Ep 51 Heidi Dening on cultivating resilience in difficult times

Heidi Dening is a professional keynote speaker, author and trusted expert and educator on resilience. She regularly features in the media on this topic and believes that education changes lives.

Combining the insights she has learned from surviving a paralysing illness, a gunpoint kidnapping, a life-threatening tsunami, and petrol bombs with her impressive business and health education background, she has a unique ability to elevate the professional resilience of leaders and their teams. This enables them to make better decisions, be more innovative, have more energy, optimism and empathy, and successfully deal with change, stress, and uncertainty.

Heidi has dedicated her career to inspiring thousands of people globally with practical strategies that improve resilience, self-leadership and wellbeing, from small children on remote Pacific Islands to professional teams across numerous industries.  

In this episode, Heidi shares her story that brought her to becoming one of Australia’s foremost experts on resilience. She generously shares some strategies for cultivating resilience and why it is so important.

Why is this relevant to a podcast that explores the intersection of Love & Money (Purpose & Profit)?

Well, leaders of the movement for purpose-led business will face many bumps on their path to purpose. There will be resistance to the change that becoming truly purpose-driven demands of businesses and leaders. Cultivating resilience in yourself is vital if you are going to go the distance. Clearly it is also a vital trait for teams, but today’s episode is for you. This is about cultivating resilience for yourself.

I hope you get value from this episode. Heidi is amazing and has so much wisdom to impart on this subject.

 

Interview Highlights:

• Heidi shares her back story into how she came to become a trusted expert and keynote speaker on Resilience
• She shares her actual “petrol bomb” moment – a frightening and confronting life-changing experience for Heidi – and relates this to a metaphor for the “petrol bomb moments” we all face in our lifetimes, offering advice on how to prepare for those moments
• We talk about the Voice Referendum result in Australia and the impact of the No result on First Nations People, as well as non-indigenous supporters of the Yes campaign
• I ask Heidi to share her thoughts on how those of us who were committed supporters of the 'Yes' campaign can respond to the feeling of disempowerment that comes from the 'No' result. She talks about the vicarious trauma from bearing witness to traumatic events and the deep need for connection with likeminded others at this time.
• She also shares one powerful practice we can do that is all-important at times like this – scanning for the “micro-wins”
• We talk about the unrivalled resilience of First Nations Australians and what we all might be able to learn from that, including our moral obligation to honour the resilience of our own ancestors, by showing up to do the right thing for future generations
• Heidi shares her insights on how we can give the world "the best of us, not what's left of us". Link to the mental health plan template she mentions here.

 

Connect with Heidi

Heidi's website

Heidi on Linkedin