Academic who spent 20 years studying self-made businesspeople explains the concept of ‘resilience work’, which involves making deliberate adjustments to our thoughts, attention, environments and resources in order to cope with adversity.
By Rachel Doern – author of The Resilient Entrepreneur: From Crisis to Enlightenment
Your business could be minutes, days or months away from a crisis.
You probably won’t see it coming – but if and when it happens, it will hit hard, and the consequences could quite possibly be disastrous.
Worst case scenario, the future of the business you devoted your life to and built up from scratch could be in doubt.
It could happen to anyone: start-up founders, self-employed individuals or entrepreneurs and business leaders in unstable or high-risk environments.
It doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?
Businesses that struggle or fail to survive such a crisis are often the ones that weren’t
prepared, not only in terms of contingency and crisis prevention planning, but who neglected to protect and prepare their most vital asset, those who lead.
So, what can you do to increase your chances of riding out that particular storm and look forward to a prosperous future?
I’ve spent 20 years studying entrepreneurs, carrying out interviews and learning how they dealt with crises. I’ve also asked them to keep weekly diaries as they navigated their way through crises.
I learned the emotional and psychological realities of crisis.
Among the people I spoke to were owners of stores and businesses which were looted, torched and damaged beyond repair or completely destroyed during the London riots in August 2011.
I’ve also spoken to business owners working across industries who were directly affected by COVID-19. I have examined studies on individuals from different parts of the world who have been through personal crises, who have suffered from health issues or bereavement, or who have experienced professional crises; from natural disasters to terrorist attacks, recessions and organizational or operational failures.
Many of these incredible people were able to regroup and rebuild their businesses.
They showed remarkable resilience, which forms one of the key take aways from the
research: Resilience is a skill you can build, through ‘resilience work’.
‘Resilience work’ is the process of altering our cognitions, emotions and behaviours through deliberate strategies that help individuals endure uncertainty, recover from disruption and continue functioning during crisis. It involves adjusting our thoughts, attention, environments and resources.
Those deliberate strategies are:
• Distraction
• Expectation management
• Positive self-talk and positive reappraisal
• Situation selection and modification
• Offsetting resource losses
• Leaning into social support
Distraction, particularly acceptance-based distraction. Entrepreneurs often temporarily redirect their attention away from distress through activities such as exercise, hobbies, humour, family interaction or creative work. These distractions provide emotional relief and allow entrepreneurs to regain perspective without permanently avoiding their problems. It is important to distinguish healthy distraction from avoidance-based distraction, which suppresses emotions and can become maladaptive if prolonged.
Expectation management. Entrepreneurs in crisis frequently face uncertainty about finances, recovery, customers and future opportunities. By balancing cautious optimism with realistic expectations, they reduce anxiety while remaining prepared for setbacks.
Maintaining low expectations can protect against disappointment, while positive expectations sustain hope and motivation. The most resilient entrepreneurs combine both approaches, remaining hopeful but pragmatic.
Positive self-talk and positive reappraisal. These are cognitive tools for resilience. Positive self-talk helps entrepreneurs challenge catastrophic thinking and reinforce confidence in their ability to cope. Positive reappraisal enables them to reinterpret adversity as an opportunity for learning, growth or renewed purpose. It allows them to reflect on support available or received. These strategies reduce emotional distress and foster a sense of agency and meaning during crisis.
Situation selection and modification help entrepreneurs strengthen resilience by
consciously adjusting their environments, routines and interactions to reduce stressors and regain control.
Offsetting resource losses involves finding creative ways to replace lost income, time,
energy or opportunities, helping entrepreneurs maintain operational and emotional stability.
Leaning into social support is essential to resilience and yet, not everyone does it.
Leaning into support from family, friends, employees, customers and communities provides emotional reassurance, practical assistance and a sense of belonging. Social support acts as a protective factor that buffers stress and helps entrepreneurs recover more effectively from adversity.
Together, these interconnected strategies demonstrate that resilience can be intentionally cultivated through adaptive thinking, emotional regulation and supportive relationships.
Resilience Work: Lessons You Can Learn Today
Lesson 1: Resilience Work Necessitates Making Adjustments
Resilience requires active adjustment during or following a crisis. Entrepreneurs strengthen resilience by changing where they place their attention, how they think about adversity, the situations they face and the resources available to them. These adjustments are described as attention-led, thought-led, situation-led and resource-led strategies. The core message is that resilience grows through adaptability and conscious behavioural change rather than passive endurance.
Lesson 2: Resilience Work Requires Adjusting the Environment
Resilience involves adjusting both internal and external environments. Internal adjustments relate to thoughts, emotions and attention, while external adjustments involve situations, relationships and resources. Entrepreneurs who experience intense emotions or might struggle to manage them may benefit more from adjusting their external circumstances first, such as modifying routines, seeking support or changing stressful environments. This lesson highlights that resilience strategies must fit the individual and the context.
Lesson 3: Resilience Work Is About Acceptance and Working Through Negative Emotions
A key lesson is the importance of self-awareness. Entrepreneurs become more resilient when they notice how they think, feel and behave during stress. Awareness enables individuals to recognise which coping strategies are helping and which may be harmful. For example, distraction can be useful temporarily, but when avoidance is prolonged, especially when it takes the form of denial, disengagement or rumination, it can become damaging. Developing awareness allows people to intervene earlier and make healthier adjustments.
Lesson 4: Resilience Work Can Create Relief in A Crisis Via Different Mechanisms
The strategies described above provide relief in a crisis. Positive self-talk provides relief by helping to make realistic assessments of a situation and to see the potential opportunities. Distraction and situation selection and modification offer relief by subverting negative emotions before they occur. Entrepreneurs who regularly practise resilience-building behaviours such as these become better prepared for future crises. Resilience therefore develops much like a muscle through consistent application and reflection.
Lesson 5: Resilience Work Can Help Manage Stress in A Crisis and Create Stress Resistance
Where entrepreneurs in crisis feel they’re capable of managing a situation, stress is reduced. Where they feel they can apply the way they’ve managed a crisis to other situations, they can create stress resistance. For example, positive self-talk, and the constructive thinking on which it relies, gives entrepreneurs the confidence to work through different challenges and achieve their goals. It is a strategy that, when practised, can be beneficial in the future.
Lesson 6: Acceptance-Based Strategies Are More Effective Long-Term Than Avoidance-Based Ones
No single strategy works in every situation. Entrepreneurs often need to move between different coping approaches depending on the nature of the crisis and their emotional state. Flexibility allows individuals to respond dynamically rather than rigidly during adversity. Some coping strategies can undermine resilience if left unmanaged. Denial, rumination and behavioural disengagement may provide temporary relief but can increase stress, helplessness and vulnerability over time.
Entrepreneurs strengthen resilience when they actively monitor and limit these harmful responses while replacing them with healthier coping mechanisms such as planning, emotional regulation and social support.
Resilience is an active, ongoing process of adjustment. By becoming more aware, adaptable and intentional in how they respond to adversity, entrepreneurs — and individuals more broadly — can strengthen their ability to recover, grow and continue functioning during difficult times.
CASE STUDY: ‘Sofia’
On that fateful night in August 2011, Sofia peered out of the window of her bar. What she saw filled her with horror. She said: “The High Street was like a warzone. Everything was burning. Every single shop was smashed.
“Three cars outside my property were set alight. I had my teenage sons and my friend with me.
“We were trapped. We didn’t know what to do. It looked as if there were about 300 rioters outside.
“The door was smashed and the angry rioters poured in.
“I was thinking ‘Where can we escape?!’ They started setting things on fire. We locked ourselves in the kitchen. We hid behind a shutter; we heard them on the roof. One shouted ‘Burn it! Burn it!’
Somehow Sofia, her son and friends escaped. Her beloved neighbourhood bar – her decades-old business – was looted and badly vandalised but escaped being burned down.
A week later Sofia was able to open the bar again. Though parts of it were still boarded up, she cleared out all the broken glass and debris.
And even though they had very little to sell, just a few bottles of wine stored out the back, they put a few chairs outside and began trading again.
One of Sofia’s strongest coping strategies was positive reappraisal — reframing adversity in a more constructive way. Although devastated by the riots, she focused on the fact that the business had not been completely destroyed and that people had rallied around her. She reflected positively on the support she received and interpreted this as evidence of community care and solidarity. She later said: “Well, I’m back. They didn’t really damage us completely and people were really supportive as well.”
Leaning into social support played a major role in Sofia’s resilience. Customers, neighbours, local authorities and police offered emotional reassurance and practical help. She described people visiting the bar to ask how she was coping and bringing flowers, chocolates and cards. The support reduced feelings of isolation and helped restore hope and confidence.
Sofia continued focusing on rebuilding and operating the business. Rather than disengaging completely, she maintained a sense of agency by working through problems and concentrating on recovery. This practical orientation helped her regain control during uncertainty.
Sofia regulated her emotions by consciously shifting how she interpreted the crisis. Instead of dwelling entirely on fear and loss, she acknowledged progress, support and survival. This reduced the emotional intensity of the experience and enabled her to keep moving forward.
Sofia’s story illustrates how entrepreneurs can remain functional, hopeful and adaptive even after severe disruption and emotional distress.
Rachel Doern is Reader/Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at Goldsmiths, University of London. She researches crisis management and resilience in an entrepreneurial context. Her work has appeared in the popular press, including the BBC and Los Angeles Times.
You can read more in her book The Resilient Entrepreneur: From Crisis to Enlightenment, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Resilient-Entrepreneur-Crisis-Enlightenment/dp/1529201209/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0: