Sometimes just seeing resilience can change out mindset and unlock our own resilience. That’s our hope with the Portraits of Resilience series – we hope the stories below will inspire you to tap into your own resilience.
Zemorah Yisrael
My resilience comes from knowing that my purpose is much bigger than myself. I have a strong inner guide that pushes me to keep going when times are tough. I know that everything I accomplish will help future generations, both within and outside of my family. I take pride in being an inspiration to others, especially after observing adults when I was a child. Read More>>
Tatiana Scott
My passion fuels my resilience! Whenever I want to give up, my love for whatever I want to do will bring me back. Read More>>
Teniecka Drake
When I think of all the challenges I have past through in my life. Those are the moments and the turning points that added to becoming resilient. My resilience came from people that did not think I had value. It came from family members that did not care about me. It came from being a Survivor and thriver of Domestic Violence. Read More>>
Lenora Southerland
Jesus Christ is my lord and savior. He has brought me out of he darkness and into the light Read More>>
Cassandra Manning
Truthfully, it’s a mix of a hard start to life, a lot of healing, and a stubborn refusal to quit. Read More>>
Alena Kim
Honestly, that’s probably one of the hardest questions for me. It’s a deeply philosophical one. I think I’d describe it through hedonism — through the fact that I genuinely love life and the act of living. I find joy in seeing happy people at my projects, eating delicious food, and constantly discovering new things around me. Read More>>
Chen Lizra
When I was 11, my mother became mentally ill. My parents were divorced, and I was living with her and my brother at the time. In what felt like an instant, I lost my sense of safety—my home, my comfort, my grounding. The world as I knew it shattered. Read More>>
Michael D. Whitney
In a life marked by unimaginable loss, where tragedy struck in the form of losing my mother and three siblings to murder, I found myself staring into an abyss of grief, resentment, and unanswered questions. The pain could have been my anchor, but instead, it became the crucible in which my resilience was forged. Read More>>
Victoria Pouncy
My resilience comes from being a black woman in America. There are opportunities that I had to sift through to be the person I am today. Not just going through this place we call home, multiple people have told me no, ignored me, and also raised their voices at me. I took all those interactions, remembered those people, and made my own opportunities. Read More>>
brian kiley
my mother was an orphan and my dad was a world war II veteran and I think some of their resilence rubbed off on me Read More>>
Elise Lee
I think my resilience comes from my faith and my love for being in the moment. Prayer and trusting in the Lord help me stay grounded and approach life with optimism. I also draw energy from working at live events—I’m surrounded by beautiful spaces, decorations, and people, and I love watching and interacting with them as I work. Read More>>
Courtnee Ricole
I get my resilience from my Black Queen. My mother did an awesome job as a single parent raising my brother and I. Read More>>
Odilia Chavez
I feel like I get my resilience from my mother. No matter what happens, don’t give up, just keep going. Read More>>
Fotine Sotiropoulos
I wish I could say I found resilience by choice, but really, it found me, in all the moments I had to figure things out as I went. Motherhood changed everything. It stripped away the version of myself that always had a plan, that prided herself on control. Read More>>
Dana Grant
My resilience comes from facing life head-on and refusing to let circumstances define me. Years of high-stakes work as a record-breaking lobbyist, combined with my personal journey of transformation, taught me that strength isn’t about never falling: it’s about getting up, learning, and rising stronger each time. I also draw resilience from my spiritual alignment and connection to universal principles. Read More>>
Amanda DeVito
To me, resilience and authenticity are inseparable. I’ve always considered my resilience as being what allows me to fully show up as my most authentic self, whether in my personal life or in business. I think my resilience comes from two different places: the people who ground me, and the perspective I’ve built throughout my life and career. Read More>>
Christine Stump
Discipline Redefined: The Meaning and Magic of Daily Ritual My personal yoga practice is where breath, soil, ritual, and quiet converge — a living rhythm shaped by my mother’s wisdom, nature, and by decades of turning inward before turning outward. It’s the wellspring of my resilience, the pulse that steadies me through every pivot, loss, and reinvention. Read More>>
Zakia Rani
My resilience was built during the times when I had to keep going even though no one saw the struggle. It was those in-between seasons where I had to keep pushing, but nothing made sense. It didn’t come from never breaking, it came from learning how to be flexible without losing myself. Read More>>
Racquel Domonique
I have to say that I get my resilience from my mother. As a mother of nine, she ran multiple businesses, worked full-time, and still managed our home with disipline, love and structure. Watching her while growing up, taught me the meaning of strength and perseverance. Read More>>
Dylan Luna
That’s a deep question. I believe my resilience comes from three things — my ancestry, my experiences, and my attitude. First, ancestry. I come from a lineage of survivors — people who sacrificed, endured, and shaped their own resilience so I could be here today. Just as trauma can be passed down through generations, so can strength. I carry that with me every day. Read More>>
Sameh Emghaoech
I developed my resilience at a fairly young age. When I was a kid, I used to hold on to the negative, whether it was a personal failure, a loss of friendship, or a traumatic event, and that stunted my growth and held me back. As I grew older, my understanding of life began to develop and take shape. Read More>>
Jesula Saintus, MPA
When people ask me where my resilience comes from, I smile — because it’s not something I picked up overnight. It’s been shaped by my journey, my culture, my faith, and the women who came before me. Read More>>
Kendell ‘Mr. OVERECOMER’ Myers
My resilience wasn’t something I was born with — it was something life forced me to build. Growing up, I struggled to read until I was about 12 years old. While other kids breezed through books, I wrestled with words that didn’t seem to make sense. Read More>>
Kayla Perlstein
When I think about where my resilience comes from, the most honest answer is failure. Not the Instagram-pretty kind, but the uncomfortable, ego-checking, try-again-tomorrow kind. I was told “no” more times than I can count before I ever heard “yes.” And in my world, social media and entrepreneurship, failure isn’t an occasional detour, it’s part of the job. Every new idea is a risk. Read More>>
David Volpe
I believe gratitude is the cornerstone for resilience. It could always be worse. Could’ve been born to some village in the jungle without grocery stores or clean drinking water, so it minimizes my ability to feel sorry for myself. Could’ve been one of those babies left on the firehouse doorsteps, but I wasn’t. Read More>>
Adam Martin
Growing up in the 219 area, I’d say it comes from purpose and pattern — the ability to keep learning, adapting, and turning pressure into precision. In people, it’s often a mix of experience, perspective, and reason. • Experience: The things you’ve survived teach you you can survive. I lost many close friends growing up due to violence, suicide, drugs, and mass incarceration. Read More>>
brad kenny
My Story I am severely dyslexic. I’ve always loved to draw and paint, but growing up I was often told by specialists that my future wouldn’t amount to much — that I’d never go beyond stacking shelves. At college, I knew I wanted to go to university to develop my skills as an artist and discover who I could become. Read More>>
Madison Kline
I’ve built my resilience through the support of the people around me and the challenges I’ve faced over the years. I’ve experienced some significant personal losses — from losing loved ones and close friends to saying goodbye to pets that meant a lot to me. These experiences were difficult, but they taught me how to stay grounded, adapt, and keep moving forward. Read More>>
Bill Rambo
I feel like I got my resilience from my wife. I did not grow up with love or support. So to find a partner m, that showed me what resilience looks like taught me how to persevere. Read More>>
Linda Middlesworth
Thirty eight years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer, severe heart disease, had 55 lbs. too much weight, had high blood pressure and pre diabetes. I was on death’s door and thought I would be dead within months. I could not figure out why I was so unhealthy. Read More>>
Sara Langnas
I think my resilience might be partly genetic — my grandparents were immigrants who built a life from the ground up, and that determination definitely runs in the family. Moving to a new city on my own also pushed me to grow; when you’re far from home, you don’t really have a choice but to build resilience. Read More>>
Aira Beth Escala
I was born and raised for the first 12 years of my life in the Philippines. Read More>>
Chris Mari
At least for myself, resilience comes from two things, faith and confidence. Faith in terms of everything that is happening to me at any moment in life (good or bad) is for a certain reason, and having confidence in the fact that it’s always going to work out in some form or another. Read More>>
Thomas Silvera
When people ask me where I get my resilience from, I always pause for a moment because it’s not something I planned or ever wanted to have to find. My strength comes from one of the most painful experiences of my life: losing my son, Elijah Alavi. In 2017, Elijah was just three years old. Read More>>
Angela Landeros
My resilience is rooted in purpose-helping others has been the greatest reminder of my own strength. The Roots of My Resilience Resilience isn’t something you wake up one day and decide to have. For me, it was planted early — in the soil of hard work, family, and the quiet determination I witnessed as a child. Read More>>
Sasha Cohen
My resilience came from many things, from the wonderful moments that filled my life with love and purpose and from the hard times that tested me in ways I never expected. It began with my amazing family, especially my mom and dad, who worked tirelessly to show my sister and me what it means to follow your dreams while also always giving back to others. Read More>>
Kera Sanchez
I draw my resilience from one of the hardest moments of my life. I was in the NICU with my five-day-old daughter when I received a phone call that my mom had suddenly and unexpectedly passed away while on vacation in Italy. Read More>>
Allan Horton
My sense of resilience comes from an ability to adapt to constant change through consistent training and a desire for continual improvement. For the better part of my twenty plus year career as an architect, manager, and practice leader at leading firms in New York City, I’ve witnessed colossal changes within the global AEC community. Read More>>
Tamara Turkai
If my last story was about reinvention, this one is about becoming. A year ago, I thought resilience meant pushing through—the ability to outlast the storm and rebuild what was lost. But this past year taught me something deeper: resilience isn’t just about endurance. It’s about evolution. It’s about grace. And it’s about learning to trust God’s plan even when the path isn’t clear. Read More>>
Pamela Stewart
I was the eldest daughter of German immigrant parents, and grew up primarily in Charlotte North Carolina in the 60s and 70s before moving West. In thinking about the mindset of residents, I would say there was a lot of bigotry and racism, and there was period of time when my family was targeted by bullies in the neighborhood. Read More>>
Marni Luftspring
Well, I can’t tell you that I was the best student growing up. Is . Many people told me because I didn’t have the best grades I wouldn’t go too far so I think my resilience comes from people telling me I couldn’t do it so I had to prove them wrong. Read More>>
Tricia Poulos Leonard
I have read every book I could find about creativity and art marketing. I learned a great deal and began following the authors’ suggestions. The result was that I became a proficient, selling artist. I still follow the path that was laid out in the books I read. Read More>>
Marni Luftspring
I think my resilience comes from being told, as a young adult, that I wouldn’t go far without good grades. I wasn’t the strongest student, and hearing that over and over lit a fire in me — I wanted to prove people wrong. I believed that success wasn’t just about being an “A” student; it was about creativity, personality, and passion. Read More>>
Elizabeth Schuster
I see resilience through two different lenses. Much of my work is about the sustainability of our ecosystems. We rely on those ecosystems to provide us clean drinking water, clean air, places to hike and enjoy nature, and to help regulate temperatures. There is a whole body of literature talking about the importance of ecological resilience – and how this impacts communities. Read More>>
Jeremy Opher
My resilience really comes from one question I ask myself: What’s my purpose? For me, my purpose starts with me — being the head of my family and the one leading our legacy. I want my last name to carry weight, to mean something, and to be passed down to my kids with pride. Lately, I’ve been focused on two things: legacy and peace. Read More>>
Tiffanie Willis Archie
It was in the early morning hours, and instantly you feel like the world is knocking at your door with a thunderous pound. Then a crash and fall, that was a ‘certain sound’ I never desired to hear. But now, how to respond was incomprehensible in the moment and all I could do was react all my emergency response training was immediately before me, releasing the line from the dispatch call 911, and then the ambulance came and took him away. Read More>>
Lauren Soto – MSAN, CNC
My resilience has been built through the many challenges I faced, which have shaped me into the person I am today. I was always what you would call “big-boned”… I was the kid that had the extra baby fat, and boy did people notice just as much as I did. I struggled heavily with bullying through my tween years, some of which was directly related to my weight and appearance. Read More>>
Shala Hughes
My resilience comes from setting achievable goals, and staying focused on my overall vision. Setting goals for myself helps me to lock in and focus on what I truly want and desire. It’s easy for me to stay dedicated to anything when I know that if I keep at it, I have the power to bring it in to fruition. Challenges are bound to come but pushing through the challenges makes achieving my goals feel so much more worth it. Read More>>
Paradise Paris
My upbringing! There really was no one coming to save you & all we had was family. You have to have faith. If you don’t believe in God & trust the process you’ll never be able to see progress in life. The thing about it is everything bad is just temporary. As long as you keep living it has to end.Read More>>
Matt (Brayden) Wolf
My resilience came from my lord and savior Jesus Christ mainly, secondly from trial and error in life. It tends to teach you how to stay consistent and push past excepting defeat! Read More>>
Karen Malpede
From Nature. Nature is under terrific attack from human life. We on the verge of destroying the very planet that nurtures us. But nature endures. Nature continues; we know this because we
continue, too. Nature provides sustenance. Take a walk in the woods. If you live in a city as I do, take a walk in a park. Hug a tree, feel its pulse. Read More>>
Stephen Vosa
I was born in 1950, by two years old I developed severe bronchial asthma. This was before inhalers – didn’t see one of those till 1962. You just had to gut it out and wheez until your body panicked and released some adrenalin which is what they would give you if you made it to the doctor in time. I out grew the illness at 14 and being able to breath was like a miracle.Read More>>
Dr. Brandie Pyburn 
Faith and Spiritual Grounding: Trusting that God’s plan has purpose even in pain builds unshakable endurance (Romans 8:28, James 1:2–4). • Life Experience: Every trial survived becomes proof of what you can endure. You’ve already made it through what once seemed impossible.
• Purpose: When you know your “why,” it gives you strength to press through seasons of “how.” Read More>>
Amanda Montagna
Resilience: The Power to Adapt and Overcome Resilience is the capacity to adapt and rise above challenges. I attribute my resilience to both my life experiences and my mother. When I was just two years old, she fled a war-torn country. Growing up was not without its difficulties, yet she instilled in me the belief that, regardless of the circumstances, one must always find a way to persevere. Read More>>
