Meet Lina Taylor

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lina Taylor. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lina below.

Lina, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

Growing up in communist Bulgaria, we didn’t have a lot of material things and very few, if any, opportunities to create a better life – what you got to do and who you got to be seemed to be determined by outside circumstances, not within my control. Instinctively, I knew this was wrong and although as a child I couldn’t change my outside world much, I focused my energy on my inner world. I nurtured my dreams and protected them, so that outside people couldn’t destroy them with their ridicule. Little by little, I started to extend this inner world full of hope and optimism into my outside reality – I started playing volleyball and dreamt of playing in the Olympics, traveling abroad, even daring to dream of going to an American University (at that time, this was unheard of in Bulgaria). After many years of hard work and sacrifices, I finally made it to the top level of my club team – now the National team coaches could see me and potentially select me to be on the National Team. I felt on top of the world, everything that I had always wanted was right there in front of me. But half way into the volleyball season, we got a new coach. She had different ideas of who she wanted to have on the team, and just like that – she scratched my name off the list and told our captain to give me the news that I was cut. You can imagine the devastation I felt – all of my dreams were gone in an instant. I remember going home that night, incapable of telling my parents what happened, I just went to my room and started crying, and crying, and crying. Through the tears I remember asking myself the questions: Why does this hurt so much? Why do I feel like my world is over? I didn’t have the answers right away but when I woke up in the morning, I had realized that the most important thing for me in the whole world was being on that team because everything I wanted depended on it. This simple realization is where I found the courage to make a decision.

I decided that I would go back to my team and face the coach, and face the very possible humiliation that she would now kick me out in front of everybody. But you see, I was ready to face humiliation rather than give up on my dream. So I went back…

My teammates stared at me in disbelief, they all knew I had gotten cut and kept whispering to me: Why are you here? Why are you getting humiliated? I didn’t say anything, I just took my spot in the lineup. When the coach came, she started walking in front of the lineup, from player to player, until she stood in front of me and stopped. She looked at me and I think she saw the resolve I had in my eyes. I wasn’t challenging her, I was very scared, but I was resolved to do anything, even take humiliation. She kept walking without saying a word, and I took that as a second chance – maybe she was giving me a second chance, just because I chose to show up! I realized that I would have to quadruple my efforts, I had to be willing to work many times harder, just to keep my spot on the team. Showing up with every day and working as hard as I possibly could, I started getting better and better. Eventually, I became a starter on the team and the coach started counting on me to perform in the toughest situations. I knew I could dig deeper and deeper inside myself to find courage in those times. My teammates started doing it too, and we became the National Champions. I learned through that experience, that if something is really important to me, I would do anything to make it happen!

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

From my life, I realized that opportunities may not always be given to me, so if I wanted something, I would have to create it. Today, I apply the lessons I learned from playing sports at the elite level and also being a scientist, to help leaders and teams build resilience in the face of challenges and succeed against the odds. I’ve worked with over 200 global companies and I’m particularly inspired when I see young people nurturing their dreams and developing the skill of agency to make them happen. I also care very deeply about our planet and I focus a lot of my energy and resources on accelerating sustainability efforts.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Find out what’s most important to you and why. Make sure that you are fulfilling your dream and not someone else’s. Knowing yourself, your strengths, and your shortcomings – and being willing to work on those and provide value – will open doors for you. Think about: How can I provide value? And not just: how can I get this and that. Use small, daily situations to practice this skill – and little by little, your whole world will unfold in ways you didn’t even imagine possible. But it doesn’t come all at once, be willing to work and celebrate the small wins.

Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?

My parents told me early on: “There’s no ‘I can’t’ – never use that phrase.” They gave me lots of responsibilities and trusted me to figure it out. This helped me build trust in my own abilities.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linataylor.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/linataylorint
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/linataylorint/