We were lucky to catch up with Dr. Christina Monford-McNish recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Dr. Christina, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
My faith in God and my drive to just continue to find my purpose in life.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
My name is Dr. Christina Jade Monford-McNish. I was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida. I have been practicing cosmetic dentistry for ten years. My goal is to provide high quality and compassionate care for the broadest imaginable range of dental needs while building meaningful relationships over the course of a lifetime. What I enjoy most is being able to transform patient’s lives by giving them a new healthy smile, helping them regain confidence in themselves and providing a satisfying dental experience. I am a member of multiple dental organizations as well as a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. I am very active in my local community. I often visit local middle and high schools volunteering, speaking and hosting free dental days for those that are in need. Through my practice, I am able to provide $20,000 free smile makeovers. Aside from my day to day drilling and filling I love spending time with my family.
I am excited to embark on my journey as an author. I am gearing up to release my debut book entitled “Rooted in Resilience.” My book shares my story of navgating childhood trauma, recovering from emotional injury, discovering purpose and achieving massive success. I am hopeful that my story will inspire the pursuit of purpose for anyone who feels inadequate, unworthy, undeserving or overlooked as a result of the hard things they mayhave had to endure. I want my book to encourage others to heal from pain, rise up and live a passionate life that is driven by destiny decisions and inspired action.
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?
Looking back on my life, the three most important qualities that have contributed to my success today are resilience, optimism and focus. Through resilience I have been able to bounce back, recover and adjust to life changes, disruption, disappointment, setbacks and even childhood trauma. So many people get stuck in their pain rather than extracting the lesson that is often at the center of every hard thing that we encounter. In my life, the lessons have been learning to set boundaries, offer forgiveness, give grace, release the things that are beyond my control and to understand that the actions of others are a reflection of who they are and where they are in their lives, and not a measure a my worth or value. Optimism has been a catalyst for growth in my life as well. When things got hard I maintained the belief that no matter how difficult the issue at hand was, things could and would get better. Having this type of hope allowed me to work through every ounce of opposition with the perspective that there was an opportunity to learn, grow and be better as a result of the adversity.
Lastly, the foundation of my success outside of my faith has been my ability to remain laser focused on my goals. There are so many things around us working to gain our attention and distract us from our greater goals. When things around me felt like they were falling apart, I remained focused on whatever it was that I was working to achieve, whether it was graduating from college, finishing dental school, growing my practice or even writing my book. I learned early on the power of eliminating distractions, making effective decisions and allowing decisions to drive me towards the life I was hoping for and working towards.
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?
As I anticipate the release of my new book “Rooted in Resilience” I want to connect with other men and women around the world who have achieved success despite facing early childhood trauma. For those who have had to display resilience in order to survive the challenges along their path to purpose and power. My goal is that my book compels them to not only survive and overcome hard things but to tap into healing so that they can adopt a new mindset that allows them to thrive and live a life of joy, peace, purpose and success. If this is you, I want you to join my “Rooted in Resilience” movement by sharing your own story and using the #rootedinresilience hashtag. I will be amplyfying the courageous stories of others who have overcome adversity and are now living a life of purpose and contribution. I will be sharing their stories on my platform and selecting 3 people to honor with a “Rooted in Resilience” award. I want to show the world what is possible when you believe in yourself and choose to press towards the mark even when you’re the least likely to succeed or the one who has been counted out. Success belongs to those who believe they deserve it and are willing to work towards it.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/sweetsmilesbydrmm?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christina.monford?mibextid=LQQJ4d
- Other: https://instagram.com/rootedinresilience?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
Image Credits
Joyanne Panton
