Meet Beverly Browning

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Beverly Browning a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Beverly, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

I credit my paternal grandparents for instilling resilience in me. They raised me from 9 months to 13 years old. At the time, they were in their 70s and tired from raising five successful adults on a shoestring budget. Money to feed a third-string child was scarce. My working parents did not pay my grandparents anything for feeding, clothing, and sheltering me for over a decade. Yet, my grandmother, Ethel, was resourceful, having survived the Great Depression. There was an empty lot adjoining our small backyard. My grandfather was still working as an elevator operator at a hardware store with a basement and second floor. He took on extra duties for tips. Together, my grandparents scraped enough money to purchase the land and put up a fence around their entire backyard. They planted a vast garden that not only provided us with fresh and preserved food year-round, but also gave our elderly neighbors a bountiful harvest of vegetables. Even as a small child, I listened, watched, and learned how resilient Ethel and Clay were in making something out of nothing and in stretching their pennies to survive in tough times.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

After 54 years of working in the grant industry, I craved a different kind of self-satisfaction, peace, and joy. I still teach nonprofit and grant-writing-related courses online; however, I no longer take on grant-writing clients or facilitate my own live Zoom-based training courses. Life as a full-time caregiver is hectic. I no longer have to create content or travel across the country and around the world to facilitate live grant-related training programs. At age 77, I find myself embracing physical changes, recovery from dual knee replacement surgeries (2024), and caring for my octogenarian spouse who has dementia, congestive heart failure, chronic sciatic nerve pain, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. What I’m doing now is far more complicated than researching grant funding and writing award-winning grant requests. Why is caregiving more special than everything grants? Well, when I was authoring 48 books, everything I wrote about was from my learning-as-you-go experiences. As a caregiver, I am constantly blindsided by what I see, hear, and endure every day. I miss creating, goal setting, and stellar professional achievements. Yet, I know that the challenges that I encounter now are making me stronger in every way to face the inevitable.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

1. The gift of discernment. I can see what others cannot see. This is a gift I prayed to God for, and when my prayers were answered, I feared what I could see and understand about others beyond their outer appearance. The lesson for others: Look beyond the obvious to really see everyone and everything you encounter.

2. The gift of speed reading. Taking an Evelyn Wood speed-reading course at the local community college helped me study more quickly throughout my college years. As a grant writer, I could whiz through 50 pages of grant application instructions in 10 minutes or less and retain 100% of what I read. The lesson for others: Practice makes perfect!

3. The gift of gratefulness. Early in my learning process, I enrolled in Michigan’s first Certified Medication Technician program at a hospital in Flint. One of the courses our inaugural class was required to take was Death and Dying. We had to read the book written by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a psychiatrist known for her groundbreaking work on death and dying. One of my homework assignments was to write what I wanted to see inscribed on my gravestone. I wrote, “If I have touched one person in my life, then my living shall not have been in vain. I certainly didn’t create this phrase, but it was the first one that came into my mind. The lesson for others: Live for something meaningful and fulfilling. You have one life, so make a difference in the lives of others.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

Many years ago, I read The Celestine Prophecy. The book contains nine “insights,” which are key spiritual and philosophical ideas, including the recognition of meaningful coincidences (synchronicity), the understanding that all things are made of subtle energy, the need to overcome the struggle for power in relationships by avoiding control dramas, and the importance of clearing the past to live in the present fully. The insights also highlight a shift in human consciousness and how to overcome childhood trauma to find a unique spiritual mission. Being separated from my parents as an infant and rarely spending quality time with them for the first 13 years of my life resulted in a kind of abandonment trauma that I still hold in my memory and heart. I am who I am because I developed endurance to many physical and mental traumas.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bev.browning.48/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bevbrowning/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thegrantdoctor

Image Credits

NOPI