The power of resilience – Jake Bailey
by Metropol | November 12, 2025 8:33 am
At age 18, Jake Bailey was told he could be dead within two weeks from the fastest-growing cancer known to man. Days later, he delivered his end-of-year speech at Christchurch Boys’ High School. The video went viral. Today, at the 10-year anniversary of that watershed experience, he talks to Metropol deputy editor Tamara Pitelen about cancer, happiness, and the power of resilience.
“None of us get out of life alive, so be gallant, be great, be gracious, be grateful for the opportunities you have.”
So said Christchurch Boys’ High School head boy of 2015, Jake Bailey, in his end-of-year speech to classmates. After that speech, he went back to the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit (BMTU) at Christchurch Hospital and spent 52 days straight in an isolation room, to undergo chemotherapy treatment. That room was entirely sealed off from the world using an airlock and filtered air system.
At just 18 years old, and a couple of days before that head boy speech, Jake had been diagnosed with stage four Burkitt non-Hodgkin lymphoma. A fiercely aggressive cancer, doctors said that, without treatment, he would be dead within weeks. Jake was determined, though, to finish the year on his own terms.
“I felt that I owed it to myself, and I owed it to the school to finish the year as strong as I’d tried to start,” he says, now, on the 10th anniversary of that life-changing period.
What Jake didn’t know was that the school had filmed the prizegiving so he could watch it from his hospital bed if he wasn’t able to attend. But the internet had other ideas. “It exploded over the subsequent couple of days,” he says. It unlocked a huge amount of community support for which Jake feels incredibly grateful. “There was a genuine sort of interest and care in terms of what I was going through, and an extraordinary outpouring of community support, which was really palpable and incredibly powerful. And that persisted throughout my treatment.”
He became known as “that speech guy,” which came with a strange mix of national affection, media attention, and expectations he hadn’t asked for. “That was probably the biggest change after that video,” he says. “It was an indescribably unusual time overall, but that community support was so powerful.”
Speak easy
After being told he was in remission in January 2016, and on the back of his viral video, Jake was offered the opportunity to speak at a range of events for different organisations – Lions and Rotary clubs, schools, sports clubs, corporates, and sports teams. He also had a book published the following year, What Cancer Taught Me, which led to more speaking engagements. He didn’t set out to become a professional speaker, it just happened. “I took those opportunities and basically fell into public speaking. Things organically grew, and I ended up doing that for four years.”
Over the next few years, he gave hundreds of presentations across New Zealand and overseas. Initially, they were mostly about his cancer journey and what it taught him – things like resilience, perspective, and, as he puts it, “how not to sweat the small stuff.”
He avoids the term ‘motivational speaker’ like the plague.
“I stay as far away from that term as I possibly can,” he laughs. “You say ‘motivational speaker’ and people think of Tony Robbins jumping around on a stage. It’s not really me.
“I came to see that my life after the cancer was a lot better than it had been beforehand, solely because of going through that experience. I was a happier, more grateful person,” he reflects. ‘It gave me a level of insight into myself and the world that I think otherwise would’ve taken me decades to develop – if at all.”
However, he’s the first to state that cancer isn’t a gift. “I wouldn’t recommend it,” he deadpans, but he does believe the experience forced him to grow. “It’s not just about surviving,” he says. “It’s about taking those hard things and working out how they shape you.”
Beyond the ‘cancer kid’ story
Eventually, though, Jake began to feel boxed in by the cancer narrative. “I realised that the work had a finite lifespan,” he says. So he pivoted. He studied positive psychology, interviewed high performers, and started talking more broadly about resilience – in the workplace, in education, and in life.
“I’ve had the privilege of working with over 100,000 people around the world, from an incredibly wide range of different backgrounds and countries and cultures and walks of life,” he says. “I’ve met a range of interesting, amazing people who have been through great challenges and overcome great adversity, and my focus became what makes people good at getting through challenges in life – evidence and research-based tools, skills and strategies for resilience.”
Adversity, he says, is inevitable. Rough things will happen to every one of us. How we deal with adversity is key to our happiness. That’s something he learnt from his experience with cancer.
“It forced me to develop resilience, and I’d taken those skills and tools and strategies, which I’ve learned from going through the cancer, and then applied them to everything from the car breaking down or having a fall-out with someone, or not making a sports team that I’ve trialled for at school, or whatever it may be, and it just gave me the capacity to handle those challenges and pressures, which previously I had not done all that well at overcoming.”
The magic of resilience
Earlier this year, Jake released his second book The Comeback Code. It’s intended as a resilience guide for young adults – though he points out that it’s not just for teens. “My favourite review was, ‘I’m three times the age of the author and still came away from this book having learned some things.’”
The book took four years from concept to publication, involved a publisher switch, and required a hefty rewrite. “It’s the book I wish I’d had growing up in New Zealand,” he says. “It’s evidence-based, it’s lived experience, it’s practical stuff.”
He hopes it’s useful not just to those facing major adversity, but to anyone dealing with the ups and downs of daily life.
After nearly a decade of speaking, Jake is stepping into a new chapter of life and a new role as General Manager of the Inspire Foundation, a Christchurch-based charity that identifies and invests in extraordinarily talented young people. “I’ve done 10 years of this work and I’m 28. I’m slightly restless and ready for a new challenge, and the work with Inspire is incredibly impactful and rewarding,” he says. “I think it’s the next mountain to climb.”
Jake Bailey’s tips for developing resilience
In his book The Comeback Code, Jake writes that there are two major things he has learnt from studying positive psychology. Namely, that resilience is the most critical factor for living a happy and successful life; and resilience can be learnt and strengthened. He teaches the Four S model, four things proven to help people get through tough times.
- Slow down: “Don’t fall into the trap of facing adversity as one big challenge and becoming overwhelmed by it. Instead, break the challenge into manageable chunks.”
- Salvage: “Deliberately seek out the good within the bad, no matter how creative you have to be.”
- Streamline: “Try to minimise and contain the everyday fears and anxieties that we all have.”
- Stand alongside: “Maximise the impact of community and support on your ability to outlast and survive adversity.”
WIN A COPY OF THE COMEBACK CODE BY JAKE BAILEY
We have three copies of Jake’s book The Come Back Code: The Power of Resilience When the Going Gets Tough to give away.
To enter, send an email with ‘Comeback Code’ in the subject field to deputy.editor@metros.co.nz. Include your contact number. Entries close 1 December 2025 and winners will be contacted the same day.
Source URL: https://metropol.co.nz/the-power-of-resilience-jake-bailey/