Do You Have the Professional Stamina To Go the Distance?

“I got the sta­mi­na. I can close.” — Michael Phelps, Olympian

“There is no prob­lem that does­n’t have some under­ly­ing need for more opti­mism, sta­mi­na, resilience and col­lab­o­ra­tion.” — Jane McGo­ni­gal, Amer­i­can designer

“Resilience is all about being able to over­come the unex­pect­ed. Sus­tain­abil­i­ty is about sur­vival. The goal of resilience is to thrive.” — Jamais Cas­cio, futurist

About a month ago, I did a kick-off ses­sion for the Exec­u­tive Edu­ca­tion Pro­gram we offer — based on my book, Your Oxy­gen Mask First — for T&T Super­mar­kets, Canada’s largest Asian retailer.

At one point, CEO Tina Lee offered a great per­spec­tive on our work say­ing that what we real­ly do is help peo­ple to build pro­fes­sion­al sta­mi­na.

I thought that was a great insight. Just like the phys­i­cal sta­mi­na that ath­letes need in order to play well, high-per­form­ers need to build strong emo­tion­al sta­mi­na or resilience to endure and enjoy the rigours of a long-term life in lead­er­ship. This only comes from devel­op­ing the habits that help you to thrive — for Work, for your Self and for your Life.

Sta­mi­na is some­thing Tina has in spades. Brought up in her fam­i­ly busi­ness, she watched her moth­er Cindy Lee grow one super­mar­ket into a thriv­ing chain of 23 across the coun­try, with 5000 employ­ees. She earned her MBA at UCLA before join­ing the busi­ness as Direc­tor of Strat­e­gy and Oper­a­tions and was instru­men­tal in nego­ti­at­ing the $225 mil­lion sale of T&T to Loblaws. When her moth­er retired in 2014, she assumed lead­er­ship of the com­pa­ny as CEO. Tina is a mem­ber of Young Pres­i­dents Orga­ni­za­tion (YPO), a Senior Advi­so­ry Board Mem­ber of the North Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion of Asian Pro­fes­sion­als, and a mem­ber of the Cana­da-US Coun­cil for the Advance­ment of Women Entre­pre­neurs and Busi­ness Lead­ers (appoint­ed by the Prime Minister’s Office). Oh, and she’s also the moth­er of three children.

The Chal­lenge

• Com­plete a Your Oxy­gen Mask First Self-Assess­ment to deter­mine your sta­mi­na today
• How do you rate?
• What do you need to do to strength­en it?