A resilient person is someone who has strong coping skills and is able to marshall their resources, ask for help when needed, and find ways to manage a situation they are facing. People with resilience are able to use their skills and strengths to respond to life's challenges, a meaningful quality in entrepreneurship. As a new business grows, the entrepreneur is bombarded with demands, questions, and time pressures, such that developing resiilence almost becomes a survival skill. From my own experience which included a benign pituitary tumor at my peak production the three resilience factors to master are stress, health and time management. Truth be told time management controls all three, and the successful entrepreneur needs to adopt disciplined habits and some kind of a system.

I used the “PGA” or plan-goals-activities myself. The was an annual plan, quarterly goals, and weekly/daily activities. My Quo Vadis diary organized the system, and I developed a 4 X 6” list before every work day. Over time it was not possible to accomplish more than six listed projects in any one day, and consequently a daily sheet had calls, tasks sections, actions outside of the office in another section (including appointments), and six priorities numbered one to six across all activities. The ultimate key to success was doggedly doing each priority in order.

Health requires a moderate, Mediterrean diet, three to four periods of exercise a week and dedication to proper use of time through carefully planning. One example, the telephone can easily control a busy entrepreneur. I designed a time each morning of taking all calls form (8:45 AM to 11:00 AM), and clients, underwriters, and others knew they could reach me then. From 11 AM onward a secretary would take a message, and say I was out of the office. Every call was returned in my own time before close of business unless received after 4 PM in which case it was returned the next morning. This practice enabled me to make the best use of my time through out the day, and it permitted me to focus on the next most important priority under the daily list.