On Resilience with Amanda Lindhout

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Harnessing Resilience

This chapter explores the nature of resilience as an essential inner strength necessary for navigating life's challenges. It emphasizes the importance of intentional development of resilience, particularly through personal experiences and the transformative power of solitude.

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Welcome to RIMScast. Your host is Justin Smulison, Business Content Manager at RIMS, the Risk and Insurance Management Society.

In this episode, Justin interviews Amanda Lindhout, RIMS Canada Keynote, bestselling author, and globally sought-after keynote speaker known for her powerful insights on resilience and transformation. Justin and Amanda discuss her 460 days in captivity in Somalia, the resilience she learned to develop in her darkest days, and the lessons she brings to the world on resilience and inner strength. They discuss Amanda’s New York Times bestselling memoir, A House in the Sky, how hard but cathartic it was to write, and why she shared it with the world after writing it for her healing. She discusses her Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and how she evolved past being homebound for two years.

Amanda gives a preview of her message for the closing keynote of the RIMS Canada Conference 2025 and what the audience can expect to learn.

Listen to learn how you can strengthen your resilience through intention, presence, gratitude, and mindset.

Key Takeaways:

[:01] About RIMS and RIMScast.

[:14] The RIMS Canada Conference 2025 will be held from September 14th through the 17th in Calgary. Visit RIMSCanadaConference.ca to register.

[:26] About this episode of RIMScast. Our guest today is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, A House in the Sky, and she will deliver a keynote address at the RIMS Canada Conference 2025 on September 17th. I’m talking about Amanda Lindhout.

[:57] RIMS-CRMP Workshops! The next Virtual RIMS-CRMP exam prep, co-hosted by Parima, will be held on September 2nd and 3rd.

[1:07] The next RIMS-CRMP-FED virtual workshop will be held on November 11th and 12th, and led by Joseph Mayo. Links to these courses can be found on the Certification Page of RIMS.org and through this episode’s show notes.

[1:23] The next RIMS Webinar will be held on September 4th and will be led by AXA XL. It is titled “Lockdown & Level Up: Turn Up Your Cyber Security Game Against Creative Cyber Criminals”. Register at RIMS.org/Webinars.

[1:38] RIMS Virtual Workshops! RIMS has launched a new course, “Intro to ERM for Senior Leaders.” This is a two-day course. The first two-day course will be held on August 12th and 13th and will be led by former RIMS President, Chris Mandel.

[1:56] The course will be held again on November 4th and 5th and will be led by Elise Farnham. RIMS members enjoy deep discounts!

[2:05] The full schedule of virtual workshops can be found on the RIMS.org/education and RIMS.org/education/online-learning pages. A link is also in this episode’s notes.

[2:16] Mark your calendars for November 17th and 18th for the RIMS ERM Conference 2025 in Seattle, Washington. The agenda is jam-packed with educational sessions that will resonate with risk practitioners in all stages of their careers.

[2:37] See the full agenda at RIMS.org/ERM2025. Nominations are open for the RIMS Global ERM Award of Distinction 2025. The nomination deadline is Saturday, August 16th. The award is presented annually at the RIMS ERM Conference. There is a link in this episode’s show notes.

[3:02] If your organization’s ERM program or one you know of deserves this recognition, we want to hear about it. Remember to send in that nomination form by August 16th.

[3:14] RISKWORLD 2026 will be in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 3rd through May 6th. RIMS members can now lock in the 2025 rate for a full conference pass to RISKWORLD 2026 when registering by September 30th.

[3:28] This also lets you enjoy earlier access to the RISKWORLD hotel block. Register by September 30th, and you will also be entered to win a $500 raffle. Don’t miss out on this chance to plan and score some extra perks.

[3:41] The members-only registration link is in this episode’s show notes. If you are not yet a member, this is the time to join us. Visit RIMS.org/membership and build your risk network with us here at RIMS.

[3:55] On with the show! Our guest today is the best-selling author of A House in the Sky. That’s her memoir, which chronicles surviving 460 days in captivity in Somalia.

[4:07] It is an intense read, in which she shares hard-earned wisdom that inspires individuals and organizations to grow through adversity. Her name is Amanda Lindhout, and she has delivered over 500 keynotes in 28 countries.

[4:21] Amanda is a native of Sylvan Lake, in Alberta, Canada, between Edmonton and Calgary. We are delighted that she will be delivering the closing keynote for the RIMS Canada Conference 2025 in Calgary on September 17th. We will discuss resilience and get a preview of her keynote.

[4:44] Interview! Amanda Lindhout, welcome to RIMScast!

[5:02] Seeing that Amanda would be a guest on RIMScast, Justin read A House in the Sky. It’s an intense read. Justin has never read anything like it before. It opened his eyes and took him to different places. Justin thanks Amanda for writing such a strong memoir.

[5:38] It was a challenging memoir to write. It was about a five-year process after Amanda was released from 460 days in captivity. The writing was insular. She wasn’t thinking about the audience who would eventually read the book. It was part of her healing process.

[6:06] Amanda says when you go through anything difficult, it’s imperative to give it a voice by writing about it or talking it through. Being a former journalist, writing about it came naturally to her. She wanted to write about it. She didn’t rush it. She took her time with it.

[6:26] There are some pretty intense chapters. She worked on an intense chapter for a lot of time, taking breaks to process what the writing process was provoking in her. It was cathartic.

[7:04] Amanda says, for maintaining her sense of dignity, while violence is part of the story, it felt important not to be graphic about it, not for her future audience, but for herself and the way she was processing the experience. It was tied to her dignity around what had happened to her.

[7:40] Justin suggests that the threat of violence is already there, and it doesn’t serve Amanda well to go that graphic. She was writing it for herself, not thinking about others, but the time came when it went into the world and was a big success, a New York Times bestseller.

[8:17] It’s one of the top-selling Canadian memoirs ever written. There was not only an audience, but a big audience. That took a lot of adjusting for Amanda. It was a difficult time for her. The success came from a very challenging experience.

[9:04] There was an adjustment period, where people knew about what happened when she was in the dark house, when she had chains on her ankles. She moved through that adjustment period relatively quickly because it brought out an incredible connection with others.

[9:32] Can people who haven’t gone through 460 days in captivity relate to Amanda? The way it was written, people were able to link it back to difficult experiences in their lives. They felt a profound connection to Amanda. That was beautiful to her.

[9:56] As Amanda moves through the world, people read about the most vulnerable days of her life, and they connect to her with care, compassion, and empathy. She is greeted with a lot of hugs. That connection is an important piece of healing for anybody.

[10:16] Amanda has found that connection in droves, in a way that most people won’t, because her story is public. Amanda says it’s almost like people are overcome with this need to make contact with her.

[10:39] Many years ago, when she was struggling with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, if a man came at her with kindness and a desire for connection, that could activate something in her. That never happens to her anymore. She welcomes that sense of connection with people.

[11:03] Amanda has had to move through stages of comfort to get to where she is now. After a Q&A at the end of a keynote, Amanda will say, I welcome all the hugs, and people will line up to do that.

[11:48] Amanda converted to Islam while she was held captive. That was a strategic move and a survival strategy. As a journalist, she had spent a lot of time in the Middle East and had a foundation of understanding of Islam.

[12:17] The teenagers who had abducted them along the side of the road were radicalized. They were not practicing the version of Islam that the vast majority of people around the world are.

[12:32] Amanda recognized that if they did this false conversion, that might work to humanize them to the captors. Justin reads a passage from the book.

[12:47] “We made vows to accept Allah as our only God and Mohammed as his messenger. What I felt in that moment was not surrender, and it wasn’t defiance. This was simply a chess move. An uncertain knight slid two squares ahead and one to the side.” (Justin’s favorite line.)

[13:04] “It was not a betrayal of faith, of mine, or Nigel’s, or theirs. It was a way to feel less foreign, and in feeling less foreign, we could be less afraid. We were doing what it took to survive.” When Justin read that, he realized this was Phase 2 of the book.

[14:02] Amanda notes that there was a lot of strategy in surviving those 460 days. That was one of their moves.

[14:12] In the early days of their captivity, they tried to form connections with their captors by answering questions about life in the West. The captors weren’t allowed to look at images of people or listen to music in their culture.

[15:21] Amanda says it’s a human impulse, in crisis, to build connections with adversaries when it’s about life and death. It’s also Amanda’s nature as a journalist. Her world was about human connection and understanding others, those who had different cultures from hers.

[15:50] Amanda has been to 92 countries. She has always been very interested in the stories of others. The landscape in which those boys grew up was so foreign to us in North America, and the privilege we have, which we don’t even recognize. The youngest captor was 14.

[16:31] The captors had grown up without school and a real value system or role models. They’re radicalized in one of the poorest places on Earth, where people are dying of hunger.

[16:46] Amanda tried to understand how they came to the conclusions they did about Amanda and the other captives. That helped her during her toughest moments when she could hardly fathom how human beings could behave like they did toward Amanda and the others.

[17:06] They behaved like they had no conscience at all. Amanda says those teenagers were the teachers to her about the adage that hurt people hurt people. It doesn’t excuse what they did.

[17:26] When Amanda tried to reconcile how it could have been so bad, it was because they had a life that held death, disease, pain, and war, and that was their starting point. The way they treat others is a reflection of what is inside of them. That was important for Amanda to understand.

[17:50] Toward the end of the book, Amanda describes a sort of out-of-body experience where she could see the trauma the boys lived through. Understanding the root cause doesn’t excuse the behavior.

[18:21 That insight came to Amanda from some of the most difficult days she had in captivity. She almost died. In the deepest part of her being, she knows that hurt people hurt people. That serves her in her life on the other side of captivity.

[18:54] Every day, you see the headlines and ask how the world can be this messed up, and you try to make sense of it. Amanda was fortunate to have that lived experience. Something opened up inside of her where she has a sense of understanding in a way that many people do not.

[19:14] This never excuses the actions of anyone. She just has a profound understanding of how those actions can happen.

[19:43] Justin asks if the massacre on October 7th, 2023, was a triggering event for Amanda. She says Definitely yes. Even seeing hostage-taking in the headlines creates an activation in her. Amanda has had to learn to navigate a world that has a lot of triggers.

[20:17] Amanda was given the diagnosis of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) immediately upon her release from captivity. She has had to learn to navigate a world that is very provocative relative to her CPTSD.

[20:38] Over the years, Amanda has learned to reframe things that are difficult for her. She has habits and a mindset she has chosen that help her. She committed to doing the things that move her toward healing and growth, and doing those things repeatedly, for many years.

[21:16] Amanda is an example of what is possible. She was very active by October 7th, but it didn’t linger. She knew what to do to bring herself back to center, to ground herself, and look around her reality. Even though terrible things happen, she can orient to what is working well.

[21:37] Amanda focuses on what is in her immediate surroundings that feels good, while acknowledging that these difficult feelings are there. She knows that they will lessen. Even a couple of days later, she wasn’t in the grip of October 7th.

[21:57] Every time she feels activated, she turns toward it. She doesn’t try to tuck it away in a back pocket. She gives it her full attention. By doing so, she dissipates the intensity of the trigger's energy. Justin believes everyone can learn from this approach to triggers.

[22:25] Amanda’s story and October 7th are big events that most people can’t wrap their heads around. Yet, almost everyone is going to go through things that are different, that feel unbearable, and so overwhelming. The circumstances are different, but the feeling inside is not so different.

[23:14] The skills and habits we’re talking about today don’t just relate to big headline events. They apply to the hard things we each go through every day and what they provoke in you. Amanda wants people to see themselves in this conversation.

[23:35] That’s the preview of Amanda’s keynote at RIMS Canada. Amanda does a few different talks. She will give her resilience talk for the closing keynote at RIMS Canada. With her life experience, there are lots of things she could talk about.

[23:50] These days, everyone is doing their best to get through these difficult times. What we can learn from each other about resilience matters a lot; almost more in 2025 than it ever has.

[24:07] RIMS Events! On September 18th, the 10th Annual Chicagoland Risk Forum will be held at The Old Post Office in Chicago. Register at ChicagoRIMS.org.

[24:23] On October 1st through the 3rd, the RIMS Western Regional Conference will be held in North San Jose at the Santa Clara Marriott. The agenda is live. It looks fantastic! Visit RIMSWesternRegional.com and register today!

[24:39] On November 17th and 18th, elevate your ERM Program and career at the RIMS ERM Conference 2025 in Seattle, Washington. The agenda is live, and early rates are available until September 5th. Register now to save $110 and secure your spot at the ERM event of the year.

[25:01] Canadian listeners, take note, that’s just a little bit South of the border in British Columbia. That’s a great way to extend your knowledge after the RIMS Canada Conference. Visit RIMS.org/ERM2025 to register.

[25:17] Let’s Return to Our Interview with RIMS Canada Conference Keynote Amanda Lindhout!

[25:26] Understanding what resilience is is the first step in building it and accessing it. To Amanda Lindhout, resilience is an inner strength that helps a person navigate life’s challenges with adaptability. It’s not about navigating with hope and optimism. It’s about adaptability.

[26:27] We live in this ever-changing world. Day by day, what we have to face is different. Adaptability is so important. Amanda thinks that we are all born with resilience as part of our human blueprint, but most of us have not been taught how to utilize this inner resource.

[26:55] Amanda thinks most people don’t know how to access and utilize their resilience. Look at the statistics of poor mental health, burnout, and climbing suicide rates. It’s pretty easy to see that most people don’t feel like they can access their resilience.

[27:16] Amanda sees resilience as inner strength. She compares it to outer strength, your physical strength. You do something again and again, and that builds muscle strength. Resilience is an inner quality, an inner resource. It also needs to be worked on to become strong.

[27:57] While we’re born with the ability to develop resilience, it has to be developed to be a usable skill. It takes focus to develop it. It takes intention. Most people are going to have to work at it a little to have a felt sense of their inner resilience.

[28:27] In Amanda’s experience, resilience is not a passive quality. It requires a choice. You have to choose to create habits that are going to support growing that inner strength.

[28:46] Amanda’s book talks a bit about her difficult childhood in an abusive home. People assume that gave her more resilience, but she says she had less resilience than the average person, going into her experience in Somalia, because of the difficult childhood that she had.

[29:27] Much of how you see the world and can respond to challenges comes from your youngest years. If bad things happen around you and there’s no adult to guide you through it to bounce back, you internalize that difficulty, and it feeds issues like depression and self-defeat.

[30:03] Because of her difficult childhood, Amanda did not have a surplus of resilience, going into Somalia. But, in Somalia, Amanda discovered that, in the intense, life-or-death, trauma environment she was in, resilience was part of her blueprint. She had to learn to access it.

[30:31] Amanda’s first step was choosing to figure out how to access it. What gave her a sense of inner strength? What made her optimistic and hopeful? Amanda is a good example that it can be done, no matter how difficult things are. She searched daily to connect to resilience.

[31:05] Despair was all around her, but there was something else there, too. She learned that two things can be true at the same time. Despair can be there, but she can, at the same time, learn to reach and grow her inner resilience.

[31:33] Justin reads another passage from the book about what happens when you are alone and there are no distractions. In the month after Amanda and Nigel were separated, Amanda felt a new sort of energy. It felt physical and also not physical.

[32:01] It worked for Amanda in a life-or-death situation, in a dark room, with chains on her ankles. Amanda promises that if you just say “yes” to life, no matter what comes, it opens you up to the possibility of connecting to that intrinsic, resilient part of yourself, no matter how faint.

[32:43] Once you touch on it, even for a second, there are habits you can create that are going to strengthen that and make it easier to feel it. The despair may be there in the background, but you’re simultaneously strengthening this other part of yourself that will carry you through.

[33:01] Eventually, the despair will go away. Amanda’s experience in captivity ended. It took a long time, but she came out of it. The resilient part of herself was the loudest part at that point.

[33:17] Final Break! The Spencer Educational Foundation’s goal to help build a talent pipeline of risk management and insurance professionals is achieved, in part, by its collaboration with risk management and insurance educators across the U.S. and Canada.

[33:36] Since 1999, Spencer has awarded over $2.9 million to create more than 570 Risk Management Internships. The Internship Grants application process will open on August 15th, 2025. It will close on October 15th.

[33:56] To be eligible, risk managers must be based in the U.S., Canada, or Bermuda. A link to the Internship Grants page is in this episode’s show notes. You can always visit SpencerEd.org, as well.

[34:10] The Spencer 2025 Funding their Future Gala will be held on Thursday, September 18th, at the Cipriani 42nd Street in Manhattan, New York. This year’s honoree is Tim Ryan, the U.S. President of Lockton, and we look forward to having Tim join us here on RIMScast very soon.

[34:29] A link to the Gala is also in this episode’s show notes. Buy a ticket, enjoy a great night in the city, and support the future of risk management.

[34:37] And Now, Let’s Return to the Conclusion of My Interview with RIMS Canada Conference 2025 Keynote, Amanda Lindhout!

[35:01] Amanda says she is so excited to be invited to connect with RIMS Canada! She has done a lot of keynotes around the world in something like 28 countries, sharing what she has learned. This is genuinely exciting to her. It’s a room she wants to be in.

[35:25] Amanda has a lot to share. Her resilience teachings come down to mastering four sequential pillars. The best time to grow the resilient streak inside of you is in the calm before the storm. Grow these qualities. When the crisis comes, you’ll know how to access this.

[36:18] The first pillar is Intention. Most people don’t think daily about intention. Living an intentional life is so important for your mental health. For Amanda, in Somalia, and afterward, when she was struggling in the depths of PTSD, her intention was about healing.

[37:01] Healing was far off on the horizon, initially, but that intention anchored everything else; all of the other actions she would take throughout the day. Is this decision in line with my intention, or is it not?

[37:34] All day long, do I choose to feed the healthy parts of myself that will reorient me toward health, or do I choose the opposite? Do I choose to doomscroll on my phone and go into the dark pockets of the world, which only confirms my belief that the world is dangerous?

[37:52] Or do I put my phone away and say I’m not going to go on social media today, I’m not feeling good today? I don’t need to dive down that rabbit hole.

[37:58] Instead, my intention to regain my health is going to guide me to consume inspiring podcasts, pick up an uplifting book, and have conversations with the people I can count on to lift me up. That overarching intention is really important.

[38:21] You need to be clear and specific with yourself. What are the words of your intention? If you change your intention, then get clear about what your new intention is. It’s not vague.

[38:36] Then you want to cultivate your sense of Presence in your life. We are so distracted by our devices and screens. We may welcome the distraction to take us out of the moment because we have a very challenging, overwhelming world.

[39:08] If you are not present in your life, you can’t connect to your resilience. You can only connect to that optimism when you are in the present moment, not fearing the future or reliving the difficult past, but in the moment, orienting in your environment to what is working well.

[39:40] In the present moment, choose to look around your life and say, OK, all these difficult things are happening, but there is always something to be grateful for.

[39:54] Gratitude is the next pillar. Train yourself to become a grateful person by challenging yourself every day to look for things to be grateful for. With her husband, at the end of dinner, they both say something they’re grateful for. Amanda started this in the worst times of captivity.

[40:31] Amanda could immediately see the connection between gratitude and resilience. When you look for the good around you, you will begin to see more of it. In a dark room, chains around her ankles, Amanda could always find something to be grateful for. She could hear the birds.

[41:04] You can always find things to be grateful for. It requires training your mind to look for it.

[41:11] The last pillar is Mindset. We don’t have control over a lot of things. But we have complete control over our mindset, how we choose to engage with the world. In your dark days, you feel like everything is out of your control, but you always have control over your mindset.

[41:43] You have control over what you orient to. Even during the worst part of her CPTSD journey, when Amanda was bedridden and homebound from overwhelm, for a couple of years after she returned home, that was when she began to go looking for her health.

[43:05] Amanda had learned from Somalia that two things can be true at the same time. It was true that she had debilitating PTSD, and it was also true that there was still health in parts of her body. What she chooses to give her attention to will grow in influence over her life.

[43:29] That is a choice that she has. She didn’t have control in that moment over how the PTSD lived inside of her, but she had control over her orientation. What is she choosing to focus on, repeatedly?

[43:45] In the dark house in Somalia, she couldn’t take those chains off her ankles and leave, but she could choose to focus on things to be grateful for. This is extraordinary. You train yourself to think like this. People aren’t born navigating challenges with this kind of mindset.

[44:03] When you begin doing it again and again, as a practice, when difficult things come, you may wallow in it a little bit but then at a certain point, you remember, there is still choice: What can I orient to that feels good, that is uplifting, and that is healthy, even if it’s a small thing?

[44:23] Choose to put your attention there. That’s not denying difficult things that are happening, or trying to bypass them. Recognize them as an important part of healing. Two things can be true at the same time. What you give your primary attention to will shape your reality.

[44:50] Amanda’s concluding words, “I feel so privileged to be able to connect with this room of people who are doing really important work. I know the work can come in many different forms, navigating all kinds of crises and risks in the world.”

[45:07] “One final little piece of advice for this room of people: When you’re helping someone go through a time of crisis, the most important thing you can do is to manage yourself; your nervous system.”

[45:47] “That is the most effective way you can bring someone down out of a heightened state of fear and frustration. There can be a frantic quality when things are falling apart for people. The best thing you can do is be in the present moment and stay grounded.”

[46:16] “There’s a co-regulation that happens. Just being in that grounded state will help to de-escalate the situation and bring the other person into coherence. Coming back to your own regulation is always the best thing you can do for another person.”

[46:51] Special thanks again to Amanda Lindhout for joining us here on RIMScast. To learn more about her, visit AmandaLindhout.com and check out her book, A House in the Sky.

[47:02] It is an intense read, but it demonstrates her resilience and why she’s going to be a great keynote for us here at the RIMS Canada Conference 2025. She’ll be closing the RIMS Canada Conference 2025 on September 17th. Check it out and register at RIMSCanadaConference.ca.

[47:22] Plug Time! You can sponsor a RIMScast episode for this, our weekly show, or a dedicated episode. Links to sponsored episodes are in the show notes.

[47:50] RIMScast has a global audience of risk and insurance professionals, legal professionals, students, business leaders, C-Suite executives, and more. Let’s collaborate and help you reach them! Contact pd@rims.org for more information.

[48:08] Become a RIMS member and get access to the tools, thought leadership, and network you need to succeed. Visit RIMS.org/membership or email membershipdept@RIMS.org for more information.

[48:26] Risk Knowledge is the RIMS searchable content library that provides relevant information for today’s risk professionals. Materials include RIMS executive reports, survey findings, contributed articles, industry research, benchmarking data, and more.

[48:42] For the best reporting on the profession of risk management, read Risk Management Magazine at RMMagazine.com. It is written and published by the best minds in risk management.

[48:56] Justin Smulison is the Business Content Manager at RIMS. Please remember to subscribe to RIMScast on your favorite podcasting app. You can email us at Content@RIMS.org.

[49:09] Practice good risk management, stay safe, and thank you again for your continuous support!

Links:

RIMS ERM Conference 2025 — Nov. 17‒18 | RIMS Global ERM Award of Distinction 2025 Nominations Open Through Aug. 16

RIMS Canada 2025 — Sept. 14‒17 | Registration open!

10th Annual Chicagoland Risk Forum — Sept. 18 | Registration open!

RIMS Western Regional — Oct 1‒3 | Bay Area, California | Registration open!

RISKWORLD 2026 — Members-only early registration! Register through Sept 30!

RIMS-Certified Risk Management Professional (RIMS-CRMP)

The Strategic and Enterprise Risk Center

Spencer Educational Foundation 2025 Funding Their Future Gala — Sept. 18, 2025 in NYC!

RIMS ERM Conference 2025 — Nov 17‒18 in Seattle! [Save the Date!]

RIMS-CRO Certificate in Advanced Enterprise Risk Management — Featuring Instructor James Lam! Next bi-weekly course begins Oct 9.