Last week I attended the International Positive Psychology Association’s World Congress in Brisbane. It was an amazing few days surrounded by some of the world’s leading researchers, practitioners, and changemakers. There are very few experiences that can beat spending time with people who share a similar purpose to you: to create a world where more thrive.
During the event, I shared two of my current pieces of work – my STRONGER model and the opportunity AI presents to create more meaningful, satisfying jobs (if you haven’t read my latest Whitepaper, you can request your copy here) – and I loved the conversations these sparked with people from all around the globe (including one of my heroes, Robert Biswas-Diener – see pic below). Despite the different sectors, languages, and job titles, many of us are facing the same challenges and that shared understanding opens the door to deeper learning and collaboration.
The theme of this year’s congress was Regeneration – and it couldn’t have been more timely given the current state of the world. Despite what some critics assume, Positive Psychology doesn’t just focus on ‘happiness’ and ‘good vibes only’. As one speaker put it, “Positive Psychology is not an escape from reality, it’s an escape into it.” It’s about using evidence-based science to tackle some of the biggest problems we face – particularly in organisations – from loneliness, disengagement, and burnout to poor leadership, low productivity, and rising rates of mental illness.
In today’s volatile and exhausting world, we know resilience can’t just be about coping, it must become a pathway to regeneration. But this requires the ability to grow from the challenges – individually, collectively, and systemically. Because resilience is not just about survival but transformation too.
Strength Needs Strain
One story from the Congress that’s stuck with me is from Biosphere 2 – a giant, sealed ecological system in the Arizona desert designed to test whether humans could live in a fully self-sustaining environment in the early 1990s. The scientists controlled everything – the air, water, soil and light. But over time, something strange happened. The trees grew faster than they would in nature but before they reached maturity, they collapsed.
Why? Because there was no wind…
Without wind, the trees didn’t develop the strong wood and deep root systems they needed to support their growth. They looked healthy from the outside, but they lacked the strength to stand tall when it mattered most. It turns out that stress – in this case, wind – is essential for resilience. It creates tension that builds capacity.
And the same could be said for humans. Perhaps we need some level of challenge, disruption, or pressure to grow stronger. So the goal shouldn’t be to eliminate strain altogether, it’s to be well-equipped with the inner and outer resources to carry it.
This is where the idea of regenerative resilience becomes so important. And that’s the shift we all need to make – to stop trying to avoid the pressure and instead develop the foundations that we need to rise with it.
Resilience Is Born and Built
One of life’s guarantees is that most of us will face an adversity in our lives. It’s one of those statistics that barely needs a citation anymore – and since 2020, we have proven this true in practice. But what’s less often discussed is how differently people respond to adversity.
Research (including Wu et al., 2019) suggests that around half of us grow through hardship, while the other half struggle to recover. And some of this is determined by the resources we have available when the challenge hits. But the good news is that these resources aren’t fixed and they can be trainable.
Just like we train our bodies to run further or lift more, we can train our minds to handle strain – by proactively building the emotional, relational, and psychological buffers that protect us during hard times. These include our relationships (Networks), our experience of positive emotions (Optimism), our sense of meaning and purpose (Goals & Purpose), our belief in our own strengths (Strengths), and our ability to stay composed and future-focused (Emotional Intelligence) – all of which are included in my STRONGER model.
We have agency over all of these, and we can’t wait for the moment of crisis for them to appear. We have to build them before we need them.
Mindset plays a key role here too. When we believe growth is possible, we’re more likely to experience it. This isn’t just motivational fluff, it’s actually a protective factor. Because when we reframe adversity as a challenge we can grow through, it makes it easier to face and builds the confidence that we’ll handle the next one even better.
Resilience isn’t an Individual Sport
Too often, resilience is treated like a personal trait – something people either have or don’t. And if they’re struggling? We send them to a webinar or refer them to EAP. But real, sustained resilience doesn’t happen in isolation. It’s shaped by the systems we live and work in.
We’ve all heard the metaphor: same storm, different boats. My Facebook post depicting this back in August of 2020 went viral (6.7K likes, 13K shares, 864 comments – still my biggest to date) so clearly it struck a chord. But fast forward to today and I still see people forgetting that the boat matters far more than the storm. When workplaces are psychologically safe, purpose-driven, and connected, people don’t just survive difficulty, they grow through it and emerge stronger. But when teams are under-resourced, isolated, or unclear on what really matters, even small waves can tip them over.
If we want our people to thrive, we need to take systems-level approach. That means designing environments that reduce unnecessary stressors, fuel energy and connection, and allow time to recover and re-energise – not just push. It means asking not “how can our people be more resilient?” but “what foundations do they need in place to build it?”
Leaders have a critical role to play here. Culture isn’t built by posters on walls – it’s shaped by what leaders role-model, reward, and reinforce every day. If we want to build truly regenerative workplaces, we need to stop asking individuals to carry the load alone – and start creating the scaffolding that helps everyone rise.
The conversations at the World Congress reminded me that the way forward isn’t about going back to how things were. Too many have already forgotten the lessons learned during the pandemic. It’s about designing something better – for individuals, for leaders, for workplaces, and for the systems we all move within. That means rethinking how we define resilience, how we develop it, and how we embed it into our culture.
In the months ahead, I’ll be weaving these insights and the latest research into my keynotes, leadership programs, and team workshops. Expect fresh tools, deeper science, and a renewed focus on building not just stronger people, but stronger foundations.
So, how are you preparing not just to cope but to grow going forward?
