Resiliency training in the military is typically seen as a “check the box”. The purpose of these sessions (e.g., 92 critical days of summer, Back in the Saddle (BITS) training, etc.) is to have conversations about elevated suicidal ideations, attempts, and completions, lack of workplace satisfaction, lack of well-being, inability to cope with daily stressors, and many other things. Rarely are there intentional efforts placed on educating the force on what resiliency is, how to build it, barriers to building resilience, and potential impact. Often the people facilitating resiliency training are “volun’told” rather than people who are truly passionate about the topic – and it shows. People on the receiving end can feel when the person delivering the instruction does not care (military instructors) or are simply there to collect a paycheck (civilian instructors).

Peterson Space Force Base understood that there was a desperate need for something different. Having already certified Airmen as emotional intelligence instructors, they saw the need to do something outside of the traditional training period. They decided to reach out to our team about restructuring their Resiliency Day. The initial request was to do a keynote and to be able to leverage the power of emotional intelligence to help them understand how to build resilience.