Resilience: What It Really Means & The “Ordinary Magic” It Takes to Build It w/ Professor Ann Masten

Raising Good Humans

Voicing Change Media

Education, Kids & Family, Parenting

4.7 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2026

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In today's episode I sit down with professor Ann Masten to unpack what resilience actually means—and why it’s so often misunderstood. We explore her powerful definition of resilience as the capacity of a system to adapt to serious challenges, not just a personality trait or inner toughness. From everyday stress to real adversity, we discuss the difference between harmful trauma and growth-building challenges, and why kids need support—not perfection—to thrive. We talk about the “ordinary magic” of caring relationships, schools, communities, and cultural traditions, and why resilience is built through connection across multiple systems. I WROTE MY FIRST BOOK! Order your copy of The Five Principles of Parenting: Your Essential Guide to Raising Good Humans Here: https://bit.ly/3rMLMsL Subscribe to my free newsletter for parenting tips delivered straight to your inbox: https://dralizapressman.substack.com/ Follow me on Instagram for more: @raisinggoodhumanspodcast Sponsors: BetterHelp: Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com/humans Wayfair: Head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home Jones Road Beauty: Use code HUMANS at jonesroadbeauty.com to get a Free Shimmer Face Oil with your first purchase! #JonesRoadBeauty #ad Fast Growing Trees:An ADDITIONAL TWENTY PERCENT OFF better plants and better growing at FastGrowingTrees.com using the code HUMANS at checkout Experian: Get started with the Experian App now! Bloom: Go to bloomnu.com with code HUMANS for 20% off your first order Produced by Dear Media See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The following podcast is a Dear Media production.
0:09.8	Welcome to Raising Good Humans podcast.
0:12.4	I'm Dr. Lisa Pressman, and today we are talking about resilience.
0:17.7	But the cool thing is that I got Professor Anne Maston to come on the podcast. You might not
0:26.2	know her because she's very deep in academia, but she is the most exquisite pioneering
0:36.0	researcher on resilience.
0:38.8	And she has truly advanced the theory on positive outcomes for children and families.
0:44.6	And she has every award you can possibly imagine.
0:48.0	She's written gazillions of peer-reviewed articles.
0:52.0	And she recently did a second edition of her extraordinary book, Ordinary Magic,
0:58.1	resilience and development.
1:00.4	And I cannot tell you what a contribution she's made to this field.
1:04.8	In her book, Ordinary Magic, she kind of updates the research with key advances in theory and methods and research.
1:13.1	And it is a landmark work.
1:15.9	It was such a great honor to have Anne Maston.
1:18.8	I wish I could tell you how major she is in this field.
1:24.0	I'm like, she's kind of the Meryl Streep of resilience.
1:27.1	How about that?
1:28.1	So have a listen and have a wonderful day.
1:32.6	I would love for you to define resilience and how you came to this definition, because it's the definition that I use, and I think it's the definition in this field.
1:43.8	But it's not necessarily the definition that the wider world necessarily means when they say it,
1:53.7	if that makes sense.
	...

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