3 Ways Cubans Can Teach Us Resilience
Resolver [simply defined as: to solve] is Cubans’ super power…and their way of life.
Cubans are masters of the work around, champion problem-solvers, and tireless innovators. Reduce, reuse, and recycle has been the Cuban method well before it became a mantra here in the US. And so, when it comes to resilience they can school almost anyone on the planet.
Yet all this resilience know-how hasn’t come easy for Cubans. With the state as their main supplier of just about everything and the almost 60-year US embargo, they’ve had to deal with a scarcity of goods for decades.
Despite all the challenges, what they pull off is incredible! And their approach can give us a regiment for our own resilience training.
Here are three ways Cubans can teach us about being resilient:
- Don’t let scarcity stop you. Make it stretch you.
Do you remember 2008? The Housing Crisis hits and the Great Recession threatens to take our economy down. Well, in the 1990s, Cubans actually had a full-on economic collapse. In a flash they lost about 80% of their exports and imports. Suddenly soap, meat, fuel — and almost anything else you can think of –were in short supply.
The Cuban government declared this time The Special Period. And this intense time of scarcity pushed Cubans towards greater and greater innovation.
Here’s how renowned Cuban restaurateur, Sasha Ramos, describes it: “Cuba became an island of 11 million Robinson Crusoes, 11 million shipwrecked souls who had to survive, adjust, repair, create with what they had.”
Suddenly Cubans had to learn how to make shampoo and soap from scratch. They turned back to herbs to deal with certain medical issues. And if something broke they took their cue from their famous mechanics; they learned to jury-rig almost anything. In the process they became inventors — creating new machines on the farm, new tools in the workshop and even new dishes in the kitchen.
Cubans show us that when convenience and consumerism aren’t an option, greater creativity can prevail…if we let it.
2. Learn this powerful combination: determination + creativity.
Entrepreneurs in the US are encouraged to try something and if it doesn’t work to “pivot” and keep adapting until it does. This lean startup approach took hold in Cuba well before it was coined so in the States.
Professor Eduard Freye tells how one of his neighbors in Havana wanted to sell pizza before it became legal to have a private restaurant.
“There was a woman in my neighborhood who was fined for selling pizza on the street. So she started selling pizza at her house and she was also fined. So she would make pizzas and take them to peoples’ houses and she was also fined for that. So finally, she would go to people’s homes and make the pizzas there. She found all of the solutions.”
When Cubans decide quitting is not an option, it’s amazing what workaround they discover. And this determination and discovery can be true for us too.
3. And here’s the secret weapon: community. Don’t go at it alone.
Every time we talk with Cuban cuentapropistas (entrepreneurs) we never hear these declarations: “I’m a self-made man.” Or, “All you have to do is pull yourself up by your bootstraps.”
Instead, we hear about Cubans coming together — especially in the toughest times.
Casa Particular (bed and breakfast) owner, Ulysses Levin, says in the worst of economic times they threw parties. Here’s what he said about The Special Period:
“We had fun, we worked a lot, we kept getting together, having dinners with family and friends, which we amusingly called “socialist dinners” because everyone brought something. One would bring rice, one would bring rum, the main dish, the salad, and always music and dance, we would discuss, talk about things, about how we would improve. That’s how it was done.”
Cubans show us that community isn’t just a survival skill; it’s a joy-making way of life.
The reality is resilience training tends to suck in the moment. But the good news is if you stick with it, you’ll go further than you ever thought possible.
And if you approach it like so many Cubans do, you may find even yourself having fun!
