Posts Tagged ‘Cantor Fitzgerald’
3 Things Resilient Leaders Do September 12 2011 7 responses
Watching the ceremonies on TV yesterday, I was struck by the beauty of the 9/11 memorial in New York. It’s a park built around the footprints of the World Trade Center towers and waterfalls flow into the footprints. Looking at the memorial, I was reminded of the first time I saw Ground Zero after the attacks. I had worked on Wall Street a block and a half from the WTC in the late 1980’s so I knew the area pretty well prior to the attacks. The Trade Center had been my subway stop in those days.
My first trip there after 9/11 was in the Fall of 2005. I had a client in the Wall Street area and flew from Dulles to Newark on an early morning flight and eventually caught the PATH train to go underneath the Hudson and into lower Manhattan. What I hadn’t realized when I booked the arrangements was that the PATH train station was at Ground Zero. As the train came out and up from under the river, it emerged into the foundation where one of the Towers had stood. My first view of the site was literally from the inside out. The view out the window was so unexpected, that it literally took my breath away. It almost overwhelmed me. I started looking around the train to see if anyone else was having a similar reaction.
No one was. It took me a few moments to realize why. These people who were on the train, reading their newspapers or listening to their music, were on another daily commute to their jobs. They took this trip everyday of the week. A lot of them had probably made the same trip prior to 9/11 and now, a few years later, they were back to doing what they do.
It hit me then how resilient human beings can be. I’ve thought a lot about that since then and have, in observing my own life and the lives of others, identified what I think are three characteristics of the kind of people who bounce back. Whether they’re bouncing back from a world changing tragedy or a common disappointment, here are some of the things I’ve noticed about resilient people and resilient leaders:
Scott Eblin is an executive coach, speaker and author of 
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