Toxic work culture has created a notion around resiliency where we are led to believe that it stems from working through distress and mental overload.  It is about pushing through the pain, holding on for a little longer to achieve success, despite arriving at this outcome completely exhausted. TED Talk speaker Jane Marir Chan offers a new perspective on resiliency, as she shares her motivating story of exploring the meaning of this term after losing everything.

Chan is the co-founder of Embrace Global, a social enterprise that creates low-cost portable incubators for premature babies. With a fierce ambition fueling her desire to dominate, she set out to save a million babies. As her work was recognized by Barack Obama and Beyonce and featured in headlines globally, she appeared to be bolting towards her sought-after success. Yet, behind this thriving business was an owner who was drowning in stress and self-doubt. 

After ten years and countless setbacks, Chan shut down her company. Her motivation had silently faded and was replaced by a surge of depression and restlessness. While being at her lowest, she decided to engage in a healing journey. From meditating to going on psychedelic journeys and swimming with sharks, Chan fully emerged herself in her endeavour to heal. 

Yet, despite all these unconventional healing attempts, Chan was only able to rebuild herself after breaking herself apart. She needed to confront her trauma. As a child, her father demonstrated his affection by pushing her to succeed, but when expectations were unmet, she endured physical punishments. Her journey toward healing allowed her to do more than simply pull herself out of her sorrow—it allowed her to truly feel again. She came to realize that her sense of powerlessness installed in her from a young age motivated her work to help others. However, her trauma became intertwined with her drive, causing her pain to become her purpose, filling a never-ending void of perfectionism. 

Chan allowed herself to slow down. She learned to connect with her emotions by allowing herself to feel comfortable being uncomfortable. She had to feel the pain. All of it. She began deconstructing her fixation on outcomes, realizing that external success does not define us, as it is who we are that is of importance. Additionally, she discovered self-compassion by recognizing each aspect of herself that was fueling her ambition to protect her younger self. 

Through her story, Chan provides a new perspective on resiliency. She has removed the fortitude and exhaustion attached to the term and replaced it with tenderness and sympathy. Resiliency includes taking a step back and working on ourselves before throwing everything we have into our work. It is about loving ourselves independently of our achievements, so when we do encounter roadblocks, they do not become tangled with our identity. Chan was able to save Embrace, reaching her goal of helping over a million babies. With ambition comes moments of stress and discouragement, yet, Chan shows how a little bit of self-love is essential to break through these barriers and fulfil our goals while also maintaining our wellbeing.

Watch Jane Marir Chan’s TED Talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZdPKEf-LXA

Contributing Writer: Ava Primiani

Image Credits: 

Feature Image: Ben Dutton on Unsplash