Last week I read a book called ‘The Resilience Project’ by Hugh van Cuylenburg. Craig Burton brought the book to my attention and lent me his copy (thanks Craig, it’s mine now – haha).
The Port Adelaide Football Club use ‘The Resilience Project’ as part of their player wellbeing programs. Indeed, the program has been adopted by almost every professional sports team across Australia (except the Crows – perhaps they should have used this program instead of ‘that camp’), as well as hundreds of schools and organisations.
Anyway, I wanted to recommend it to you all to read. It’s an easy read (I knocked it over in a day) and it delivers some wonderful, simple messages about resilience through a series of stories that will make you laugh and cry.
At the core of the book are the three activities that van Cuylenburg identifies as the key to resilience:
- Gratitude – being grateful for what we have and how lucky we are, and not focusing on what we don’t have.
- Empathy – showing care for others, and understanding people’s emotions by putting ourselves in their shoes
- Mindfulness – being present in the moment and finding joy in little things
For the footy fans among us, van Cuylenburg relates a few AFL stories in the book: the M.I.T.A letters that Port Adelaide’s Travis Boak writes on his footy boots is a reference to the famous Roosevelt quote – the Man in the Arena (see below); the ‘DIS’ letters that Collingwood’s Adam Treloar writes on his wrist band during games is a reference to a story about an orphan boy that van Cuylenburg taught whilst he was in India; irrespective of his poverty, the boy continually points to simple things that he is grateful for and says ‘DIS’.
An inspiring book and highly recommended! Craig might even lend it to you if you ask nicely!
