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How Growing Your Resilience Helps Your Career, with Beth Benatti Kennedy

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While you need resilience during a job search, it becomes even more important once you’ve settled into a position. The World Economic Forum has listed resilience as one of the top 5 necessary career skills, says Find Your Dream Job guest Beth Benatti Kennedy. Resilience is a skill that allows you to exude confidence, identify what you can and can’t control in the workplace, and know when to ask for help, says Beth. There are steps you can take to build your resilience, and you can begin by focusing on your own well-being 

About Our Guest:

Beth Benatti Kennedy is a leadership coach, a resilience-training expert, and a speaker with more than 20 years of experience. Beth is also the author of Career ReCharge: Five Strategies to Boost Resilience and Beat Burnout.

Resources in This Episode:

Transcript

Find Your Dream Job, Episode 480:

How Growing Your Resilience Helps Your Career, with Beth Benatti Kennedy

Airdate: December 11, 2024

Mac Prichard:

This is Find Your Dream Job, the podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life.

I’m your host, Mac Prichard. I’m also the founder of Mac’s List. It’s a job board in the Pacific Northwest that helps you find a fulfilling career.

Every Wednesday, I talk to a different expert about the tools you need to get the work you want.

It’s important to deal with disappointment when you look for work.

But resilience also matters after your job search ends.

Beth Benatti Kennedy is here to talk about how growing your resilience helps your career.

She’s a leadership coach, a resilience-training expert, and a speaker with more than 20 years of experience.

Beth is also the author of Career ReCharge: Five Strategies to Boost Resilience and Beat Burnout,

She joins us from Beverly, Massachusetts.

Well, let’s jump right into it, Beth. What is resilience exactly?

Beth Benatti Kennedy:

Resilience, I know we’ve heard a lot about this since the pandemic, and my definition is pretty clear; it’s that resiliency is the ability to manage stress proactively, moving forward and bouncing back from challenges. What it’s not? It’s not about having a tough exterior and getting through everything and pushing and sharing stress with others.

That’s, unfortunately, what a lot of people think resilience is.

Mac Prichard:

What difference does resilience make in your career? Most of us will probably spend 40+ years in the workplace. How can resilience shape our careers?

Beth Benatti Kennedy:

I think what’s so important is, when we think about resilience, we have to realize it’s a competency. It’s confidence, it’s coming across with focus, and whether you are looking for a job, whether you are in a job, being resilient is a business competency and really interesting, I just saw this morning, the World Economic Forum has made resilience one of the top 5 skills that all of us need in our jobs.

It’s number 5, resilience and agility.

Mac Prichard:

Beth, in your experience, do some people think of resilience as something you’re either born with or not born with? Or do they think of it as a skill?

Beth Benatti Kennedy:

My experience is that things have changed now and people are realizing that resilience is a skill that we can develop. That’s what’s so exciting; it’s like a muscle and it’s something I’ve seen over my years of coaching that people really can enhance their resilience, and we’ll be getting into a little more about how we can do that.

Mac Prichard:

Why does resilience matter when you look for work? I know we’re talking about careers, but when you’re doing a job search, what difference can having resilience or increasing your resilience make in getting your next job?

Beth Benatti Kennedy:

Yeah, what I’ve seen is that resilience can make such a difference because there is so much stress that we don’t even expect when we’re going for a job search, and what it does is, I see it’s almost as having a bank account. The more that we invest in our resilience, the more strength and energy we have for our job search and this leads to us landing, and we know how important those first 90 days are. When we’re resilient, we have our confidence, we have our energy, and we’re able to move forward.

There is so much uncertainty these days. Even when you get that dream job, but when you’re resilient, you’re able to ride, it’s almost like, ride the rollercoaster, the ups, the downs, and avoid going down the doom of that burnout escalator.

Mac Prichard:

What happens to job seekers who aren’t resilient?

Beth Benatti Kennedy:

What I have learned from some of my clients that have come to me saying, “I need to work on my resilience”, is they feel like they get too emotional, they’re not focused, they can’t handle some of the daily challenges that are just part of every job. We have to realize, there’s you stress, which is good stress, there’s distress, which is bad stress, and every day, our life is going to be filled with both of them.

Mac Prichard:

We’re talking today about resilience, but you’ve also written a lot about burnout, Beth. Is burnout the opposite of resilience? Or is it something that happens when you don’t have resilience?

Beth Benatti Kennedy:

Burnout is so interesting because there’s five stages of burnout and the first stage, believe it or not, happens when we’re really passionate about our career, and it’s when we don’t have clear boundaries.

Then, what tends to happen, is we work harder and harder, stress starts to get into our life, it starts to get into our job, and then we go down that burnout escalator and those other stages.

It’s not necessarily the opposite of resilience, but the key to preventing burnout is resilience, and that’s why I developed the Benatti resiliency model, which are five key strategies to focus on to be resilient, but also to prevent burnout.

Mac Prichard:

Well, let’s talk about that model and those five strategies. I know the first one is to pay attention to well-being. What do you mean by well-being, Beth, and how does it help you to be resilient in your job search and your career?

Beth Benatti Kennedy:

You know, most of us think about well-being as just this exercise, but I think about it very holistically. It’s about physical, emotional, and spiritual health, and we really have to pay attention to our brains because there is so much stress these days. Our brains are producing a lot of cortisol. We need to think about little tiny habits and activities that we can do throughout our day to produce those really good brain chemicals.

We know how important it is to think about gratitude. We know how important is it to take micro-breaks, whether that just be a 2-2-2 breathing: inhale, hold, exhale. Maybe it’s just going out into nature and looking at the beautiful awe that we see.

Well-being, I like to think of it like a puzzle. It’s a really big piece of the puzzle to being resilient.

Mac Prichard:

You mentioned micro-breaks, going out into nature, keeping track of gratitude. What are other steps that you can take to improve well-being?

Beth Benatti Kennedy:

A really important step is not focusing on things that we have no control over, and Stephen Covey is famous for this concept of, he calls it “The Center of Control.” What are the things we have no control over and what are the things that we can make a difference? I think a lot of that has to do even with applying for jobs and sometimes we can work as hard as we can to get that interview and we may not get that job.

There are things that we have control over and things we don’t have control over, and that’s a huge piece of well-being.

Mac Prichard:

How do you help your clients determine what they can control and can’t control? Particularly when they’re doing a job search.

Beth Benatti Kennedy:

One of the things I have my clients do is a list of satisfiers and a list of dissatisfiers. So what are those things that really recharge them? What are the there strengths? What are their values? I make sure the clients I coach have that clear self-awareness, which is the second area of the model, but also, there are some things that we all know.

Politics, sometimes somebody maybe has already been determined to have the position, so there’s some of these unique positions that we can’t quite get to.

Mac Prichard:

Are there any other steps that you would recommend to improve well-being, Beth?

Beth Benatti Kennedy:

Absolutely, some specific strategies that my clients have used is daily planning, so spending that first five minutes of every day, what are the big rocks that I want to accomplish? What are the little rocks that I want to accomplish?

And then to keep thinking about well-being, as I mentioned in the beginning, like making an investment. Even if you put a little bit of money into the bank, you’re going to see the return. So what are the small, little wins that you can have throughout the day?

And to realize that it can become contagious. If you are going into the office, it’s a great idea to say, “Who wants to take a ten-minute walk at lunch?” Even things like, we know how important it is getting enough rest and making sure, am I spending too much time on technology. What are my technology boundaries?

All of these, they seem like little strategies, but they all add to our well-being.

Mac Prichard:

Terrific. We’re going to pause right now and take a break.

Stay with us. When we come back, Beth Benatti Kennedy will continue to share her advice on how growing your resilience helps your career.

We’re back in the Mac’s List studio. I’m talking with Beth Benatti Kennedy.

She’s a leadership coach, a resiliency-training expert, and a speaker with more than 20 years of experience.

Beth is also the author of Career ReCharge: Five Strategies to Boost Resilience and Beat Burnout,

She joins us from Beverly, Massachusetts.

Well, Beth, before the break, we were talking about how growing resilience can help your career and you’ve got the Benatti model that lays out five strategies for increasing your resilience. We talked about the first one.

Now, let’s go to number two on your list, which is to pay attention to self-awareness. Why is this important to do, Beth?

Beth Benatti Kennedy:

Self-awareness, to me, has 3 key areas. The first one is knowing our purpose. It’s our why. Why do we get up in the morning? And for everyone it’s different. Sometimes it’s personal, family, or career, but diving in deep to that question.

The second area of awareness is having a growth mindset. We know how important that is for resilience, to think about, are we open to learning? Are we open to change? Are we adaptable?

And then the third area, a lot of people don’t think about with resilience, but I think it’s crucial, and that is understanding your personality type.

What do I mean by that? I mean, how are you showing up and do you flex, so that you can get along with all different types of people? Because that’s really where career success and career resilience flourish.

Mac Prichard:

Those are three important but big steps. How do you help people do those things? Get self-aware, pay attention to their growth mindset, and your third step, how do you help people do that?

Beth Benatti Kennedy:

My favorite activity, I’m going to share the one that I do with purpose. My favorite activity is called the purpose mind map, and the first step is that you can take any assessment out there that you want, there are a lot of them out there on values. I would recommend if you want a free one, the VIA, which a lot of people are familiar with, and in that purpose mind map, you put your top seven values inside the circle, and then the outside of the purpose mind map are all of those other things that are important to you in your life.

When you think about resilience, we also think about recharge. A big part of that activity is making sure all of my clients have recharge activities, because it’s great to love your job, but it’s also important to love your life. I would say, that activity is in my first book, but it’s something that all of us can take the values assessment. They’re available. I think there’s even a few podcasts that talk about that, in the Find Your Dream Job podcasts.

Mac Prichard:

How does focusing on these three help you improve your resilience? Why do they make such a big difference?

Beth Benatti Kennedy:

One of the really important things about self-awareness is, if we don’t know ourselves and know where we want to go, then we often just flounder. We also get affected by stress more easily because we don’t understand our personality type. What might motivate me might stress you out, so by spending that time on that third area of our personality type, we learn our stress triggers, and once we learn our stress triggers, we can have what I call our resilience toolbox.

That’s a huge piece of resilience, realizing that all of us are going to handle stress differently and to know, “Wow. Today I worked a ten-hour day. That’s too much for me. I need to make sure I get some exercise in and I get to bed early.” It’s really about creating. Self-awareness is about creating a toolbox that’s customized for you, that helps you recharge and be your best.

Mac Prichard:

The third of your five strategies for growing resilience to help your career is to focus on your brand. How does branding help you become more resilient?

Beth Benatti Kennedy:

This is one of my favorites because we don’t hear about brand a lot when we talk about resilience and what I want you to think about is that your brand is like your thumbprint. It’s different for everyone and we need to be really clear on, what are our strengths, what are our skills, and how do we want to stand out and make the impact in our organization?

If we don’t know our brand, we might just go for every job, and then it’s almost like being on a sailboat and the wind is blowing you everywhere and you don’t know where you’re going, but if you have a brand and you know those attributes you’re really good at, it’s also going to help you throughout your career, focus on organizations that give you the best fit.

It will help you, in teams, be more productive because you know what you’re good at and you share it with others. All of that is part of brand, and making an impact and the piece that I have to mention is thinking about your reputation. When you leave at the end of the day, what do people think about you? It’s so important to think about brand for resilience.

Mac Prichard:

Your fourth strategy for growing resilience is to build and maintain connections. What kind of connections do you have in mind here, Beth, and what’s the best way to create these connections?

Beth Benatti Kennedy:

We’ve heard a lot about, not since the pandemic, but even before the pandemic, the research on how important connection is for energy, for recharge, for engagement. One of my favorite exercises, I call it, who’s in your boat?

Right now, all of your listeners can think about, who are the top three people that support you? They can be professional or personal, but what we know, and there’s lots of research on this, if we have people in our boat that we can talk to and that support us, it’s going to move us forward in our career and make us more resilient.

Mac Prichard:

How do you know if you have the right people in your boat? And if you don’t, what should you do about it?

Beth Benatti Kennedy:

Well, one of the important things to think about is, do they give you energy? One of the things that I tell people to be careful of is what I call the “toxic vampires.” These are the people that just want your time but they take and they take and they take. We have to remember connection is a dialogue, it’s not just a monologue, and so it should be a two-way street. So, pay attention, and also realize that at the end of the day, how do you feel when you’re with that person?

If they recharge you, you keep them in your boat, and the other thing that I want to highly recommend is everyone having a connection plan. How do you stay in touch with people regularly? It could be a text message, it could be an email, or maybe it’s a phone call twice a year, but we shouldn’t be reaching out to our connections just when we’ve lost a job. We should be nurturing and cultivating relationships on a regular basis.

Mac Prichard:

You don’t want any toxic vampires in your boat, but if you want to add new people, how do you find them and invite them on board?

Beth Benatti Kennedy:

I’ll tell you one of the best ways my clients have found people, and myself, is professional organizations, but also volunteer work. Those are two ways that had clients meet great new friends on their boats, from exercise classes.

It’s one of those things where we have to be open to it and really just pay attention to our body language and how do we feel? Remember, it’s not a numbers game. You’d rather have a small group of people on your boat that care about you, than all of these followers that don’t really care about you and nourish you.

Mac Prichard:

The final of your five strategies for building resilience to grow your career is to practice innovation. What kind of innovation do you have in mind here, exactly, Beth?

Beth Benatti Kennedy:

Two types of innovation. Personal innovation and professional innovation, and when I think about innovation I think about the idea of challenging ourself and learning new things.

Professional innovation: in your career, this year, or the next three months, or the next six months, how do you want to enhance your learning? But then, in your personal life, because we know, for resilience, we have to have that balance of personal and professional fun. What are you doing for your personal fun and is there something new that you want to add to your list?

I just had a client that’s taking salsa lessons. Maybe you want to take tennis lessons, maybe you want to learn how to do something totally new, like painting. Innovation is any way that you challenge yourself, professionally and personally. The greatest thing about it is that it provides incredible recharge that will make you more resilient in your career.

Mac Prichard:

Well, it’s been a great conversation. Now, tell us, Beth, what’s next for you?

Beth Benatti Kennedy:

Lots of exciting things are going on. My latest book is called, “Rethink Resilience: 99 Ways to Recharge Your Career and Life.” We have a webinar, we have live training, and we even have an overnight retreat, but the thing that I want to offer to all of the listeners is the opportunity to take my Resilience Benchmark, which takes less than ten minutes, and it will assess you on these 5 areas of resilience, and it will also provide you with some specific strategies, that we didn’t even cover today, for each area.

That will be provided to you as well. I wanted to also highlight that I was honored to be able to do a TEDx Talk at North Eastern, so check that out. It’s on my website and that is called “Reset Career Resilience to Reduce Burnout”.

Mac Prichard:

Terrific. We’ll be sure to include those links in the show notes and the website article about your episode. I know that you also invite listeners to connect with you on LinkedIn, when you do reach out to Beth, I hope that you’ll mention that you heard her on Find Your Dream Job.

Now, Beth, given all of the great advice you’ve shared today, what’s the one thing you want a listener to remember about how growing your resilience helps your career?

Beth Benatti Kennedy:

The one thing that I think is really important is to realize that asking for help is one of the most important factors of being resilient. Whether you are beginning a job search, or deciding to job search, or going in for an interview, ask for help.

Take a look at the different resources that are available out there, reach out to friends, reach out to coaches, reach out to people you trust. Don’t try to find your dream job by yourself or be resilient by yourself. Ask for help. It’s really worth it.

Mac Prichard:

Next week, our guest will be Brittany Brazell.

She’s the human resources manager at Our Children’s Trust.

It’s a non-profit public interest law firm that serves youth from diverse backgrounds.

Don’t let the naysayers fool you.

Cover letters are not dead.

And a good one can make all the difference in your next application.

Join us next Wednesday when Brittany Brazell and I talk about how to write a knock-out cover letter.

Until next time, thanks for letting us help you find your dream job.

This show is produced by Mac’s List.

Susan Thornton-Hough schedules our guests and writes our newsletter. Lisa Kislingbury Anderson manages our social media.

Our sound engineer and editor is Matt Fiorillo. Dawn Mole creates our transcripts. And our music is by Freddy Trujillo.

This is Mac Prichard. See you next week.