Turning Adversity to Your Advantage

Anita Brick: Hi, this is Anita Brick and welcome to CareerCast at Chicago Booth. To help you advance in your career. Today I'm really, really excited to be speaking with Ben Woodward. His repeated personal experiences with family trauma, chronic illness, and corporate crisis have taught and tutored him with intimate insights, which we are going to talk about today in the book The Empowerment Paradox, which I will confess that it actually brought me to tears at times.

Ben gained wisdom from these lessons that led him to thrive as a senior executive in multibillion dollar companies, become global president of a multinational corporation, and most importantly, he enjoys a wonderful home life with his wife and seven beautiful children. I don't know how you do all that, but clearly you probably have more energy than a bazillion people.

Ben Woodward: Thank you, thank you. And I need to update those statistics as well because my wife is now pregnant on our eighth. It’s getting busier.

Anita Brick: That's amazing. The topic today is about adversity, which no one is immune to that. And in today's world it feels like it is ever present. You've done this. I've seen other people turn adversity to their advantage and create positive value from it. And I'm excited to have this conversation with you.

So to kick us off, I'm going to start with a question that came from an MBA student: “You talk about your friend who broke his back and said that the second best thing that ever happened to him. Can you help me understand and appreciate how this isn't just a mind game?”

Ben Woodward: That's a really good question, because at surface level, it might just look like him trying to have a positive mental attitude. And it's so much more than that. Let's give credibility to these two words, “mind game,” for what they truly are. All great victories are one first in the mind. Ask any professional athlete for their definition of game. It would probably be something very different and something far more empowering and serious than what we might give it credibility for.

But to dig deeper into my friend's experience, he had developed from this experience what psychologists refer to as mental toughness. This is something that is quantifiable, it's measurable, and it's buildable. And there are five critical things that revolve around what mental toughness is. Positive thinking, anxiety-controlled, say, anxiety elimination. Our goal isn't to eliminate anxiety; it’s to learn to manage and control it. That's a critical point there. Visualization, goal setting, and then attentional control. And around these five themes, we start to develop certain characteristics and qualities that enable us to be empowered.

One of the great challenges, going back to your point, Anita, about the times that we're in where there are a lot of people struggling, creating a lot of vulnerability and fear for a lot of people as their lives are getting kind of shaken around, and a lot of people are striving to be resilient to get through it. There's a challenge with that, because if my goal is simply to survive, then I'm focusing on the wrong things. If we look at it this way, resilience helps you to survive, but mental toughness helps you to prosper. And that's the real difference. So it's so much more than a game. It's really about developing the qualities that we need, not simply to survive, but to prosper. And that long journey that my friend went through because it was a chronic condition for him. There are greater lessons in the duration of time that deepen that learning. But that long journey taught him not simply to survive. He learned, I can't simply be resilient. I can't simply just get through this for the sake of survival. I need to prosper, and that requires something very different. Mental toughness.

And then moving on from that, there is a professor from the Manchester Metropolitan University that actually developed a psychometric tool to help us measure, influence, and shape our own mental toughness. That revolved around four critical qualities: control, commitment, challenge, and confidence. And he said the first two qualities–control and commitment–if we have them, they help us to survive. But our willingness to embrace opportunities to change, to seek being outside of our comfort zone, that type of thing, and then moving forwards with confidence in our own capabilities–to do that is what gives us the mental toughness to thrive. But he said, we need all four of those virtues. All of them stand alone, independently as important. But if we need to succeed, we need all four of them in order to truly prosper.

Anita Brick: And I agree with that. I went through a very challenging time that took years to recover from when I was crushed by an elevator car. That said, there's another MBA student that is expressing what I felt at that time: “How do you actually accept and appreciate the negative people and circumstances in our lives, especially when the cause seems external?”

Ben Woodward: Yeah. You know, when you're right in the middle of it, it's really hard. I want to give respect and value to the hardness of adversity. Yeah, we want to get through it. We want to get to the other side. We want to grow from it. But it is 100% appropriate to give validation to our emotions and our feelings. Feeling emotionally crushed, feeling emotionally overwhelmed by what's going on, especially if we aren't feeling like we were in control of what's going on. That's when it gets really difficult. Moving forward from that, we've got to be able to find purpose in what we're experiencing. That is fundamental. Viktor Frankl said, in some ways, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning. When we have external influence, things that are causing us to suffer, it's very hard in the moment to understand the meaning and purpose of it all. If we can start to look for the meaning and the opportunity for us to become, to evolve, to move forwards and not be shackled to it, then all of a sudden things can start to change. Suffering can become meaning and purposeful when we look at it differently. That is something that does take time. And time is one of the key components that we need to master when dealing with adversity.

Anita Brick: Okay, there is an alum who might push on that, the end of that last point. Not push on time, but push on the value of time. “I am in the midst of adversity and I don't know how long it's going to last. How do you advise others where there is no end for the adversity?”

Ben Woodward: I love that question because I totally relate. I have challenges that I know will not go away. I have health conditions that are going to stay with me for the rest of my life, and they pop up at times when they are unexpected and unwanted and they do not go away. And it causes regular suffering for me and my family.

How do you deal with that? You know, within my book, The Empowerment Paradox, I talk about the acquisition of vital virtues that will help us not just to respond or deal with the suffering or the pain or the adversity, but to deal with it well and to come out the other side purpose-centered and transformed for the better. And one of the virtues that is critical here is patience. So how do I develop patience? This is one thing that used to really frustrate me, and I'm sure the alum that's listening will relate, if there is no end in sight to the adversity. When someone says to you, well, just hang in there, you'll get through it, you'll be all right. And you're thinking to yourself, well, no, I won't. And I don't know how. That's really hard. The question is, yes, patience is the virtue that we need to develop. But how do we develop that? How do I acquire patience in the middle of adversity when there is no end in sight? And I am not feeling patient? That's the critical question.

My answer to that is that we need to break it down into stages. First of all, there is a neuroscientist by the name of Adrianna Jenkins who actually proved that we can do better in adversity when we engage our imagination versus simply relying on willpower alone. When we work exclusively with willpower to get through the tough stuff and go, I don't see the end in sight, I'm just going to have to grit my teeth and white-knuckle this. Then the challenge that we face then is when we're dealing with our willpower as the motivating kind of driving force to get through things, we end up focusing on our immediate proximity. Then the immediate vicinity of our suffering, our adversity. And that makes it much more difficult. When we engage our imagination and perhaps project forwards beyond the suffering to a place in the future where we can see a better, brighter outcome. And we engage and we create an image there that we can work towards, then we can start to work and engage ourselves in a more healthy and more constructive way. But to do that, it's not just about engaging our imagination, it's about also breaking it down into steps and then working backwards from there to the present moment. If we can sequence and kind of break it down into a process and step by step, moving towards an envisioned ideal outcome that actually helps us.

I was a musician when I was younger, so I'm going to use a musical example here. You know, Beethoven famously went deaf. Put ourselves in his shoes for just a minute. You're a child prodigy. You're on the cusp of becoming one of the world's finest, greatest classical composers. And eventually his hearing goes completely. As we study his life, we know that he tried all sorts of remedies to fix this. Socially isolated himself for a while to hide it. He was scared. What if people find out who I really am? I'm deaf and I'm a composer. This is going to ruin me. And he even changed his composing style. We noticed that he shied away from the high notes that he couldn't hear, and he started to play more towards the lower, richer, deeper tones to accommodate his deafness as it was encroaching upon him.

But something interesting clearly happened. He must have done what Adrianna Jenkins suggested is required to develop patience. Towards the end of his career, he changed his composition style and what started to happen was something really fascinating. He moved away from shying away from the high notes that he couldn't hear and engaged his imagination. He started composing music when he was completely deaf and couldn't hear a thing. And his Ninth Symphony, which was rated and regarded perhaps as one of his greatest compositions of all time, he wrote while he was completely deaf, and we also see– this is a critical point–we also see all the high notes coming back in. He engaged his imagination, and rather than shying away and just using willpower to get through things, he imagined a different state and he empowered himself beyond what he had ever done before and outperformed himself.

This is really critical for us because it teaches us when there is no end in sight, there is. A friend of mine once said, it'll all work out in the end, and if it's not working out, it's because it's not the end. I really believe that. This adversity can work together for our good, but we do need to engage our imagination and see a future state that is better than our present moment, and then we've got to work towards it.

Anita Brick: I agree. It's not just thinking that it's going to be so, but thinking and acting that will likely require growth within our own person. Dare I say within our own heart. That said, there are practical actions that we need to take, and one of the alums asks this, and I think this is a really good question: “What advice would you have to create the next right steps, and how do you know that you're winning?”

Ben Woodward: The critical question is, you know, where are you at right now. We've got to take stock of where we really are front and center right now. This is the important thing. One of the challenges for many people and going how do I take the next steps out of my adversity is accepting first of all their current circumstances. Again, one of the virtues I talk about in The Empowerment Paradox is the need for willful surrender. Surrender is an interesting word because the connotations there are I’m giving up. I'm in a battle and I'm surrendering to my enemy. This is certainly not what I mean. It is by far anything from giving up. In fact, to me, willful surrender is one of the boldest and most courageous of virtues. Because what I'm talking about here is in order to truly, willfully surrender, I'm talking about letting go of my limiting beliefs that I hold about myself, about my circumstances, and about my future.

That's got to be one of the starting steps. When we experience adversity, we often feel disempowered by it. When I'm feeling disempowered, there might be a host of negative or incorrect beliefs that I will develop about me and my circumstances as a consequence, especially if I'm a perfectionist. I'm thriving. I've just done fantastic at university. I've come out with great grades. I've got all of these high expectations. I've been a superstar, and then all of a sudden this adversity hits, the world changes and I'm thrown upside down. And that may challenge me, but I may have developed some unhealthy beliefs. First, perfectionism, all or nothing thinking, catastrophizing, negative self-labeling, discounting the positives–that type of thing that will inhibit my ability to move forward constructively and with value.

So starting point is, let's get a true realistic perspective of where am I at right now? And we want to be honest with that. We want to own the tough stuff that we're facing, but we also need to balance that with the opportunities that lie ahead as well, and the power that is within us to take action and to take control and to accept the challenges that lie before us. That's my critical starting point, that I would say, is to accept that.

Moving on from there, we've got to understand what is it that I am truly wanting to pursue. That's the next step. I own where I'm at. But then I need to fully understand what is it that I really want to achieve and how badly do I want it? I knew as a kid that opposition was a part of life, that adversity comes to all of us. I understood all of that. I didn't realize just how much that would be relevant as I got older. If you want something, you've really got to prove to yourself just how badly you want it, because life will ask you to demonstrate that.

Anita Brick: Okay, so in a specific context, one of the MBA students asked: “Consider the situation many of those in their careers are facing at this time a strong career with a sudden layoff or restructuring. Can you give me and share your thoughts on specific steps you would take if faced with this dilemma?”

Ben Woodward: First of all, my desire initially would be to lick my wounds a little bit. This is a painful experience and this is something that I have not done well. So I do come back to this a couple of times. I've come back to this a second time already, because I haven't done well with this in the past. When I've had these negative experiences, I haven't always given myself the right space to allow the tough feelings, the hard feelings, the hurt feelings, room to breathe. Within the process of taking control of our lives and moving forward, we want to be confident. We want to be assertive. We want to be forward facing and goal oriented and what have you. But we do need to give space for the hurt to exist and to give it a space to breathe. So I think that's an important part to start out with, to acknowledge our own feelings.

We also need to understand, I have responsibility here to take control and to do something. If I've experienced a layoff, if I find myself out of work, then I need to do what a lot of other companies are doing and that is I've got to be willing to look at the world and myself differently. I may have pigeonholed myself to this point to find myself in a particular career path, and now I might find myself on the outside of that paradigm having to look differently. A lot of companies right now are going through rebranding processes, where they are now giving very different language to what their company is about and why they're in existence.

We need to consider that for ourselves, dig deep and try to understand at the root of everything, what we do is the fruit of what we think, feel and believe. We've chosen a certain profession because of certain beliefs and certain passions and certain preferences. But we need to start to look and explore deeper here what we truly believe and what we truly love and what we truly value, and how I can add value in the workplace moving forward. Give my emotions room to breathe. Acknowledge them. Respect them because we need to keep our emotional well-being strong. At the same time, I need to recognize that there is some evolutionary process that I might need to go through in order to move forward and to engage in the employment world a little quicker than what might be happening.

The other thing to do is to network. It's so, so important. But make a list of all the people that you know and you make connections, you build those relationships and what have you. But then also think of all the people that they know. Who did they know that could be someone of influence that might be able to help you, or that you might be able to give service to and look for that?

And my final point there would be look for ways to give, you know, when we give out and provide service to others that will always come back to us in a positive way and often in ways that we don't expect. They would be my points look for ways to serve and to give to others, build my network or connect with my network. Build it through the second degree of separation. Who did they know that could be of influence? See if I can connect with them as well. Recognize that I might need to evolve and redefine my brand, but keep it centered on the things that I love, that I believe that I know to be of value. And give space for my emotions to breathe.

Anita Brick: I agree, as you are reevaluating, it's so important, as you have said, that you look at what you love and want to do and also to dig deeper and see how could these things, either in their current form or reconfigured, how could they provide value to the organizations that you would like to engage with, you'd like to work for? Using what you said before, I hope that the companies that are rebranding it are doing it authentically, but from that state, at least, they seem to be trying to point to the value they bring, not just to the money that you're going to spend with them.

Ben Woodward: And I'd say this as well, if you're in a company right now, if you haven't lost your employment and your position is still in place, but maybe you're feeling vulnerable, maybe there is restructuring that is taking place. Positions are being eliminated or transitioned or transformed or changed in some way. I would not sit on my hands. I would not keep my contributions confined to my job spec. I would want to know how can I get involved? How can I participate above and beyond what my job description requires? If I've got other skills that maybe my company haven't seen yet, I would let them know about it. I would want to make sure that I'm a part of the equation moving forward, and not simply rely on what might happen in a memo that comes unexpectedly and unwantedly one evening to let me know that my job has changed.

Anita Brick: Good point. Shifting gears, but pivoting off of that last point, things happen that we don't expect and that are not really pleasant. In your book, you talk about how you were at a conference. You had a call that the government was starting to take all of your files and things without sharing why, and all of a sudden everything blew up. And it was not just a company issue, it was more of an industry issue. But I'm curious–or actually, this is a staff member. I'm also curious: “How did you focus and not get crushed by all of this chaos going around you?”

Ben Woodward: That was an overwhelming experience. I mean, I came back to the office. I was out of the country at the time at a conference, came back to our offices. We had forensic accountants taking up seats in our office, where they stayed for 12 months as they prepared for a court case against us with the intent of shutting us down. They had some misunderstandings about our industry, and they also had some things where they'd actually kind of gotten it right. You know, we had to eat a bit of humble pie, but we also had to face and defend ferociously with vigor the things that they got wrong, which they did. As a caveat, we won the court case and that was a great victory.

But how did we avoid getting crushed by the pressure? First of all, it comes down to commitment. We made a commitment from the outset that at all cost, with no expense spared, we were going to win. And we started to invest in that process before the court case began. So we started making the transformation to our business and making the changes before the court case began, that this was something that was serious in regards to our commitment. That helps to alleviate a lot of the pressure for staff, because what they could see then was an overwhelming commitment to them and to the business that was being demonstrated not just by word, but by action and by resources. We did that before the verdict. We didn't wait until afterwards. That was really, really important.

The other thing that really helped to minimize the pressure was communication. It's almost a cliche now, isn't it? That communication is king, but it really is. But you've got two types of communication in a scenario like this. You've got the formal communication and you've got the informal communication. Informal communication takes place at the watercooler. What happens in the corridors, across the desks, away from meetings, what happens when maybe the executives or those in charge are not expressing the words? And that is language that is important and has incredible power and influence. We needed to mitigate that. So to limit the pressure, we made it very clear. We established not just clear communication, transparent communication, but we also established a communication strategy. And we made it clear if it doesn't come from the execs, it's not true. You listen to the source, you understand the source of communication. They will always tell you the truth. They will always be candid. They will always let you know where it's at, good or bad. Because what's important in this process, more than being liked, is being trusted. So we needed to establish trust through communication and eliminate or mitigate as much as possible the informal communication that happens at the watercooler that can compromise the strategy or can fuel fear and breed panic or concern as a result of gossip or fear-mongering or what happens. That really made a big difference.

Anita Brick: Just to clarify, I don't think you're saying that you didn't listen to other voices.

Ben Woodward: Absolutely not. Everyone has to have their chance to be heard, and an open door policy is very, very important. What we're explaining there is when it comes to strategy and when it comes to updates as to where we are, how we're progressing, how we're moving forward, you've got to understand where the truth is coming from, because it's very easy in a moment of crisis for people to talk and to speculate in regards to listening to people's concerns, if they are feeling fearful, fretful, worried or concerned about any aspect of their life, their work, their business experience, you want to make sure they've got a space where they can confidently and confidentially be heard and listened to. In today's environment, this is really important because we have a lot of people, for example, this year that have been furloughed. There isn't necessarily the watercooler where people will stand around and talk, but you better believe standing around and talking will be happening in a virtual context. So when people are stepped away from the working environment, it's important to continue that communication professionally through appropriate channels. Have a clear communication channel. Make it two way; you want to give people the chance to be listened to and heard. But also recognize that you want to mitigate any of the nervousness that may be expressed through informal channels, and put the fires out, hopefully before they even start.

Anita Brick: You're absolutely right. So the two questions I found really interesting. One was from an alum who said: “Hi Ben, thanks for writing your book and sharing your experiences. How do you decide if an obstacle is guiding you away from a goal to a better goal or challenging you to fight harder for it?”

Ben Woodward: Oh, I love that. That's a tough one, isn't it? When you're in the middle of something that's really hard, is now the time to step away or is now the time to lean in? A way to help in that if I can remove myself from the equation for just a moment and step back and look objectively at the circumstances, I think that will help. I've found many people compromise their decision making processes or their sense of judgment, their keen sense of judgment, because they integrate their own selfish agenda into the process. Now you could say, well, it's my own goal, so how can I be selfish? Because we have a natural self-preservation mechanism that's built in. We want to achieve great things, but we also want to survive. Those two parts of our brain often they're in conflict. They don't work at the same time in the same way. They work like a seesaw. It's interesting that we need to understand the difference there. Being objective with our goals, I think, really helps.

The other thing to understand, of course, is the sunk cost fallacy, where we can have the tendency to stick to something long after the value of it has passed. It requires us to step back, be objective, but then really evaluate what is my goal, what is it that I'm striving to achieve? And when we can look at that, the why behind it: what's my overarching why behind what that goal is striving to accomplish? We need to get greater clarity on our purpose, on our mission, and on our objectives, so that when the obstacles come, when the adversity hits, we don't get shaken and fall away, because that's that's the tendency for many. It's now tough. I don't know how to deal with this. I didn't want it anyway. We don't want to fall prey to that. To know the difference means we really need to have a strong connection to our purpose and our reason for being. That is what will help us understand. I'm going to lean in or I'm going to step back and restrategize.

I'll tell you this by way of assurance on that, I've not known many corporate strategies that haven't needed to evolve or to be redirected in some way, shape or form throughout the course of their execution. Because there are always things that come into our lives and into our business, into our careers or into our strategies, whatever, wherever we're at that we don't expect and that we don't have full control over. So we need to accommodate for that and build that into our plan in the first place. So starting out, before we get to that place, if we build our goals and establish our priorities, we've got to build into that an expectation that things might not go according to plan. Some unexpected barriers will come. What am I going to do when that happens? How am I going to respond? And if as we go through, we get greater leads and understanding that helps us understand actually, I was slightly misguided, I need to go in that direction. I know that because my values haven't changed, my core reason for being hasn't shifted.

Anita Brick: That's a really good point, because if we know what the foundation is, we can make adjustments. The other thing I was curious about with regard to this question, is it possible to not make a big decision around it and do some experiments to test each side? Should I keep moving forward and have like a little experiment there? And should I pivot a little bit and have an experiment there? Or do you think someone would lose focus if they do it that way?

Ben Woodward: No, I think that's a really smart point to make, Anita. We certainly do it in business, so why not do it with our own lives, yeah? I think with every great industry, every great organization where if they're about to pivot into a different direction, they do case studies, they test the waters, they set some parameters, but they understand first what they're striving to achieve. That's the critical thing when we're working for ourselves, when we're working on ourselves, this takes a little bit more discipline. There's so much of our own personal investment of energy and emotion that goes into it. It's much more personal that way. That's where objectivity comes in and becomes important. But yeah, if we can learn to step back, understanding okay, I'm going to experiment here. Create some parameters. I'm going to test this and see what happens. And you can do that with 2 or 3 different carefully planned little strategies that will help you know which direction to head and which one feels good, and you want to get alignment done. You and your mind and in your heart, and get those two in harmony and get them synchronized so that you can move forward confidently.

Anita Brick: I like that. So another alum asked, and this is a very self-honest question. He said: “I hate to admit this, and my struggles now and earlier in my life are a big part of my identity. How are you seeing people break free of this?”

Ben Woodward: First of all, I totally relate. So much of what I wrote in my book came from me learning the hard way. I think I said to my publisher, this is not simply an academic paper that I'm submitting here based on science. This is my personal experience with adversity and with challenge. And much of that comes from this very question, this concept of identity and how adversity can feed into that. And over time, for many of us, can define us, especially if we've experienced a lot of it or it is protracted. How do I shake it? How do I separate the two? How do I distinguish between the suffering, the adversity, and the person, the human being?

There's one phrase that comes to mind and that is self-compassion. We need to learn to practice and to develop self-compassion.Self-compassion is defined by three critical components. The first is self kindness. Learning to be warm with ourselves when hard things happen, it's very easy for us to be warm with others. I've found it's very difficult to be warm with myself when my own vulnerabilities or inadequacies or imperfections tripped me up. I'll beat myself up. I need to learn to practice being kind to myself when I experience pain or shortcomings.

That's the first part. The second part is recognizing common humanity, that suffering is a part of the common human experience. This isn't something that is unique exclusively to me. This is something that everyone will go through, will experience it in different ways, but we will all experience it. Suffering and adversity are a part of the common human experience.

And the third thing is to be mindful is to recognize the balance of our experience with negative emotions. Give them context, give them space. I've talked about that, like I said a couple of times already, because this is something I've had to really practice, not bottle up my feelings when it hurts and then bury it. To give them a space to acknowledge them, but also to balance it with the positive emotions as well. And the good things that happen. And to get a balanced perspective, not just on the adversity, but on the great things that are happening, the good things, the gifts, the advantages, the opportunities that are present. As we can learn and like I said, practice. It's not something that we master in a moment, but as we can practice and develop self-compassion, then we can learn to distinguish the difference between our adversity and us as a person and create a stronger, richer personal identity.

Anita Brick: I think that's beautiful, and it is so consistent with everything you said in the book, because the adversity that you faced are not little things. They're kind of big things in different areas of your life. There's an authenticity about you in terms of the advice that you give, and you've given us a lot to think about.

Ben Woodward: Thank you. There is light at the end of the tunnel. There is opportunity, but we do need to be strong and find the way through it. And not all of it is self apparent. And that's where a big brother or a good friend that's been there, done that, got the t-shirt and dragged himself along the path. There's been times where I've said to people, I know the road you're on, not simply because I've walked it. I’ve dragged myself with bloodied nails along that path, and I know the texture of every rock and every stone on it.

But I stand here now as a witness, that there is great meaning and value in the suffering when we learn to face it with strength and conviction and find purpose and meaning in it. And when we do that, then whatever I'm facing now, we can turn around and say, I'm going to take this struggle, this, this trial, this adversity. And I'm not just simply going to get through it and survive. I'm going to turn it into the defining experience of my life that in retrospect, I wouldn't trade for anything. I'm going to make this something that will make me a better human being and give value to the world because of it, and that gives me a reason to look beyond willpower and grit, to get through the present vicinity of my suffering and move forwards to a greater place.

Anita Brick: Usually, and I think we've already covered it, but I want to give you the opportunity. What are three things that you would advise someone who is currently in the midst of a career adversity to begin doing and practicing right now?

Ben Woodward: First of all, if you're going through adversity, understand the power of your networks. Do not go through the adversity in isolation, because adversity can take a lot of different shapes. It can be on furlough, I am unemployed, it might be my company is going through crisis and radical transformation. That is uncomfortable because it's putting me in a very uncomfortable spot with some of my colleagues. It could be I've had my promotions overlooked, or my career has gone in a completely different direction to what I dreamed of. It could be a number of different ways. Understand the power of networks. Networks are overwhelmingly important in providing solutions and strength and opportunity. Understand the power of the network isn't simply limited to your first circle. It goes beyond who you know. And if you're smart, look at it beyond that and reach out and ask, who did they know? Because it's often in the further extensions of your network where opportunities can reside. And I would say keep that network fresh. Don't simply go to it in times of trouble or in times of personal need. Keep it fresh and dynamic by nurturing it. Recognize that we may need to–point number two–we may need to do some personal rebranding. Understand who we are, the adversity gives us a chance to really face what am I all about? What do I truly stand for? What is my real purpose for being here and how can I really shine? So be willing to diversify. Understand that you might need to rebrand and step out of your comfort zone.

That would be my other point. In stepping out of your comfort zone that often requires proactivity. If I, for example, was in a circumstance where I felt vulnerable in my job, I wouldn't sit on my hands. I would speak up. I would ask, where does the future stand for me? How can I be a greater contributor? What can I do to add value? If the news coming back isn't positive, I would be proactive. What can I do to maintain control? Sometimes when restructuring takes place, sometimes when organizational changes are happening, you need to be ahead of the curve and if you can be a part of the growth experience, be proactive on that. If you recognize that you're going to be on the receiving end of bad news, maybe it's time to be proactive as well and step out into the unknown. I would never counsel anyone to quit their job and not have a job that they have to go to. Always find the next step before you close the door on the other one. Take matters into your own hands and be bold. Be brave. That's what I would say.

Anita Brick: Well, and I would say that you are incredibly brave having read your experiences in your book in The Empowerment Paradox. Been really honored that you shared some of yourself in the book, certainly, and time with us today.

Ben Woodward: Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

Anita Brick: Thanks again. And thank you all for listening. This is Anita Brick with CareerCast at Chicago Booth. Keep advancing.