23 | RESILIENCE

Since 2006, Allison Graham has shown professionals how to grow their business and build profitable relationships. She is a master at helping others overcome obstacles in business. Her bestselling book, From Business Cards to Business Relationships: Profitable Networking & Personal Branding Made Easy (John Wiley and Sons Ltd.) is the foundation for her original work. She’s been featured as an authority on business development and networking in the media and her clients include Fortune 500 companies to small financial services firms and start up tech companies to solopreneurs. Each week, she is invited to share the Business Lessons from the Big Business Headlines on Global News 980 CFPL.

That’s her public image.

Behind the scenes, she’s been dealt a series of difficult blows that magnify the collision between home and work. Her struggles with chronic pain, grief and the internal messenger of B.S. have earned her the moniker, Resiliency Ninja. In her latest book, Married My Mom, Birthed a Dog: How to Be Resilient When Life Sucks! Allison makes people feel less alone in their struggles and gives them tools to bounce forward and succeed in the midst of obstacles, adversity and unwanted change.

You can find her at www.R-Ninja.com or on your favorite social media platform @AllisonDGraham.

The Burnt Out Experience

Soon after her father died, Allison had a surgery that left her in chronic pain. Her neurologist told her, matter-of-fact, the pain is never going away. The pain was so overwhelming, she didn't know what to do. She had no idea how to use mental tools to bring her pain from a 10 back down to a 2. 

She went to support groups and talked with people around, but she felt like she was getting options she didn't connect with. They told her to accept her fate of not being able to continue all the work she had created as well as clichés like "Just power through it," which felt equally unhelpful. Every time she tried to power through, the pain would escalate until she crashed and was forced to take a full week off at a time. 

How did she deal? A New Way of Thinking

Allison looked at her current situation as if she were working on another consultancy job. She found that there are three buckets in difficult situations that can help navigate them more quickly and easily. 

The first bucket is Stress.
Stress is an emotion. You can have many items on your to do list and still not be stressed, b

The second is Obstacles.
Obstacles are things that you can still move, go around, blow it up, or find other ways to move beyond it. 

The last is Adversity. 
Adversity is something that comes from the outside. You have no opportunity to change, modify, or alter this circumstance in anyway. The life the way you know it is forever changed. 

Most of the time, adversity creates new obstacles in our paths that create stress. 
Obstacles just so happen to be Allison's playground as a business consultant. 

Accepting Adversity

Allison accepted her adversity of chronic pain. This is an unchangeable 

Creative Obstacle Work-arounds 

The obstacles this adversity created were things like driving, so Allison came up with all the possible ways around the obstacles she could think of. Her mom could drive, she could take a bus, or she could account for extra time on her drive to stop often.  

Leadership

Stirring positivity within followers

Notable Quotes

"Sometimes we are so caught up in our drama, that we don't look for the signs."

"Let go of unkind judgements."

Since 2006, Allison Graham has shown professionals how to grow their business and build profitable relationships. She is a master at helping others overcome obstacles in business. Her bestselling book, From Business Cards to Business Relationships: Profitable Networking & Personal Branding Made Easy (John Wiley and Sons Ltd.) is the foundation for her original work. She’s been featured as an authority on business development and networking in the media and her clients include Fortune 500 companies to small financial services firms and start up tech companies to solopreneurs. Each week, she is invited to share the Business Lessons from the Big Business Headlines on Global News 980 CFPL.

That’s her public image.

Behind the scenes, she’s been dealt a series of difficult blows that magnify the collision between home and work. Her struggles with chronic pain, grief and the internal messenger of B.S. have earned her the moniker, Resiliency Ninja. In her latest book, Married My Mom, Birthed a Dog: How to Be Resilient When Life Sucks! Allison makes people feel less alone in their struggles and gives them tools to bounce forward and succeed in the midst of obstacles, adversity and unwanted change.

You can find her at www.R-Ninja.com or on your favorite social media platform @AllisonDGraham.

The Burnt Out Experience

Soon after her father died, Allison had a surgery that left her in chronic pain. Her neurologist told her, matter-of-fact, the pain is never going away. The pain was so overwhelming, she didn't know what to do. She had no idea how to use mental tools to bring her pain from a 10 back down to a 2. 

She went to support groups and talked with people around, but she felt like she was getting options she didn't connect with. They told her to accept her fate of not being able to continue all the work she had created as well as clichés like "Just power through it," which felt equally unhelpful. Every time she tried to power through, the pain would escalate until she crashed and was forced to take a full week off at a time. 

How did she deal? A New Way of Thinking

Allison looked at her current situation as if she were working on another consultancy job. She found that there are three buckets in difficult situations that can help navigate them more quickly and easily. 

The first bucket is Stress.Stress is an emotion. You can have many items on your to do list and still not be stressed, b

The second is Obstacles. Obstacles are things that you can still move, go around, blow it up, or find other ways to move beyond it. 

The last is Adversity.  Adversity is something that comes from the outside. You have no opportunity to change, modify, or alter this circumstance in anyway. The life the way you know it is forever changed. 

Most of the time, adversity creates new obstacles in our paths that create stress.  Obstacles just so happen to be Allison's playground as a business consultant. 

Accepting Adversity

Allison accepted her adversity of chronic pain. This is an unchangeable 

Creative Obstacle Work-arounds 

The obstacles this adversity created were things like driving, so Allison came up with all the possible ways around the obstacles she could think of. Her mom could drive, she could take a bus, or she could account for extra time on her drive to stop often.  

Leadership

Stirring positivity within followers

Notable Quotes

"Sometimes we are so caught up in our drama, that we don't look for the signs."

"Let go of unkind judgements."