Pilot Chesley Sullenberger showed a "Deliberate Calm" landing in Hudson.

In 2009, when a bird strike disabled his airplane™s engines, pilot Chesley œSully Sullenberger didn™t panic. Ignoring the advice of air traffic controllers to return to the airport, he chose instead to land in the nearby Hudson River. With calm and deliberate actions, Sullenberger successfully saved the lives of all his passengers and crew.

Sullenberger showed what it means to stay calm under pressure. Even though you might not be an airline pilot, you will face unexpected challenges where you need to set aside your emotions and fears. In those moments, thinking logically and staying deliberately calm is important.

Deliberate Calm requires œadaptability, learning agility, awareness, and self-regulation.

With Deliberate Calm, you'll learn to stay aware, pause under pressure, and make intentional choices. Being deliberate means understanding both your "external environment"”the world around you”and your "inner environment"”your thoughts and emotions. These two areas influence you directly and indirectly, and they interact with each other.

Being aware of different environments helps you think more clearly. You can take breaks to reflect, especially when under pressure. This allows you to choose how to respond to any situation thoughtfully and tackle its challenges effectively.

Deliberate Calm is akin to becoming a focus ninja. By refining adaptability, learning agility, awareness, and emotional self-regulation, you're equipped to tackle any challenge like a pro. Adaptability means rolling with the punches, learning agility keeps your mental muscles strong, awareness tunes you into your surroundings, and emotional self-regulation ensures you stay cool under pressure. So, with these skills, you'll handle life's twists and turns with confidence and grace.

Flourish in the "Adaptive Zone" with adaptability.

In today's dynamic world, we view challenges as ever-changing terrain. To excel here, you must be ready to break from routines, harness novelty, and collaborate effectively. Adaptability is the key to unleashing creativity and finding inventive solutions. So, gear up to venture into uncharted territories, where innovation flourishes and success awaits.

In today's dynamic world, leaders inhabit what we call the "Adaptive Zone," where they must continually adjust to rapidly changing circumstances. Understanding the necessity of adaptability is paramount, as relying on conventional thinking and strategies during turbulent times proves ineffective. Leaders must be flexible, swiftly adapting to new challenges to maintain relevance and make lasting positive impacts in an ever-evolving environment.

Enhance leadership potential with increased learning agility.

Research indicates that learning agility is the strongest predictor of a leader's excellence and future improvement in leadership skills. Experts affirm that leaders who adopt a learning mindset become positive, effective role models.

In the most stressful situations, our brains tend to stick to what they know best, even if it's not the most helpful. But guess what? You can train your brain to learn and adapt even when things get tough. This skill, called learning agility, not only keeps you cool under pressure but also helps you find valuable lessons in the most challenging moments.  By practicing deliberate calmness, you can boost your ability to learn from stressful situations and come out stronger.

Understand yourself: develop self-awareness.

Facing pressure at work is common, but as adults, we need to handle it wisely. Instead of sticking to clichéd ideas, try thinking outside the box for creative solutions. Stay focused by keeping irrelevant emotions aside and relying on logical thinking. 

Understanding any negative situations you encounter and tackling them head-on is important. Push yourself beyond your comfort zone, which often holds you back. By doing so, you can cope better and find effective ways to deal with workplace challenges. 

The goal is to be fully aware of both what's happening around us and what's going on inside ourselves, understanding how they influence each other.

Unveil the Hidden Depths

Imagine an iceberg: only 10% is visible above water, while 90% remains hidden beneath the surface. Similarly, much of our inner world the thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and beliefs that shape us”is concealed, yet it influences how we behave. Just as the unseen mass of an iceberg dictates its movements, our private thoughts and emotions steer our actions.

To reach your goals and fulfill the "Deliberate Calm Promise," take the time to truly know yourself beneath the surface. Think objectively about what drives you and why you do what you do. This self-awareness is crucial for improving your performance in all areas of life.

Better thoughts and feelings create better outcomes.

Your thoughts and feelings shape your world. When you work on them, you can make your reality better.

The "Deliberate Calm Way" focuses on improving yourself by enhancing your mindset. Think about how you can improve your processes in these four mindset areas.

1. œGrowth mindset: People with a growth mindset see challenges as chances to grow. Make this mindset your foundation for getting better.
2. œCurious mindset: Those with a curious mindset are always asking questions and exploring. Approach everything with fresh eyes. 
3. œCreative mindset: A creative mindset involves experimenting and searching for deeper meanings in what's happening around you.
4. œAgent mindset: Those with an agent mindset believe they can achieve anything and are confident in their ability to make positive things happen.

Handle turbulent situations with œDeliberate Calm Practice.

In uncertain times, what worked before might not work now. Strategies that are used to bring success could fall short in the future. When things get shaky, relying solely on past practices might not cut it anymore.

Ready to tackle challenges head-on? Deliberate Calm is a groundbreaking approach that encourages teamwork and creativity to reach big goals. Instead of stressing, we focus on collaboration and authenticity. By asking open-ended questions and defining obstacles together, we pave the way for innovative solutions. Let's tackle problems as a team and achieve greatness!

Follow a four-week program for self-improvement in Deliberate Calm.

To understand the Deliberate Calm program, follow the four-week "Deliberate Calm Protocol." Each day, practice increasing awareness of your internal and external environments and helping others do the same. Your guidance can assist them in reframing problems as opportunities, expanding their skills, and broadening perspectives to develop a more open mindset for maneuvering through the Adaptive Zone effectively.

To get better at using Deliberate Calm, you gotta practice a lot. Start by asking yourself some questions. Like, what's something you wanna change about your behavior? Maybe there's something you do that messes up your day, like doubting yourself all the time. When does this happen? How does it make you feel? Imagine if you could switch to a more positive mindset and ditch that behavior for good. How would your life be different?

Develop Emotional Resilience: Four-Week Practice

Get ready to boost your emotional resilience! Over the next four weeks, we'll dive into Deliberate Calm activities. These exercises help you understand how you react to stress and empower you to make positive changes. By examining how you handle tough situations, we'll work on improving your responses. Let's get started on this journey to a calmer, more resilient you!

• Week One: Your mission is to spot what sets off your emotions and how you deal with sudden emergencies. Pinpoint the situations that push your buttons and lead you to a defensive, often unhelpful state. Each day, jot down four moments that get to you. Describe exactly what happened, along with how you felt, what you thought, and what you did. Every night during this first week, spend at least 10 minutes reflecting on these trigger moments and your reactions to them. By the end of the week, think again about your triggers and your typical responses. Have you figured out ways to react more calmly, rationally, and effectively?
• Week Two: Focus on figuring out your average awareness level. It's normal for it to fluctuate depending on what's going on around you. If you hit a bump and your awareness dips for a bit, don't worry, it happens. Keep an eye on what triggers your reactions. The goal is to spot patterns in how you react to different triggers. Stay observant and patient with yourself as you figure things out.
• Week Three: Focus on staying calm amidst challenges by ditching old routines that no longer help and learning to manage your emotions on the go. Start your day with a clear intention-setting practice. Train yourself to stay cool when stress hits by deactivating fear responses. Decide how you want to handle tough situations mentally. Try three daily calm-down techniques: breathe deeply, walk briskly for 5-10 minutes, and speak with a lower, warmer tone.
• Fourth week: Aim for big changes. Identify a habit you want to change that's holding you back. Understand why you do it. Then, switch to a positive mindset that supports your new behavior. Practice this mindset regularly.

Self-Knowledge Protocol: Your Stress Buster

Following this protocol helps you learn about yourself and builds a positive mindset to deal with stress.

Authors Jacqueline Brassey, Aaron De Smet, and Michiel Kruyt showed that when 1,450 executives learned their Deliberate Calm system, they handled stress much better than those who didn't. The trained leaders performed three times better under stress and scored seven times higher on measures of well-being compared to a control group.