So they can get all our books. Of course, obviously Amazon, you put in my name, all of my books will come up on Amazon. Or if they like to listen, they can go to Audible and put in my name, Simon T. Bailey. T for Terrific. Just kidding. It was right there, Jessica!

I love it. Do you want to name a couple of your books?

Yeah. Resilience at Work: How to Coach Yourself into a Thriving Future. Then, Ignite the Power of Women in Your Life, wait for it, A Guide for Men.

Awesome, wonderful! Well, if I remember correctly, you also have courses, and you have so much to offer to help people who want to develop more of these practices. Thank you for what you're doing in the world and for sharing your time and energy with us today. I can really feel where you're coming from, and it's a blessing.

Thank you so much for having me.

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