The Resilient

In this episode of The Resilient, we’re going to hear how getting what you wish for may be the worst thing in the world. Taylor Glenn originally trained as a psychotherapist in New York City, but over a decade ago she jumped the Atlantic for a new life and a new career in the UK. After winning her first stand-up competition (surprise!), and winning plaudits and awards across the country, she and her husband decided it was the right time to start a family. Taylor wasn’t a novice to the...

Grief is a social contract, says Dr Kelsey Crowe in this second of our two-part special with the professional empathy expert. In a revealing and intimate conversation, Kelsey and Aleks dive into the moment Kelsey realised the griever's role in a crisis period, and what that means for personal resilience. It's not what you might think. The Resilient is a podcast about powerful people, like you and me. It’s an eavesdrop session on their toughest times, and what they’ve done since then. It’s...

Dr Kelsey Crowe is a professional empathiser: she knows exactly what to say and do when things go awful for someone she knows. In this first part of our two-episode special, Kelsey condenses the findings of a decade of research with hundreds of grieving people. Powerful, practical and - naturally - sympathetic - she describes the empathiser's role in the social contract of grief. The Resilient is a podcast about powerful people, like you and me. It’s an eavesdrop session on their toughest...

Toni Myers is a person of many selves. As a child, Toni moved to a new town, a new state, a new school every other year. As an adult, Toni continues to live a peripatetic lifestyle. Every place Toni lands, there is a period of uncomfortable reinvention and transformation - something that is common of all life changes. Toni's superpower is having the self-awareness to maximise the pitfalls and possibilities of reinvention. Yet we are all coming up to speed with Toni's breakneck pace in the...

Every month on The Resilient, we speak with someone about a landmark moment in their life: pivot points, peak experiences, those times that define who a person is, as different from who they were before. What's unusual about my guest this month is that two of these moments happened at the very same time. And yet, she didn't fall apart. She didn't crumble. In fact, she did the most extraordinary thing instead. She defied every expectation, every logical conclusion, every prediction. She is...

The Resilient isn’t a podcast only about facing extraordinary circumstances and getting through; it’s about tackling the ordinary life-changing events that happen to us too. So this episode, we’re bringing you a musing from first-time father Josh Kennedy. Josh and his partner Tess gave birth to Ada a little over four months ago, and here he shares her origin story, how he’s learned to ask for help, and that the parenting approaches he experienced by being his father's son are far more...

British explorer Ben Saunders has broken more records in extreme conditions than most people "sitting on their sofas eating crap" could ever imagine. He's led more than 11 expeditions across the tundras, both solo and as part of a team. And in 2014, Ben and his explorer teammate Tarka L'Herpiniere, completed the expedition that defeated both Edward Shackleton and Capt. Robert Falcon Scott: 1801 miles from the edge of Antarctica to the South Pole and back. On foot. Naturally, they faced...

Dr Sue Black OBE has had a remarkable year. The technologist has published a book, played mother-of-the-bride, turned Grandma for the first time, was named one of the top 50 computer scientists in Europe, been honoured by the Queen of England and got engaged via an encrypted message using 70 year old code. And that was all in the first three months of 2016. But her professional accolades and personal triumphs come after a lifetime of escape and of survival. She can't quite pinpoint what's...

Alua Arthur was in a dark place when she found herself on a bus in Cuba sitting next to a woman with a tattoo of a pen on her forearm. By the end of that serendipitous 14 hour journey, she had direction: she would leave her job as an attorney in Los Angeles and become a death doula. She would help people transition across the inexplicable boundary between life and the other side. But her path was not as clear as she imagined. It never is. The Resilient is a podcast about powerful people,...