The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - Build Resilience Ahead of Time Not During the Emergency

Episode Date: October 14, 2025

One week ago I was crawling because I couldn’t walk. The pain reminded me of when a back injury led to discovering my kidney cancer. I panicked, then focused on my breath and what I could do with what I had. In Build Resilience Ahead of Time Not During the Emergency, I share how preparation, mindfulness, and PACE planning help us recover faster in life, leadership, and project management.

The time to build resilience isn't when life knocks you down. It's long before that. One week ago, I was crawling because I couldn't walk. The pain of my lower back hit so hard I yelled out. It was sharp, deep, and unfortunately familiar. I felt something like this years ago when a back issue led to the discovery of my kidney cancer. So yes, I panicked for a little bit. But then I caught myself.

I started to breathe, slow deliberate breaths, to control the pain and calm my mind. I reminded myself to focus on what I could do when I could do it with what I had. I had to rely on my upper body strength, my breath work, and yes, some prescribed muscle relaxers to move through and around the severe lumbar spine pain. My wife was a rock star through all of it, coaching me, steadying me, and literally dressing me when I couldn't bend or twist. She reminded me of what I already knew, but needed a reminder, movement is medicine, and being static as a no-no.

It was humbling, painful, and a test I didn't see coming, but because of years of training, mindfulness, discipline, I was able to think through the pain instead of letting it own me. I think I recovered faster than I should have, not because I'm lucky, but because I was more ready. And that got me thinking, resilience isn't built in the middle of the storm, it's built in the calm before it. The same way preparation helps a body recover, it helps businesses, teams, and lives. leaders adapt when the unexpected hits. When you prepare before the pressure, you don't just survive the setback. You guide the recovery. Welcome to People Process Progress. I'm Kevin Pannell, author of The Stability Equation and the People Process and Progress of Project Management. On this

podcast and the People Process Progress YouTube channel, I share lessons from life, leadership, training, and exercise ideas to help you own your growth, align your work, and anchor your teams through practical steps. Now let's get into it. That time he spent on the floor last week reminded me that resilience doesn't mean you don't panic. It means you don't stay there. So the first wave that hit me was fear and pain and frustration. I'm still frustrated. My back hurt sitting here recording this.

The second thing I thought of when I was really locked down was clarity. I've put a lot of time into training my mind, my breathing and doing mindfulness. And that kicked in. And I started to move more smartly, little by little. I look like an old decrepit person, but the preparation helped me do that, whereas if I was not moving regularly, not pushing myself, hadn't gone through hard things before, I wouldn't have the same path kind of back to control. And when you push yourself regularly and you move and you've been through some things and you work on your mind, it changes your default response,

right? From why me, which I had some, to okay, what now? And I was familiar with it. I had done physical therapy before, either after surgeries or after I had back issues before. And again, I parallel a lot of things to leadership and business and projects and programs. And leadership is the same, right? If you're a leader, you can't expect people to perform under pressure if they've never faced discomfort before. Folks who've only worked in a sunny day environment and have never had to either through an exercise or practice or real strife had tough projects are going to stumble. Some will step up, but it's good to make sure that resilient teams are built through consistent

feedback, honest and objective feedback, right? And if you're a leader, don't use the emotional sandwich, which is a great thing, and I may be saying that wrong. When you say something nice, then you throw in the negative, then you say something nice. In a professional way, right, give consistent feedback that is, hey, I noticed you did this. Here's some things that I have found. With this person, this is the way they communicate, right? Share the challenges, right? And model the calm under stress. If you're a leader that's freaking out, your team's going to freak out, right? If I freak out in my house, even though I'm in severe pain, it freaks my family out. And that's going to happen sometimes that it did last week. But you work on it. And that's why you take

the time to practice mindfulness regularly, why you push yourself to breathlessness that kind of freaks you out or discomfort. And of course, I do that in jiu-jitsu and in the gym and other places. And there's a saying, right, it's well-known. We don't rise to the occasion. We fall to our level of preparation. prepared for hardship ahead of time it's going to hit you much harder when it shows up so about the process right and things that consider particularly in the in the project space for for my back for physical things it's take it slow treat the acute injury with cold right and not moving a lot and then you got to get moving for your back you want to move it a little bit you want to unlock those muscles you want to use cold to help the inflammation and you got to do a little bit a little bit

bit at a time and you increase range of motion and then you start working on strength for projects and even some programs right there are tools that help us prepare there's pace planning that I've talked about on this podcast before the hope is not a plan podcast and that's having a primary plan an alternate plan a contingency plan the emergency plan I've given these feedback I've used it and it's helped when equipment doesn't show up on time when construction is not ready when I miss things what are we going to do when it's not perfect right and then keeping it simple there's what if we have a 100% of the things or 75% or 50 or 25. And you could present those things to the decision makers, but you and the team have to go through and prepare for them, right? Because most primary plans

will fail to some degree or another. So, you know, like physical conditioning, if I'm given 100%, what happens if I can only give 75 or 50 or 25? How do we change the exercise? Well, how do you change your plan? Right. Can you function? Can your team adapt? Can you still deliver something meaningful with 25% of what you had at the start. Sometimes the answer is no. Sometimes your feedback is we can't do this. Sometimes you can't, as I couldn't for a day, stand up straight and was rolling to stand up and get things, but you still move and you don't quit.

And that's what the preparation helps with, right? It's like strength training your process. Continency planning helps build the muscle memory so you can act under pressure before you have to when the options get limited. Let's talk about progress because that's what we want to make. right? I'm walking around normal, walking up and down hills, which is good. And because I built that foundation, right, my core is tight. Clearly I have a deficiency somewhere or overwork it. My recovery came faster. If I was a couch potato and I ate horribly and I didn't sleep well,

I wouldn't recover as well. Right. And it wasn't easy. It's forward motion. I'm not bragging. That's just practical things. The same is true for organizations. If we take time to build adaptable systems, communicate clearly regularly, one of those project pillars, and train for contingencies. We can recover faster, cleaner. There's less emotional friction because we've talked about it. We're like, oh, yeah, that's one of the things we consider. Let's go this route. And it doesn't mean we're right back to full speed. I'm not going to run a 5K right now. And in business, sometimes we just got to stabilize the situation, reassess what we can do, and then move forward smarter, maybe with less people, maybe with less money, maybe with less

requirements that we can provide if we still want to do it and it's like well it still makes us better than do it right and and for us that's what good leadership and good process make possible is being able to absorb the impact without completely collapsing so i say all this to remind myself as much as you all resilience isn't about being unshakable right we all get shaken right it's about learning how when we are shaking how do we steady ourselves how can we still move forward? You know, you can build this for yourself physically in the gym, right, in reflection through the mindfulness I've spoken about a lot.

And in small discipline actions when no one's there, right? It's building relationships that anchor you when you can't stand on your own, right? Without my wife, thank God. We're going on 24 years, 25 years next year. She was just a rock for me and that was super helpful. And you need to have those folks on your team, right? What if it's falling apart? Who's my go-to people?

And I've been that person, and I've had people on my team that are those people. But we build that resilience before we need it through practice, through discussions, through feedback, so that when we do, the comeback is just part of the plan. It's not really a surprise. So I've asked this before here, but for a call to action for all of us, let's today look at our pace plan. What are our primary alternate contingency and emergency plans personally or professionally? right so some basic questions without getting too detailed what's the primary path if things go right with me my body my family at work this project this program what's the alternate if they don't what else can we do what else do we have the resources to do what can't we do because what

can't we do is also a plan what is the emergency if it all falls apart if i find out it is something bad or I found out it's a permanent thing. Well, how am I going to adapt to live with this pain or this injury or this sickness or fight it? How, if we're never going to backfill these positions, do we still get the same amount of work done? How, if the supply chain is being hammered for a long time, do we work around it or cancel or change our roadmap? Right. And while we're at it, think about who your rock star is. Who's your teammate, your spouse, your friend who helps you stay grounded and then give them gratitude?

because resilience, as much as we like to think it's built alone and by ourselves in the early morning hours and in the dark, it's not really built alone. It's not. Whether that's through God, your higher power, your partner, your spouse, your teammates, whoever, recognize, be thankful for that person. I'm thankful for you all spending time with me today on people process progress. Remember, resilience isn't built in crisis, is built in consistency. Own your preparation, move with intention, anchor your recovery and progress, right?

Until next time, keep building before you need it. You can go to People Process Progress for more information. You can contact me there. And let me know if you have an idea for the show. Feedback on this show, other shows. You can follow me on X and Instagram at Penel, KG, P.A. and Anil-L-K-G. There's a People Process Progress YouTube channel where you get fitness 60 seconds at a time, cold plunges, you just throw after-action reports.

And of course, the books. I wrote The Stability Equation, Seven Pillars for More balanced life, which are seven things, ownership, mindfulness, movement, boundaries, connection, sleep, and faith that I took on headlong. That was my prep work sometimes in the moment, so I fell behind there. But now that it's just part of myself that helped me reset my mind and body and spirit. And I wrote the people process of progress of project management, which is a field guide, a realistic, this is how we can get stuff done, how I've learned to do it, how I've learned not to do it, what other folks have taught me, both available on Amazon.com. Please check those out.

Give me your feedback. Give me your reviews. I appreciate that as well. Until next time, keep people first. Keep your process aligned. And we'll all make progress together. Guts be you.