This study from the Small Business Institute Journal explores how entrepreneurs develop resilience and engage with a variety of adverse situations. Through their findings, they identify three "waves" of resiliency.

The first wave is defined as resilient qualities, shaped by character and circumstances. The second wave, the resiliency process, focuses on how entrepreneurs consciously and unconsciously interpret challenges to develop resiliency, regardless of personality traits. The third wave, innate resilience, emerges from practicing this process, often leading to a deeper sense of purpose beyond oneself.

Resilience is often framed as something people either have or don’t—a personality trait, fixed and immutable. But as we continue to explore the entrepreneurial mindset, we return to a key idea: resilience isn’t simply a trait—it’s a process, a habit, and a choice.

On the topic of developing resilience, this post from the Women's Brain Health Initiative offers some essential tools to start your own practice.

Rather than waiting for adversity to “test” our strength, we can build resilience by cultivating curiosity, self-compassion, and reflective habits that help us understand our own reactions and reframe setbacks as sources of insight. This emphasis on deliberate reflection aligns closely with the Ice House framework’s focus on recognizing personal agency and learning from experience.

Resilience is not about being unaffected by hardship, but about how we respond and what we learn from it.

In this blog post, speaker and educator Sean Glaze argues that how we lead in adversity is what defines us most. The article outlines practical steps leaders can take to reframe crisis moments into chances for team learning and cohesion, such as showing empathy, creating clarity, and focusing on shared growth.

This guidance reinforces what we’ve seen across countless ELI partnerships—when leaders model a resilient, entrepreneurial mindset, their teams are far more likely to adopt it too.