“Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance.”
This line stopped me in my tracks while watching Conclave last night.
In the film, it’s delivered during a powerful speech that explores how rigid certainty—particularly when held tightly in places of power—can crush curiosity, stifle collaboration, and breed division.
And while the setting was a Vatican conclave, the message feels eerily relevant to today’s boardrooms, breakout rooms and business Zooms.
Let’s be honest…
In today’s unpredictable world, there’s a lot we wish we could be certain about.
🌼 Will this restructure actually help?
🌼 Will our clients renew their contracts?
🌼 Will this AI disruption replace our roles—or amplify them?
🌼 Will I even have a job in six months?
When we don’t get those answers fast (or at all), our brains tend to panic. So, we grip onto whatever certainty we can find—our ideas, our processes, our preferences—and hold tight.
Because certainty feels safe.
But here’s the rub.
When we cling to certainty in a world that’s constantly shifting, we start to lose something else: tolerance.
Tolerance for diverse perspectives.
Tolerance for ambiguity.
Tolerance for people who challenge our thinking.
Tolerance for the unexpected curveballs that come with innovation and progress.
And that loss of tolerance doesn’t just make us grumpy colleagues or change-resistant leaders.
It actively chips away at our resilience.
You see, professional resilience isn’t about being tough or stoic or unfazed.
It’s about being adaptable.
Being able to flex, shift, grow, stretch—and sometimes even let go.
It’s about learning how to be steady…
even when everything around us feels unsteady.
And that kind of resilience requires us to loosen our grip on certainty.
In fact, the most resilient professionals I’ve worked with aren’t the ones who always have a plan.
They’re the ones who are OK not having one—because they trust they’ll figure it out when they need to.
They’re not allergic to change.
They’re allergic to stagnation.
They don’t need all the answers in advance.
They’ve built the self-leadership muscle to navigate ambiguity without spiralling into blame, burnout or binary thinking.
And importantly, they extend that same mindset to the people around them.
🌼 They don’t shut down diverse views in meetings—they’re curious about them.
🌼 They don’t see challenge as confrontation—they see it as a spark for better ideas.
🌼 They don’t get rattled by a changing brief—they ask better questions and move forward.
This is what I believe professional resilience really looks like in 2025.
It’s not a buzzword.
It’s not a checklist.
It’s not a morning routine and a standing desk.
It’s an ability to work with people who don’t always agree with you, in a business that’s still figuring things out, with a strategy that might change tomorrow—and still bring your best.
It’s the opposite of control.
It’s inner steadiness in a world that doesn’t offer guarantees.
So, if you’ve been feeling like your tolerance is wearing thin…
If change fatigue is quietly chipping away at your energy…
If you’re tired of pretending to be certain when really, you’re just trying to hold it all together…
That’s not weakness.
That’s a sign that it might be time to reframe what resilience means to you and your team.
Because the more we expect certainty, the more we break when it doesn’t come.
But the more we expect change, challenge and evolution—the more we can thrive, not just survive.
It’s why I developed the Professional Resilience Program—to help people, teams and organisations build the kind of internal agility that today’s business environment demands.
The kind of resilience that’s not about staying the same.
It’s about becoming better at being different.
✨ Curious minds.
✨ Flexible mindsets.
✨ Tolerant, courageous humans.
Because when we’re resilient professionals, we don’t need certainty to move forward.
We just need the courage to keep stepping anyway.
Let’s connect:
If you’re leading a team and wondering how to better equip them for the uncertainty of today (and tomorrow), I’d love to connect.
Professional resilience is teachable, trainable, and transformational—when it’s done right.
Reach out and let’s have a conversation over a virtual coffee ☕
Let’s build a workforce that bends without breaking.
