Wrestling with Resilience: A Handbook for Developing Resilience and Mental Toughness

Christopher Shen · Simon Moss

Jan 2021 · Christopher Shen Consulting

About this ebook

How can we be resilient and flexible when facing difficult challenges and adversity in our work, and in our life? How can we develop our resilience and mental toughness to perform under stress and pressure? Wrestling with Resilience is a handbook that answers these questions.

Written by psychologist Christopher Shen and Associate Professor Simon Moss, Wrestling with Resilience is a straightforward, accessible handbook for developing resilience and mental toughness. In it, Christopher and Simon develop the readers' understanding of and ability to perform in a difficult environment in their workplaces and lives, through clear concise explanations supported with practical activities.

This 2021 edition includes recommended habits and practices to build resilience for COVID-19.

Wrestling with Resilience is designed to introduce and develop practical skills in controlling stress, developing mental toughness and resilience, maintaining confidence and self-esteem, and performing under pressure. It will also help instil an attitude of initiative, ownership, and self-reliance.

Ratings and reviews

Read the first edition and just when I thought I'd revisit it.. hey presto we get an update - a very timely update as the new version includes some handy tips for dealing with covid related challenges and issues. A great book for self discovery and development as we've all met difficult stakeholders. Make sure you take notes and do all the exercises - you might be surprised by what you learn! I also like that it's the size of a thin novel (just under 150 pages) so it's good for the daily commute. Top marks to Shen and Moss.

I've been using this book as a guide for corporate leadership, and fostering talent since the first edition. Absolutely essential for the coming generations as they face the contemporary world. Well worth your time.

What do you do when you want learn how to ride a bike? Or even, when you want to be good at it? You practise. One of the things you will need to develop when you want to be good at life is practise your mental resilience. This book written by Chris and Simon is just all about that. It’s a great handbook to build up your resilience, enhance your self awareness and have fun while doing it.

About the author

Christopher Shen is a psychologist who has a passion for developing high performance solutions in the workplace. He offers executive coaching, leadership development programs and team building workshops to foster talent. He also teaches organisations to identify and nurture high achievers in their workplace by conducting emerging leaders’ programs and facilitating talent-identification practices. Training is also conducted to help leaders and managers better perform in their jobs and develop their leadership skills and behaviours, as well as facilitate their operational and strategic vision and planning. Christopher also provides psychology services and employee assistance programs to individuals to help with support and assistance in difficult times. 

Simon Moss is Dean of Graduate Studies and Associate Professor at Charles Darwin University. His primary research interest concerns how characteristics of organisations and societies, such as inequality of income or leadership, influence the brain functioning—and ultimately the mood, creativity, intuition, engagement, honesty, and altruism—of individuals. To investigate these issues, Simon has published a range of books and articles in the fields of leadership, personality, motivation, integrity, and stress. For example, he is an author of The Science of Management, Sustainable Coaching, The Negative Side of Positive Thinking, Where Should I Work?, and Emotional Intelligence: A Journey to the Source.