Dr Lucy Hone: How to Rebuild a Meaningful Life When the Unimaginable Happens

**Lucy Hone** (0:03)
Essentially, we are hardwired to cope as humans. We don't like unwanted change, you know, we can push against it. But we do have this incredible capacity to cope with all kinds of potentially traumatic events. And the research is really clear on that. So if someone's listening and really wondering, you know, how am I ever going to get through this?
Listen to the evidence. People hate being told that time helps, and it's not that time helps, it's what you do with that time.

**Aleda** (0:34)
Hello, welcome to another episode of the Empowering Leaders podcast. At Aleda, we are passionate about inspiring connections and creating a world of collaboration. Our signature program, Aleda Connect, curates groups of five to six leaders from diverse backgrounds in sport, industry, social venture and the arts who come together to learn, to connect and to collaborate. The Empowering Leaders podcast is proudly brought to you by Victoria University, where cutting-edge sports and exercise science facilities like heat chambers, performance labs and altitude environments mean VU is ranked seventh in the world for sport science. VU, uniquely you. If you enjoy listening to the Empowering Leaders podcast, be sure to subscribe and please, if you have a moment, we would love you to leave a review so we can reach more listeners and empower more leaders.
Today's guest is one of the world's leading voices on resilience, well-being and the science of thriving through adversity. Dr Lucy Hone is a researcher, author and internationally sought after speaker whose work has impacted leaders, organisations and communities across the globe. What makes Lucy's story so compelling is that her expertise is not only academic, it is deeply personal.
After spending her career studying resilience in him and flourishing, Lucy faced the unimaginable loss of her 12-year-old daughter, Abi, in a tragic car accident.
Through that experience, she was forced to put everything she knew about resilience to the ultimate test. Rather than simply asking how people survive adversity, Lucy's work explores a really powerful question. How do we continue to live meaningful, purposeful and fulfilling lives despite it? Her TED Talk has been viewed by millions around the world. Her books are becoming essential readers for leaders navigating uncertainty. I'm holding her latest How Will I Ever Get Through This, a practical guide to navigating the toughest times. Dr. Lucy Hone, welcome.

**Lucy Hone** (2:22)
Thank you for having me, Luke, and welcome to everybody who's listening.

**Aleda** (2:26)
I am genuinely excited to have this conversation. I think we're going to talk a lot about your expertise and your research as a scientist and resilience and how we do that. But if I could ask you, first start, what does a happy, successful life mean to you?

**Lucy Hone** (2:42)
So I did my PhD in Psychological Flourishing, and my definition of flourishing is feeling good and functioning well. And I think that's a pretty good place to start. So what does all of that mean for me? I guess it means being able to somehow keep going, whatever life throws at you, and stay connected and keep the show on the road, while also acknowledging how difficult that is. So not kind of brushing all of the challenges under the rug, but actually managing to confront them, sit with them, think about them, and still get back to better days ahead.

**Aleda** (3:31)
Why are we not taught about how to handle grief and adversity?

**Lucy Hone** (3:35)
I don't know why we're not, and I would blame the Victorians, I think, because actually Indigenous cultures are, so it's just a problem for us, you know, skinny white people.
But we definitely aren't, and in my work, I see the very real harm that grief being taboo, and being this, you know, awkward, embarrassing thing that nobody wants to talk about, and they don't know how to talk about it. I see the real harm that that causes all the time.

**Aleda** (4:11)
And again, and this is the awkward, and you know this question is coming, which is your own unimaginable tragic loss of a 12-year-old daughter and Abi. And there's an uncomfortableness in asking you to talk about this again. I mean, that's where we don't know how to have the words. We'd fumble a question like I'm doing now.
How hard is it for you still to talk about it?

**Lucy Hone** (4:34)
In truth, it's not hard. It's 12 years since our little girl died. Lovely, beautiful 12-year-old bubbly Abi. I mean, in many ways, it's great for me to be able to talk about her because I want to keep her memory alive. And all of the work I do, I wouldn't be doing if it wasn't for her. I'd be doing the resilience psychology work because that's what I was doing. But since she died, she and her best friend Ella, who was also 12, and Ella's mum Sally, who, like me, a Brit living in New Zealand, three of them died that day on Queen's birthday weekend 2014 in a car accident when a driver sped through a stop sign at 100 kilometres an hour and killed all three of them.