The Day I Learned About Resilience : S2 E7

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Join Desireé in Episode 7 of Season 2, as she uses her trips around the sun to throw encouragement around like confetti!

In Episode 7, Desireé continues the journey to living your best life by talking about resilience. She tells a story about the day she learned about resilience and how that day has impacted her ever since. She opens up about how to grow in resilience and in the end gives 3 incredible keys to building resilience in your life. This compelling episode will call you into action and get you on the road to success!

Topics include:

• Conversations we all need to have (7:11)
•  What exactly is resilience? (9:27)
• 3 keys to building resilience (11:31)

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Episode Transcript

Desireé Melfi Bozzo (00:06):
Ciao and welcome to Life out loud. I am
your host Desireé Melfi Bozzo.
We are going to use this spaceto share experiences and help
you find lasting unshakableunwavering unmessable-with joy
and gratitude. We're going to bethrowing around encouragement, a
little bit like confetti andgiving you support to live your
very best life.

(00:30):
Ciao friends, welcome to episodeseven of season two of the Life
Out Loud podcast. I am as alwaysyour host, Desireé Melfi Bozzo.
We are nearing the end of ourjourney together this season. It
truly has flown by. And I alsokind of can't believe it. As we

(00:50):
get to the end of this roadmapfor really great living, I want
to talk to you today about threekeys to building resilience. So
you can get a little closer toliving your best life ever. So
sometimes full disclosure, okay,here's a little secret about

(01:11):
myself. Sometimes when I'mdriving alone, without kids,
without a husband withoutanybody in the car, I pause from
cranking up the 80s music asloud as the speakers will go.
And I actually drive in silencecompletely alone with my
thoughts. Do you ever do thistoo? Like turn off the ringer.

(01:36):
Turn off the notifications onyour phone, maybe even like,
throw it into airplane mode likethat undistracted. Turn down the
music and the podcasts and thetalk radio, and get really
present to your soul and yourthoughts. I'm not gonna lie, it
can be a little scary beingalone with your thoughts. In

(01:58):
total silence with only the humof the road to greet us. We're
forced to look at things thatsometimes, sometimes the noise
of this world can drown out.
Recently, during one of theselittle, I don't know, road
meditations, if you will, Istarted thinking about my

(02:18):
creative side. And if any of youcreatives are out there, I think
this will resonate with you. Sothere's this thing that happens
to me. And it's this pull thatoccurs in me that if I don't get
my thoughts out on paper, likeif I don't get my thoughts out
in writing, or my creativity onpaper or canvas, I feel like I'm

(02:41):
gonna die or my soul willimplode or I'll like
spontaneously combust orsomething. Maybe weird if you're
not a creative, but I have afeeling all the creatives out
there kind of get me on this.
Like, I started thinking, as Iwas thinking through all this,
where does this need to writeand communicate this creativity

(03:05):
within us? Where does that comefrom? And when did it begin? So
as I ponder this thought about,like, why I write and why I
create this memory actually popsinto my head, and this little
road meditation, if you will.
And as if it were yesterday, I'mso vividly transported back to
the moment. I am in the thirdgrade, and we are making a

(03:26):
collective art class project. Idon't remember why I don't
remember the point of it. I justremember making this project as
a class as a group. And I stillremember where I was sitting. I
remember the smells. I rememberthe sound of the room. I don't
recall, like I said the purpose.

(03:49):
But I remember I was drawingmountains. And these, like I
literally close my eyes, I canpicture it these zig and zag and
they were like they were big andthey were bold. And there were
these tall peaks and these lowvalleys. And it was colorful, it
was vibrant. I use bold colorslike nine year old me found it

(04:10):
beautiful and artistic. And Iremember I still remember that
moment feeling like maybe forthe first time that I was
putting like my heart in what Iwas making like it was this
like, moment of pure selfexpression. And I remember
sitting there drawing feeling soproud of my work as I drew and

(04:34):
colored my masterpiece of themoment. I remember a teacher she
wasn't my teacher she was one ofthe other teachers was walking
by like looking at everyone'swork and she came to where I was
working and I remember she wasstanding kind of over me because
I was down like we were on theground and she looked for longer

(04:55):
than she did at anyone else'sand I still remember my little
self saying like, I must havedone a really, really good job
like this is really good, right?
And I could feel like thatconfidence welling up inside me.
And I felt so proud of what Ihad created. And then this, this
lady, this woman's teacher, thishuman, she opened her mouth. And

(05:18):
she said, the most soul crushingthing. I remember the moment she
said it, I felt my heart justsank to my toes. She said, it
still remember voice. She said,“that is just terrible.” And I
remember feeling like thatfeeling when the blood just

(05:41):
rushes out of your face. And Iremember my face turning red.
And I remember like otherstudents starting to look my
way. And my face that could feelwas getting redder and redder.
And then she continued like itlike she should have just
stopped there. But shecontinued, I remember her
saying, “you've really ruinedthis whole piece of class art.”
And the weight of her words,they hung in the air and that

(06:05):
moment, a couple things happenas I look back on this. So as an
adult, looking back on this,number one, A, don't ever, under
any circumstances do that to achild or an adult, for that
matter. It's, it's gross, andit's rude, and it's disgusting,
and it's hurtful. So A. Numberone, B number 2. I wish so many

(06:28):
times, I wish so deeply that Icould go back and take little
girl Dez’s face in my hands andlook her in the eyes and tell
her that that lady's comment hadabsolutely nothing to do with
her and that beautiful art shecreated. And that lady's comment

(06:49):
had everything to do with herown judgment and her own
inadequacy than it did aboutthose majestic A F mountains.
Now, I want to stop here for asecond. And sidenote, a very
wise woman, my sister once toldme that sometimes, sometimes we

(07:12):
do need to have thoseconversations with our younger
selves. And sometimes in thoseconversations, there's healing.
And I just wanted to share thatin case anybody has any moments
like this when they want to goback and like tell their younger
self something, flip the flow ona story, if you will. So I'd
like to say, I brushed off thatawful moment as a stupid

(07:36):
comment. But my nine year oldbrain didn't brush it off.
Instead, I internalized itbecause that's what we do is
nine year olds, right? We thinkeverything is all about us and
for us and on us. And I don'tthink at nine we have the
understanding to know that thatlady's comments probably weren't

(08:00):
about me and my art at all. Theywere about her own stuff, right.
I remember what the moment didto me. The moment hindered part
of my unbridled ability to livea life fully self expressed. It
made me second guess myself fora really, really, really long

(08:22):
time. It made me think twiceabout me. Somewhere along the
way, by the grace of God, Irealized that that way of
thinking was a lie that Ibelieved right. It was a
horrible lie. And it kept mesmall. As I did the work
dismantling the lie, I realizedit is more important to live a

(08:42):
life that is authentic andtruthful than anything else in
this includes being creative,right? I think back on what
prompted me to remember thestory because we all have these
stories, like I think if we getquiet enough in our soul will
remember these stories, right?
If we flip the flow on thesestories, if I flipped the flow
on this one, maybe that teacherdidn't hinder me at all, maybe

(09:05):
her thoughtless comment was thefuel to this fire in my soul
that makes me need to create. Igo back to that question from
the beginning. Where does thiscome from? Right.
I think the ability to beresilient, I told you that story
to get to the point ofresilience, the ability to be

(09:27):
resilient is really one of themost important skills that we
can learn. Resilience is theability to get back up after
setbacks. It's to rise after wefall. It's not always easy, and
it's not always pretty, but itis necessary. Life is going to

(09:47):
blindside us, life is going tokick us one more down. The
ability to be resilient is goingto keep us moving forward.
There's a study out that tellsus that current college students
are the first generation we areseeing where the skill of
resilience is on the decline. Iwant you to sit with that for a

(10:11):
minute and try and get presentto the implications of this. I
don't know about you, but Ican't imagine a world where
humans don't know how to beresilient. I don't know. I can't
think of a world where theydon't know how to get back up
after setbacks. I can imagine aworld my son is gonna grow up.
And if we can't collectivelychange this trend, what is our

(10:33):
world going to be in 20 or 30years when a generation of
adults don’t know how to beresilient? When they teach
college athletes the skill ofresilience, I have them put
together a plan forstrengthening it - a tangible
thing that they can lean intowhen life happens because life
is going to happen. I wish thirdgrade Dez had one of those

(10:55):
plans. I would have realizedthat instead of internalizing
the shenanigans that thatteacher was throwing around, I
could have turned to someone Icould have looked at my thoughts
with this lady's thoughtlesswords mean, right, what did I
make them mean? I could havelearned to push what she said
aside and not gotten tripped upby it for so long. All these

(11:20):
years later, as I teach theskill of resilience, there are
so many great ways toincorporate building the skill
in our life. And I want to offeryou three that I really believe
are keys to success.
The first one is to keep goodcompany, Jim Rohn told us that
we are the average of the fivepeople we spend the most time
with. So I want to ask you,who's keeping your attention

(11:44):
these days? Who are you spendingtime with? What kind of
conversations are you having?
Friends, it matters. The peoplewe hang out with, we become the
average of. I don't know aboutyou, but I don't the kind of
people I want to be the averageof one. Of my favorite quotes of
all time and you can borrow this“sit with warriors, the

(12:06):
conversation is different.”Friends, when I read that, I
felt that and I hope that youfelt it when I just said it.
Keep good company company thatpulls you to another level
company that has your bestinterest at heart company that
goes to battle on their kneesfor you, company that sees you
the way God sees you. In turn,be that company, reach back and

(12:28):
lift up others trying to getThe next key to building
resilience is to think aboutwhere you are.
what you're thinking about. Soafter we pay attention to the
company we keep now we need tothink about what we're thinking
about, we need to pay attentionto our thoughts. I know I've
said it before on my podcast.
But it's really worthy ofrepeating what you focus on you
find. I've spent a lot of yearsfocused on one person's terrible

(12:54):
opinion of my art. If I say somyself. It sounds so very silly.
But I let her words define myability to be creative for a
long, long time. Friends, that'sbananas. To grow and resilience,
we must stop believing the lies,we must focus on the truth and
what is real. What was real inmy situation was that she just

(13:18):
didn't like my art and she hadreally, really terrible way of
telling me Poor her. I didn'trealize it at the time. But I
would move on majoring in art incollege, creating art having my
art showcase in an exhibition,halfway across the world in
Rome, eventually getting jobswhere I was literally paid to

(13:38):
create art. I wish at the time,I would have had the wisdom to
realize that it's okay, I am notfor everyone, and neither is my
art. What about you? Who outthere needs to hear this? What
are you thinking about? Whatlies are you believing because

(13:59):
someone offered a terribleunsolicited opinion. We get to
change what we think we get tochange what we made things mean
and we get to design a newnarrative for our lives.
Friends, I encourage you tothink about what you are
thinking about.
And the last key to buildingresilience is to proactively

(14:23):
move toward your goals. This oneisn't as easy to do in real time
as it sounds, but I do thinkthat it is the simplest.
Proactively be an action. Sowhat we do here is we take the
goal and we work backward to getit done little by little by
little. When we proactively movetoward the goal we're able to
gain momentum. When we gain alittle momentum, it multiplies

(14:46):
more and more as we moveforward. The force of our
proactive choices keeps uspowering forward. When we can
proactively move toward ourgoals we can then push
everything else It isn't thegoal to the side and not get
tripped up by it. Proactivenessit pushes us and it grows us. It

(15:08):
gives us self confidence itstrengthens resilience.
So my friends, there are threekeys to building resilience in
your life. Keep good company.
Think about what you're thinkingabout. Proactively move toward
your goals. How are you going toapply this in your life? And

(15:30):
what actions are you going totake? If you want someone to
walk alongside you as you buildbetter lives, message me on my
website life out loud.me or onsocial media, Twitter,
Instagram, Facebook, etc. I amtaking on some new clients to
walk alongside and teach themtools to live unwavering,

(15:50):
unshakable, unmessable-withlives. Friends, I really hope
you enjoyed this episode. Comeback next time for the last one
and let's throw moreencouragement around like
confetti. But be careful. If youget too close. You just might
get some on you. And rememberfriends there is always always
always something to be thankfulfor. Ciao.

(16:16):
Thank you for joining me DesireéMelfi. Bozzo for this episode of
Life out loud. I would love tohear from you. Leave me a
comment. Tell me what topics youwant to talk about and how you
take your coffee. If you enjoyedwhat you heard, text a friend
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(16:36):
in becoming a supporter, be-bopover to my webpage life out
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