The Resilience Institute

Resilience training and research

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Resilience provides a framework for navigating a demanding world.

With anxiety disorders rising and employers losing 32 days per year for every depressed employee, there has never been a better time to cultivate resilience and mental fitness in the workplace.

About the Resilience Institute

The Resilience Institute was founded in 2002. Our mission is to deliver high-impact, practical, evidence-based and integrated resilience training by bringing together modern preventative medicine, positive psychology, emotional intelligence, and neuroscience.

Hundreds of thousands of executives and professionals have joined our community. They have built healthier bodies, achieved greater levels of emotional intelligence, and have developed stronger minds. Thus, they bring the performance benefits of resilience to work.

Resilience Program Summary

We offer a range of program options including digital-only, face-to-face and blended. Most programs include:

  1. Resilience Diagnostic assessment. This is a confidential, secure and interactive assessment taken pre-training, with additional diagnostics completed throughout the program to measure impact. 
  2. Resilience Training Videos & Daily Tracker: a digital toolkit including over 40 micro-learning videos that can be used alone or to support face-to-face workshops. The tracker enables participants to define key resilience priorities and track goals easily over time.
  3. Tactical Focus: A meditation feature built into the Resilience App, designed to promote mental fitness.
  4. Chatbot: A digital resilience assistant built into the app that provides real-time resilience support and guidance.
  5. Workshops: practical ½ day workshops for groups of approximately 30 attendees. In these workshops we explore the Science and Practice of Resilience, including Bounce and Recovery, Dealing with Challenge (Mastering Stress), Lifestyle, Emotional Intelligence, Focus and Flow.
  6. Weekly Practice Tips: As part of the program we offer participants a weekly practice tip with the objective of embedding core skills and building momentum. These PDF resources can be sent from an internal champion or directly from our team.
  7. Internal Resilience Champion: An optional step is to accredit internal resilience coaches. This enables them to drive and support the program from within the organization.

Program results

Participants who have engaged with the Resilience Institute achieve a consistent improvement in every category and each of the 60 factors of resilience – from depression and anxiety to well-being, emotional intelligence and cognitive skills.  

With teams across the world, we are well-positioned to deliver effective programs to organisations looking for sustainable human performance and employee wellbeing.

Contact: [email protected]

Meet the Resilience Institute US team

  • Dr Sven Hansen
    Dr Sven Hansen
    Founder
  • Bradley Hook
    Bradley Hook
    Partner, Global
  • Declan Scott
    Declan Scott
    Consultant
  • Judith Heezen
    Judith Heezen
    Senior Associate Consultant, North America
  • Lieven Callewaert
    Lieven Callewaert
    Senior Consultant, North America
  • Dr. Rubina Varma
    Dr. Rubina Varma
    Senior Consultant, United States
Dr Sven Hansen
Founder

Dr Sven Hansen is the founder of The Resilience Institute. From a medical family, Sven joined Pathfinders, a special forces team in South Africa, before completing a degree medicine. His passion for sport and flow took him into sports medicine and a personal practice in resilience.

Asking if organisations might be interested in applying sports science to good business and leadership, Sven began a corporate health business in 1988. He completed his MBA in 1993 and set about building an evidence-based, integral and practical solution to sustainable performance in life, sport and business.

Over 20 years Sven has worked extensively with High Performance Sport, professional firms, banks, corporates, government, entrepreneurship, universities, and schools.  He leads the development of The Resilience Institute’s methodology and is an experienced executive coach, keynote speaker and leadership trainer.

He has a specific interest in developing leadership teams and the application of biological principles to leadership, strategy and resilience in the community. Sven lives in Auckland with Susan and their two children. He is a keen surfer, paddler and kitesurfer.

See Sven in action delivering a keynote presentation.

Sven’s latest articles, videos and book reviews.

[email protected]
Phone: +64 21 730 995
Postal Address:
PO Box 28-123, Remuera
Auckland, New Zealand

Bradley Hook
Partner, Global

Brad is a technologist, author and resilience facilitator who has presented keynotes and workshops around the world.

He is dedicated to supporting individuals and groups with the Resilience App – a practical, evidence-based toolkit that builds resilience skills and proves the impact. His latest book, Resilience Mastery, explores the 11 critical skills that drive high performance.

Brad is a dedicated resilience practitioner who enjoys surfing, trail running and videography.

[email protected]
Phone: (+64) 021 367 654
Bradley Hook bio | LinkedIn

Declan Scott
Consultant

Declan joined the Resilience team in 2015 and brings practical experience from both the professional practice field across a number of countries to hands on business knowledge in owning and growing a business from Startup stage. He is dedicated to helping change the culture of business by inspiring a renewed sense of purpose and creativity in the workplace.

Declan is a former Fellow of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ireland and has worked internationally as a corporate tax advisor prior to moving to New Zealand in 2005. He is one of the original founders of SHE Universe group in Christchurch. Declan has held various lecturing positions at a number of universities in Australia and New Zealand and is also a recognised keynote speaker and workshop facilitator.

[email protected]
Phone: (+1) 720 472 2687

Judith Heezen
Senior Associate Consultant, North America

Having fulfilled roles as Program Manager for a well-known Business School in The Netherland and Managing Director of retreat centers in Belgium, as well as being an international executive coach, health expert, resilience coach and dedicated mother of 6, Judith is constantly exploring the next stage of personal resilience, and exploring ways to support leaders in living a richer, healthier and more fulfilling life.

Currently living in Vancouver, and originating from the Netherlands, she divides her time supporting executives on their health and resilience journey, living the resilience life being passionate and teaching the importance of “integrative food for body, heart and soul.

Family life is her cornerstone for this entrepreneurial life.

[email protected]

LinkedIn

Lieven Callewaert
Senior Consultant, North America

Lieven is an entrepreneur, executive coach and a teaching professor and keynote speaker, dedicated to supporting leaders and help build organizations onto their journey towards becoming purpose-driven communities.

He blends his expertise on transformational leadership, organizational development, and purpose into journeys for change.

Lieven is the co-founder of YesAndMore, a Dutch-based cooperative for regenerative value creation, co-founder of Heerlijckyt van Elsmeren and Kingsmill learning village, 2 retreat centers at the heart of Europe and co-founder and managing partner of the Resilience Institute in North America. In this last role, he is dedicated to accelerating the shift towards a more resilient economy and society, blending the art of personal and organizational resilience.

Lieven, originally from Belgium, lives in Vancouver, Canada with his family, and is a passionate resilience practitioner, living with the outdoors, loving the healthy lifestyle and being part of the community around.

[email protected]

LinkedIn

Dr. Rubina Varma
Senior Consultant, United States

Dr. Rubina Varma is a seasoned people leader with over 20 years of cross category and cross-cultural experience. She holds PhD in Assessment and development centers with deep expertise in designing Competency frameworks, Learning and Organization Development. She has lived and worked in 7 countries spanning 4 continents. She has worked with organizations like Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Nokia, Barclays, BMW, General Motors, GSK, Nestle to name a few. Rubina is a coach with Resilience Institute and currently lives in Atlanta, GA, USA .

Her resilience was tested time and again as she moved countries every few years, identified work opportunities and contributed significantly in different geographies. This reinforced her belief that resilience is the key for adaptive transformation and she decided on dedicating her expertise and experience to support Leadership transformational journeys and to build Resilient organizations.

She is a Leadership coach with RBL Consulting and is CBT certified by the Beck Institute. Rubina is certified by SHL,UK for Level A and B Psychometric testing.  She actively  engages in volunteer work with a variety of service organizations. She has also taught at Essec Business school in Singapore.