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#94 - Resilient Urban Design: Rethinking Architecture for People & Planet
How we build shapes the resilience of our societies — and the future of our planet. In Grey Hour: Time for a New Architecture, Filip Springer explores how architecture must evolve beyond profit-driven design toward sustainable, community-centered spaces. From 15-minute cities to adaptive reuse, we must build less, rethink comfort, and align interests for a more resilient, livable future.
Pawel Pietruszewski
3 days ago4 min read


#93 - The Next Thirty Years
After 30 years in finance, I began to ask: what comes next? In a world where life expectancy and change are both accelerating, the idea of a 40-year career feels outdated. “The Next Thirty Years” is my personal journey of reinvention—from finance to academia, from expertise to curiosity. This post explores how shifting paths, building resilience, and staying connected can reignite purpose at any stage of life.
Pawel Pietruszewski
Sep 33 min read


#92 - Bricolage of Life: Creating Possibilities From Limits
Ben Underwood lost his sight at age three—but learned to "see" through echolocation. His story, along with that of bird-sound expert Izabela Dłużyk, shows how much we can achieve when we focus on what we have, not what we lack. This post explores resilience, resourcefulness, and the balance between personal agency and external influence.
Pawel Pietruszewski
Aug 273 min read


#91 - Resilience as a Superpower: History’s Darkest Irony
Africans' biological resilience to disease, once a strength, became a tool of exploitation during the transatlantic slave trade. Immunity marked them as “suitable” for forced labor. This dark irony reveals a deeper truth: individual strength is powerless against systemic power. History shows it’s not personal grit but collective action that endures. Perhaps we should stop striving to be superhuman and start striving to be super connected.
Pawel Pietruszewski
Aug 203 min read


#89 - Are We More Humane Than Our 15th Century Ancestors?
The modern narrative is very optimistic and full of pride: we are progressing, becoming more empathetic, more just. Empathy has become a moral buzzword, a marker of our supposed advancement. But what if this progress is more illusion than reality? What if we’ve simply mastered the art of hiding the truth?
Pawel Pietruszewski
Aug 63 min read


#88 - How Resilient Are You? Test Yourself and Grow!
This post will be different than usual. The Resilience Center run by Dr. Gail Wagnild - an expert on individual resilience, offers the resilience assessments tools. I want to invite to take two fun tests available on their website and see how much we learnt together about resilience and what new insights we can get from the Resilience Center.
Pawel Pietruszewski
Jul 94 min read


#86 - Does a Resilient Society Need Resilient Organisations?
Does a resilient organization need resilient employees?
This assumption is rarely questioned. In a recent post, I shared findings on building a resilient salesforce through psychological safety. But the same question extends beyond the workplace: Does a resilient society require resilient organizations?
Pawel Pietruszewski
Jun 254 min read


#83 - Can a Divided Nation Be Led by a Strong President?
economic divides.
Karol Nawrocki won with less than 51% of the vote—drawing support mainly from rural communities, lower-income voters, and those without university degrees.
Pawel Pietruszewski
Jun 43 min read


#82 - The Dance of Change: Why Flexibility Beats Perfection
We look for easy solutions for complex problems. There is too much complexity out there and finding ways to make it simpler is a natural need. It can lead us however astray.
Pawel Pietruszewski
May 283 min read


#81 - Blowing Up the Budget: Why Real Learning Starts With Unlearning
What if the problem isn’t that you're doing things wrong—or even doing the wrong things—but that you’re asking the wrong questions entirely?
Pawel Pietruszewski
May 214 min read


#80 - Let's have some resilient fun: The Story of The Two Bags
"Every man carries Two Bags about with him, one in front and one behind, and both are packed full of faults. The Bag in front contains his neighbours’ faults, the one behind his own. Hence it is that men do not see their own faults, but never fail to see those of others.
Pawel Pietruszewski
May 143 min read


#79 - From Plate to Planet: A Diet That Makes a Difference!
As the planet struggles to keep pace with our appetites, the true cost of our food choices is becoming impossible to ignore! Agriculture...
Pawel Pietruszewski
May 74 min read


#78 - The Resilient Creator - Creative Redundancy with Generative AI
In resilient systems, redundancy isn't waste—it's an opportunity for wisdom. It’s the buffer that absorbs shocks, the backup that keeps things moving, and the diversity that helps ideas evolve. Generative AI is a powerful tool for building this kind of creative safety net.
Pawel Pietruszewski
Apr 304 min read


#77 - Can AI Improve Resilience?
Time flies fast. I recently read a comment that we’re already one-third into 2025—and it hit me. This post idea has been sitting in my...
Pawel Pietruszewski
Apr 233 min read


#76 - Resilience in Flight - Another Tree, Another Lesson
In paragliding, your eyes and brain must be locked on your landing field. If your attention drifts to a tree, a fence, or a road… that’s where you’ll likely end up.
That applies to other areas of life as well - when we have a purpose—when we focus on where we want to go—things start to align. Not perfectly. But directionally. And that’s what resilience is all about.
Pawel Pietruszewski
Apr 162 min read


#75 - Resilience, Stoicism, and the Power of Symbiotic Partnerships
A friend wrote to me after reading a post about Marcus Aurelius : If only it was so easy to follow these principles. I find too often...
Pawel Pietruszewski
Apr 93 min read


#74 - How is Wealth Inequality Impacting Societies
Addressing inequality is not just a matter of fairness but also resilience—societies with greater equality are often better equipped to...
Pawel Pietruszewski
Apr 25 min read


#73 - Mental Toughness and Resilience
Are the Terms Interchangeable? When the pressure’s on, do you grit your teeth and push through—or take a breath, pivot, and find a new...
Pawel Pietruszewski
Mar 265 min read


#72 - What Makes a Good Career?
If you work 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year, for 40 years, your career will last approximately 80,000 hours.
Pawel Pietruszewski
Mar 194 min read


#70 - Stoicism and the Art of Resilience: Lessons from Marcus Aurelius
I like to read Meditations of Marcus Aurelius from time to time and I wish it would become a regular, maybe an annual habit. Each reading...
Pawel Pietruszewski
Mar 74 min read
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