Maxwell Leadership Podcast: “Rules of Resilience” with Valorie Burton
October 17, 2025
Host: John C. Maxwell (with Mark, Jared Cagle, and guest Valorie Burton)

Episode Overview

This episode explores the essential role of resilience in leadership and personal success. John Maxwell’s team welcomes “America’s Life Coach,” Valorie Burton, to discuss her new book, Rules of Resilience: 10 Ways Successful People Get Better, Wiser and Stronger. Valorie shares practical, research-backed strategies for building resilience, as well as personal stories and actionable rules leaders (and anyone navigating challenges) can use to thrive.

Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Resilience, Why Now?

• Valorie’s journey: Valorie has spent 17 years teaching and studying resilience, starting in positive psychology and including military training during the Great Recession—while facing her own personal hardships (03:05).
• COVID-19 & current challenges: The pandemic revealed widespread resilience deficits; social isolation, anxiety, and an “epidemic of resigning” signal a crucial need for practical resilience tools (05:23).
• Quote:

  “Success requires resilience and it’s actually contagious. How you show up resiliently with your team, with your family, impacts all the people around you.” (04:14, Valorie Burton)

2. The Practical “Rules of Resilience” Framework

• Valorie’s three-part resilience system:
  1. Adaptive Skills: Inner strategies for facing challenges (10:13)
  2. Protective Resources: External supports like relationships, finances, experience
  3. Preventive Choices: Proactive actions to avoid future setbacks
• Coaching question:

  “Looking back a year from now, 10 years from now, what will you wish you had done? … Whatever your answer to that question, that’s what you should be doing.” (11:29, Valorie Burton)

3. Embracing Imperfection: Don’t Pretend, Don’t Defend

• Authenticity as a resilience hallmark:
  • Don’t pretend things are okay when they aren’t; acknowledge problems to find solutions.
  • Defending is when you force others to pretend too.
• Valorie’s candid personal/family stories: Her mother’s stroke and recovery, and the hard decisions about asking for and accepting help (13:13–18:53).
• Quote:

  “You can conquer the things you’re willing to confront. But if you don’t acknowledge that a problem exists, you tell yourself there’s nothing to fix.” (13:21, Valorie Burton)

4. Rally Your Resources — Community Matters

• Resilience in community, not isolation: Build and nurture relationships, be part of support networks, and seek both to give and receive help (19:43).
• Legacy and paying it forward: True resilience is ultimately for the benefit of others.
• Financial, educational, emotional resources: Prepare for adversity by intentionally developing multiple kinds of support systems.

5. Grit vs. Quit – Knowing When to Persevere or Pivot

• Debunking “Never Give Up”: Valorie describes why dogged perseverance isn’t always wise. Sometimes it’s the right moment to quit and redirect efforts toward purpose.
• Purpose fuels perseverance: Hardships are easier to overcome when connected to deep purpose (24:03).
• Quote:

  “Grit comes from purpose and passion. You can’t grit through everything because you weren’t meant to grit through everything.” (25:30, Valorie Burton)

6. Growth Goals vs. Performance Goals

• Performance goals = Vision; Growth goals = Engine: Achieving lasting success requires not just setting outcomes but focusing on personal growth—the “engine” that enables achievement (27:33).
• Growth gaps on teams: Leaders should encourage organizations to honestly evaluate not just what needs to be done, but how they need to grow to do it (30:36).
• Quote:

  “If you don’t know the growth goal that goes with your performance goal, it’s highly unlikely you’re actually going to get to the performance goal.” (29:25, Valorie Burton)

7. Organizational Application – Resilient Teams & Cultures

• Psychological capital: Beyond financial and human resources, organizations need resilience and adaptability to change. Valorie’s training offers common language and tools for teams (30:36).
• Building collective resilience: When teams share the Rules, everyone can support and challenge each other through adversity (32:52).

8. Bouncing Forward (Not Just Back)

• Beyond survival: Valorie encourages “post-traumatic growth”—not just enduring hardship, but using it as a springboard to thrive and help others.
• Quote:

  “We didn’t just go through the challenge, we actually grew through the challenge.” (34:51, Valorie Burton)

9. Passing the Baton – Legacy of Resilience

• From personal to generational: Valorie reflects on responsibility to use her resilience to empower the next generation, echoing lessons from her ancestors (35:29).

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On authenticity and resilience:

  “A resilient person is able to be authentic. You’re able to say, I got a problem here. You’re not hiding it out of embarrassment or shame. That authenticity opens the door to the answer you need.” (13:21–14:17, Valorie Burton)

• On purposeful perseverance:

  “If you are meant to be doing it, keep going. If the time period is over, or you were never meant to be doing it in the first place, give yourself permission to do something else. There is no shame in that.” (25:00, Valorie Burton)

• On the impact of resilience:

  "Your resilience is not just about you. It's about your sphere of influence, no matter how small or how big that is." (36:20, Valorie Burton)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:05] – Why Valorie wrote the book now; her personal and professional journey in resilience
• [07:33] – Generational changes & rising anxiety in young people; need for new resilience skills
• [10:13] – Defining resilience and Valorie’s three-part system
• [12:11] – “Don’t pretend, don’t defend”; practical application, family story
• [19:43] – Rally your resources; building community, organizational examples
• [22:06] – Myths around “never give up”; discerning when to grit and when to quit
• [27:33] – Performance goals vs. growth goals; personal and team application
• [30:36] – Organizational resilience, psychological capital
• [34:10] – The concept of “bouncing forward” and levels of resilience
• [40:29] – Final encouragement and big-picture takeaway from Valorie

Closing Reflections (Valorie Burton, 41:00)

• Everyone has already demonstrated resilience; the key is to keep growing it for the next chapter in life.
• Resilience isn’t just for hard times—it’s necessary for sustained success and happiness.
• Harness your energy not for worry, but for expecting and being ready for the unexpected.

Actionable Takeaways

• Assess which of Valorie’s “rules” you need most right now.
• Practice authenticity: stop pretending things are fine if they’re not.
• Intentionally nurture your relationships and support network.
• Ask yourself what future-you will wish you did—then do it now.
• Use adversity as a launching point to help and inspire others.

Get Valorie’s book and resources at rulesofresiliencebook.com
Learn more about the podcast and team at MaxwellLeadership.com

This episode delivers a compassionate, research-based, and highly practical toolkit for not just “getting through,” but getting better, stronger, and wiser through life’s toughest moments—at any stage, in any role.