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The Key to Resilience, According to Bestselling Author Hugh Van Cuylenberg

by

What’s the Key to Resilience?

Want to know the key to resilience? Last year I interviewed best-selling author of The Resilience Project, Hugh Van Cuylenberg (listen to the podcast). We talked about his journey and experiences, and the amazing work he’s doing in Melbourne and around Australia to teach kids, athletes and corporate big-wigs how to be more resilient in today’s hectic world.

Hugh also shared the key to resilience, which is the premise behind what Hugh teaches and his book – a nifty little acronym called GEM, which stands for Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness.

Read on to find out how Hugh teaches people around Australia how we can use the GEM this info to achieve a happier, healthier life.

Click to buy the book

The GEM Principle

“I was living in India and I was volunteering in a school community. When I got there, I thought, ‘Oh my God, there’s no way I’m going to stay here (…) because I was thinking I can’t sleep on the floor here for two weeks. I can’t walk half an hour down to the river to get water every day. I’m not going to sit in the river for a bath, like that’s just not going to happen.”

“But I remember on my first day in the school, which I planned to be my second last day in the whole community, I met a kid who was nine years old and slept on the floor like everyone else. But I remember thinking to myself, ‘I have never in my life seen joy like this before. This kid’s the happiest person I’ve ever met. I’ve never seen anything like him. How incredible. How is it this kid’s so gleefully happy?’

I was living with the principal and I remember I went back to his little mud hut, and I (…) said, “No, I think I need to stay a bit longer.” And the reason I wanted to stay longer is I was thinking ‘What do these people do every day that makes them happy, what does this kid do that makes him happy?’

It wasn’t just this kid, it’s everyone right. Everyone was just so full of joy. I remember looking out the hole in this, well it wasn’t a window. It was like a hole in the mud brick wall at this school. I’m looking across thinking ‘there’s nothing here, there’s nothing in this village. Like I mean, there’s a beautiful view of the Himalayas, and that’s about it. I don’t know what these people are so full of joy.’ So I decide to stay there as long as it would take me to work out what it is those people do every day that makes them so happy.

And I ended up staying for three and a half months, and in three and a half months I saw three things. I mean, there were many things going on. I mean, they were surrounded by awe all the time. I watched what those people did. And every day they practiced Gratitude, Empathy, and Mindfulness.

Gratitude

“I would watch these kids in particular this boy stands out. And when he saw something he was grateful for, he would just stop and point it out to me, and he would try and say the word ‘this’ but couldn’t pronounce the ‘th’ so he’d say ‘dis’.”

“As people who’ve read the book will know, he’d say “Sir, dis! Dis, dis, dis,” you know, whether it was his shoes that were too small because he can’t afford to buy new shoes. But he was pointing at them saying “How lucky am I, I’ve got shoes on my feet. Some of the kids here don’t have shoes. How lucky am I?” Whether it was the rice he got for lunch every day, he only got rice every single day. Just rice. That’s it, from the school. But he couldn’t afford to bring lunch to school. So, the fact they got provided lunch. ‘Sir, dis, dis, dis. Look I get fed here every day. How lucky am I?’”

“Moments he loved. If he realised in a good moment, you know, he’d stop, and he would just point out the things he was really grateful to have like the things that were happening. He loved Bollywood dancing, so often I would walk past him, and he was doing a ridiculous, choreographed Bollywood dance, but he’d say “Sir, dis, dis, dis.” What he was saying was, ‘I’m so lucky I’m doing this right now.’ That’s actually a really, that was quite a life changing, I won’t say moment but a realisation for me. We need to get better at paying attention to the good stuff as it happens.”

Empathy

“What I saw with this community in India is these kids were so unbelievably kind. This kid particular, if he saw saw someone by themselves [he’d go] straight over to them “just checking you’re ok. Do you want to come play with us?”

“If someone wasn’t in school, he would swing past their mud hut after school and say ‘Hey, just checking in, are you ok?’”

Mindfulness

“And mindfulness, they practised it every single day. They had a half an hour meditation before school, every single day. It was optional, so no one had to be there. Yet every single child turned up for it, and I think essentially because they just got instinctively how good it was for them.”

Some Parting Advice from Hugh…

“The most simple thing to do, I think, in order to experience more joy and positive emotion, that’s what creates resilience. So that’s why I’m bring this up. But I think that the easiest thing to do a really practical one, is just to write down three things every day that went well for you. Not three things that have been life changing, not three things you’re grateful for because that’s impossible to keep that up every day and not get bored.”

“What are three things that went well for you today? Had a nice coffee. You saw the sunrise. Had a nice text message for a friend.”

“Whatever it is. If you do that every single day, you actually physically rewire your brain to start scanning the world for the positives. And that makes you a happier person. And it’s something you look forward to. Write it in a note pad next your bed, in a journal, on the shower screen door. However you want to do it, totally up to you. But what you’ll find is you’ll start to experience more moments of joy, and you’ll be more aware of them as they happen, which is a really nice starting point for all this stuff.”

About Hugh and the Key to Resilience

Hugh van Cuylenberg has been working in education for over 15 years. The highlight of his teaching career was the year he spent in the far north of India, volunteering and living at an underprivileged school in the Himalayas. It was here that he discovered resilience in its purest form.

Inspired by this experience, he returned to Melbourne and The Resilience Project was born. Having completed his post graduate studies looking at resilience and wellbeing, Hughes developed and facilitated programs for over 900 schools around Australia for the National Rugby League, The Australian Cricket Team, The Australian Netball Team, The Australian Women’s Soccer Team, The Jillaroos, 10 AFL teams, and he has presented to over 500 corporate groups. Hugh is also the best-selling author of The Resilience Project.

You can find Hugh and get more resilience tips at www.TheResilienceProject.com.

Hugh Van Cuylenberg
Hugh Van Cuylenberg

Want to learn more about the key to resilience and the science of happiness? Make sure to subscribe to my podcast Happiness for Cynics and my email newsletter for regular updates & resilience resources!

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