Hi! My name is Steve Beseke. In creating this site, I’d like to share career and life resiliency strategies during these very challenging economic times throughout the US.

My resiliency experience comes from more than 25 years in the corporate communications/PR industry and successfully adapting to a physical disability I have had since birth – Cerebral Palsy. My experiences – and adapting to new challenges every day – should help the adventure of this blog be a terrific experience for me and hopefully you.

I look forward to partnering with you and sharing experiences to help so many of us make it through these very tough times.

Here is a speech I have recently given about the partnership between life resiliency and career adaptability. I would love your comments and thoughts.

Achieving Control in Our Lives: It’s All About Resiliency and Adaptability

A Little About Me

A couple years ago, I woke up in an emergency room. I had fallen and smacked my head on an unforgiving marble floor. My head did not like it at all. As I regained my composure and was taken to the hospital, my first thought was to again blame my physical disability. You see: I have Cerebral Palsy, which significantly affects my walking especially as I have become creakier at my “advanced age” of nearly 50.

Then, as it has for as long as I remember, my little resiliency inner voice took over as I was recovering with a couple of my valued work colleagues at my side. It reminded me that my entirely life has been about resiliency and adapting to circumstances sometimes out of my control. I knew this in the emergency room: I was not going to let my disability stop me from my independence of walking and living life however I saw fit.

After a few tests, the doctors said I was O.K. to go home. I was fortunate that my life and public profile was not affected except for a few short-term bruises.

I don’t highlight my particular life example to tap into your empathy. I tell you this little life vignette to highlight that we all are dealt certain cards in life, and have critical life issues we deal with every day in our personal or work lives. The key I have found to transition me very successfully through such personal and work challenges is my resiliency and adaptability to get past any of these life bumps – no matter how significant.

More Life Situations

About a year after the fall, I received another body blow – not from my disability – but from my employer. While I had recently received a generous pay increase and a great bonus that year, they said our nation’s current economic perfect storm had forced them to make massive layoffs including me. I thought striking my face on the hotel’s floor was bad enough but now this horrible and unexpected news. I had worked so hard and achieved wonderful success, but then my gut was kicked in through circumstances out of my control.

Again, my little voice was back telling me this was only a momentary set back and things were going to work out better than ever. At the time, though, I was not paying attention to be little voice. I was thinking “why me” and ”what I have I done to deserve this…”

A short time after my “pity moment, “I was watching a report on the nightly news about families in a certain part of the world living on and eating from garbage dumps every day of their lives. That’s when my little voice again came in load and clear telling me how lucky I was to have the life God gave to me. I, then, truly began to understand how adaptability and being resilient has always applied to every part of my life.

All of Us Can Take the Resiliency Journey

As I talk with you for a few minutes today about resiliency, I know many of you have your own life challenges that may be just as significant as the ones I have faced throughout my life. All of us have issues we deal with every day – great and small. No one is immune from life. The key is developing successful strategies to adapt and make changes to circumstances you might be dealing with today.

I don’t pretend to have answers to your particular issues or circumstances, except to say without finding ways to turn the page and determine your unique and resilient ways to adapt, it may take you much longer to succeed and feel good about yourself again.

Whether it is at work or your personal activities, please think for a moment about one area of your life you’d like to improve over the next six months to a year. I know it may be hard to pin down just one. Wow! For me, I have six or seven things I can’t wait for months to change.

What I found through sometimes painful experience, taking on too much at once can mean setbacks in all areas. After, my fall, for example, I thought I’d just walk slower and be more careful. After subsequent falls, I eventually determined the one thing I needed was for doctors to pinpoint why I was falling medically, and then develop one plan of action. The solution eventually determined was injecting cortisone near my spine to reduce disk swelling affecting a nerve controlling my legs. Since then, I have only fallen a few times instead of once or a couple times a week.

A Few Life Questions to Think Through

I, again, invite you to think about one area you want to improve over the next six months or so. The following life questions may help identify the one most important in your life right now.

- What are my special talents I feel most proud of?
- How could I demonstrate my compassion better at work and home?
- What makes you the happiest in your personal life and workplace?
- Where do you believe personal strength comes from?
- What are you doing with your natural talents and abilities?
- What do I believe I can do that I have not pursued yet?
- What are some things I’d like to do, but have never tried?
- If you could have any career in the world, what would be your passion and life’s work?
- What are the qualities I like most and least about myself?
- How have you dealt with a life tragedy (e.g. job loss or a loved one’s death)?
- How has this affected your life’s outlook?

Life is all about adapting to change. Truly thinking about such life questions will help you stay resilient no matter what types of personal and professional life challenges come your way. Being resilient has helped continue my life’s dreams and will help you understand yourself better.

All of Us Can Achieve…

After six months, I suggest you pose your chosen question(s) to yourself again. As you thoroughly act on your one situation, I know you’ll be better satisfied with your life and have the added resiliency to bounce back from any situations.

Answering these questions myself has helped me maintain my confidence levels, enabled me to see my personal vision to succeed, helped me create a successful plan for the future with actions that make a difference and truly have peace with myself.

After your reflections, I encourage you to write to me on my blog www.resiliencyfirst.com and share your positive stories. Or you can e-mail me at beseke1@earthlink.net. I look forward to hearing from you

Because remember: We all have resiliency issues and challenges in life – great and small. It is how we bounce back from these situations that help us have the inner and outwardly peace all of us so richly deserve.