Meet Subrina Wood

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Subrina Wood. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Subrina, 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?

How to Become Resilient
I once described my superpower as being resilient.
I was with a group of women of a certain age. All of us were retired or able to retire but hadn’t yet, all were accomplished professionally and all of us had faced serious personal setbacks of either divorce or death of a spouse. As I sat there waiting to hear what each of them would proclaim as their superpower, I knew without a second thought that mine was resilience.
Resilience is not a thing you can be taught. It’s a character trait that must be developed layer by layer. Have you ever watched a 3D printer create something? Developing resilience is like that, the object forms by the application of layer after layer of a substance. It’s applied back and forth, over, and over. You become resilient by applying layer after layer of experience. Every experience builds upon the one that came before. The experiences come quickly, relentlessly. It’s an everyday thing.
As a kid I experienced piano lessons, tennis lessons, art lessons, Girls Scouts, weekend Astronomy classes for high school kids at M.I.T., a summer session at Philips Academy, and fun summers down South with my cousins, aunt, and uncle. My layers of experiences happened after school, in school, on weekends, in the summers, relentlessly every day. All my mother knew was that I couldn’t just hang around the house.
Each experience forced me to deal with new situations, new kids, and even a new place to travel alone after my mom took me the first day or two. In those days, kids could walk around by themselves. I learned what I liked and what I didn’t like. I liked almost everything and didn’t like being bored by anything. Because of these early experiences, I became adventurous. I was ready to try anything and do my best at it. These experiences taught me how to walk into a room and get along.
You can only learn to recover quickly by doing things over and over. You won’t recover quickly the first time. You have to try, fail, hurt, and even embarrass yourself. You slowly develop muscle memory, a higher threshold for pain, and a thicker skin. These are the key elements of resilience. The muscle memory turns into discipline, the higher pain threshold turns into endurance, and the thick skin becomes self-assurance.
Resilience comes from trying and failing, from learning to do your best even if you aren’t the best. You don’t know what a 3D printer is creating until it’s finished, and just like life, you don’t know what it’s going to be about until you get to the end, and that is why you have to be resilient, so you can make it to the end as the best you can be.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I created a podcast and a YouTube show promoting Black storytelling for education and entertainment.
The SyFy Sistas podcast, now a production of SyFy Sistas, Inc., is a science-fiction discussion show hosted by four Black women. My YouTube show is CinnCine Goes SyFy, where I do a deep dive into classic science fiction with guests from various entertainment and science fields. Cinn Cine is a nickname developed from my first brand, The Cinnamon Cinephile. Under that brand, I hosted my first podcast on films and appeared as a guest programmer on Turner Classic Movies with Alicia Malone.

I am the programmer of the Lightreel Film Festival Screenwriting Contest. I have participated in several screenwriting competitions. I learned screenwriting by attending the New York Film Academy and earned certificates in producing and screenwriting.

The SyFy Sistas receive advance screenings of TV and movies from Apple and Paramount. These studios include us in virtual press junkets and live Red Carpet premieres.

Currently, the SyFy Sista YiyTube Channel has four shows. The SyFy Sistas Live Show, Cinn Cine Goes SyFy, Two Moons and a Microphone, which is an ElfQuest fan show hosted by ‘ElfQuest Maven’ Tanya Scott Thomas, and Soul of the Story hosted by science fiction writer Derek Tyler Attico.

We are bringing on a new show with actor and creator Matt Jennings, who wrote the web show 1701: A Blerd’s Story. We are also on the advisory board of Steam Superheroes a non profit that motivate kids to develop careers in STEAM. The nonprofit is the brainchild of Nichelle Nichols’ sister. I serve as the non-profit’s treasurer in honor of the memory of Ms Nichols.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge.

Become a reader. Know things. People admire the fact that I can have a conversation with just about anyone. That is because I know things. Things I’ve read in books, magazines, or newspapers that day. I don’t mean the internet clip, the complete article, and, if possible, a second source article. As a former corporate boss once said, I have a lot of useless information. But I won account after account for him because I could talk to anyone. People feel comfortable with someone who has some familiarity with whatever they want to talk about.

Read history, learn mythology, read the classics…okay, read one classic. Just read.

Become knowledgeable in something. It can be baseball cards, movie trivia, or poker. Anything. Just find your passion and develop it. Nobody wants to be around people who don’t do things and know nothing,

Learn to be a good listener. I am still struggling with this one because I talk too much. But the people I admire and love to watch move through the world have this skill. They can make you feel as if you are the only person in the world when they are talking to you.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

SyFy Sistas, Inc. is a new small production company. We are looking for a mentor to help us increase our subscriber base and attract sponsors. We also need help with making the show look more professional. They can reach us through our website, www.syfysistas.com, or e-mail us at [email protected].

Contact Info:

• Website: https://syfysistas.com
• Instagram: syfysistas
• Facebook: Syfysistas
• Linkedin: SubrinaWood
• Youtube: SyFySistasInc
• Other: BlueSky
  SyFySistas

Image Credits

Subrina Wood personal pictures