Veterans in business: Nicki Bass, Resilience at Work

I left the Army in 2017 having completed a Masters in Occupational Psychology and decided to set up my own training and development business, Resilience at Work. I have long been fascinated by the concept of resilience and how it is built through adverse experiences as well as our connections with others. Having always enjoyed adventure sports, particularly snowboarding and surfing, I am particularly interested in how the challenge inherent in these activities can be applied to other areas of our lives and researched this for my Masters and now doctoral thesis. I incorporate this research into my client programmes and workshops, using experiential adventure activities combined with team, leadership and wellbeing theory to help teams and employees develop their performance and resilience. 

Whilst in the Army I served in the Education and Training Services, so my experience of designing and facilitating training (sometimes to a less than receptive audience!) has proved extremely useful in my second career. During my 18 years of service, I worked across all levels from tactical to strategic, including 3 years attached to the Special Forces and tours of Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia and Cyprus. This broad range of experience has given me a real insight into what allows teams to function at their peak – often in the most challenging of circumstances - and what teams require of their leaders in order to perform at this level. I know through my work since leaving, that these requirements – including empathy, psychological safety and a deep understanding of each others strengths – are just as fundamental to civilian organisations and teams as they are to the military. 

Another driver of my work is the concept of everyday adventures which emerged from my experiences of becoming a mother and realising that the big adventures I lived for were no longer quite so readily accessible - or even always desirable! I started to realise that framing adventure in the way that my kids saw it – as a novel and exciting experience in their everyday lives – opened my eyes to a whole world of possibility on my doorstep. Many of my clients also struggle with this sense of loss to their identity and a feeling of being stuck; I have found sharing this concept of everyday adventures with them can really help change their perspective. My aim now is to inspire as many people as possible to live more adventurously in their daily lives through my podcast, The Everyday Adventure Podcast and my TEDx Talk – The Lifechanging Power of Everyday Adventures.