The University of the District of Columbia (UDC) television studios, UDCtv, provides the Washington, DC area with programming geared to foster health, political and environmental awareness. Dr. Katherine Marshall Woods hosts this UDCtv show entitled “A Healthy Mind” featuring guests from a myriad of professions lending information to promote healthy living and lifestyles. Entries entitled: “A Healthy Mind” share these interviews.
On August 17th, 2020, Mike Powell, was invited onto the show to discuss the nature of resilience. A dynamic speaker and trainer, Mike draws upon the lessons learned from his unique life experiences to help individuals, teams and organizations improve their performance and achieve success. With over 20 years of experience, Mike has delivered keynote speeches, facilitated engaging workshops and led large scale consulting initiatives for organizations across the country. He is the co-founder of The Lifting As We Climb, a non-profit organization that supports the development of youth in communities across the country. He currently serves on the board of the Training Officers Consortium of Washington, DC.
Dr. Marshall Woods: “Hello, my name is Dr. Katherine Marshall Woods, your host for A Healthy Mind. The purpose of this show is to inform and educate the public regarding mental health, from emotional disorders to social political events that affect healthy minds.”
“The ability to recover quickly from difficulties and adversities is considered resilience. What influences some to spring back and be able to move forward despite being faced with significant challenges? How does one become more resilient?”
“Today, we have Mr. Mike Powell, a leadership consultant, business coach and VP of The Powell Consulting Group. Welcome Mr. Mike Powell. Welcome to the show.”
Mike Powell: “Good Evening Dr. Marshall Woods. Thank you, thank you. I’m looking forward to the conversation. How are you doing?”
Dr. Marshall Woods: “I’m well, thank you. And, I’m hoping you are staying safe and healthy during this pandemic.”
Mike Powell: “Yup, as best I can. You know, it’s still, still hard to get adjusted to not being able to do the things I’ve been doing so long that’s been a part of my routine; but, I’m hanging in there, I’m getting used to it, I like it a bit.
Dr. Marshall Woods: “(Laughs). Okay. Well, that’s always nice that people are adjusting and it sounds like being ‘resilient’ during this time, which is why we are here to talk today actually. So, tell us a little more about your consulting, let’s start there.”
Mike Powell: “Oh, boy. Umm, so, we have a family owned business. It’s The Powell Consulting Group, starting back in 1986. My dad when he retired from the army. He kinda decided that he wanted to hang his own shingle and do his own thing; and so, after he retired, he went into management consulting. Kinda competing with a lot of the big boys Booz Allens Hamilton’s, the Arthur Anderson and The Anderson’s Consulting’s and the Deloitte’s, um and was sole practitioner and held it down for, you know 20–25 years. Umm, and then within the past 11 years now, I came on board and a cousin of mine came on board, and we are starting to shift from that generation to our generation. But, we do executive coaching and leadership development and team building and all types of facilitations and workshops. And, so, I’ve been around this type of work all my life, though I’ve only been with company full time for maybe ten years, I’m sort of like a coach’s son…I’ve been around it all my life, always been on the field right, but kinda a different field.”
Dr. Marshall Woods: “Right, it sounds like a part of what you do is help people begin to think about how to become more resilient within their life whether it’s business or personally.”
Mike Powell: “Yeah, yeah. I think it’s important to really have those resilience skills both personally and professionally. Umm, you know, we spend so much time of our life dedicated to doing something around going to work, right. If you think about driving to work, getting up, getting ready to go to work, you know, sitting in traffic when you are driving to work; and then the seven, eight, nine, ten hours that you were spending in the office; and then coming back home and kinda having to decompress; you know we spend more than half of our waking hours, umm involved in doing something related to work. So, it’s important to make sure you are able to manage that. But, then, just because we work so much doesn’t mean that we stop being the people and individuals that we are; and so, there’s still a huge part of us that goes through life as an individual not just as a professional. So, all of the stresses that are a part of our professional lives kinda blend over into our personal lives and vice versa. And, now, because we are working from home from the pandemic, we don’t even know where those lines are anymore, so resiliency is so much more important for us now because we don’t have those little things to kinda calm us down, and get us back focused and get our balance back because we are still adjusting to this new environment that we are in.
To see the remaining interview with Mike Powell visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKFvhQFrUBc&t=316s