We were lucky to catch up with Michelle Loufman recently and have shared our conversation below.
Michelle, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
Resilience is built through a combination of disappointment, grit, determination, and overcoming. I’ve had a concentrated dose of them in recent years.
My resilience was tested through a challenging journey with a chronic illness that required emergency blood transfusions, a complete lifestyle change, and years of expensive and time-consuming recovery. I experienced very dark moments, wondering if this survival period was even worth living for. I had left a comfortable job and started a business before everything–my body and the finances it took to restore health–crashed.
Just when I thought I was out of the weeds, my husband and I experienced a traumatic and violent family situation and were thrust into the role of coordinators and caretakers for several people. We were suddenly thrown into fostering a 123-lb dog as a result. My husband wasn’t working. My camera gear was stolen while I was on a location shoot. Our one car broke down several times. And our marriage was suffering as a result of the stress.
Diamonds are formed under immense pressure. I’ve learned that resilience is a gift, but it requires an immense amount of strength and resolve to figuratively climb a rugged mountain–with low oxygen. Nothing makes sense until you have a chance to summit, catch some air, and see what you conquered.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Professionally, I’m a brand storyteller and I focus on integrating human interest stories to help businesses be more relatable. In a world focused on selling, I want to introduce the dialogue of relating to amplify their marketing.
It’s special to me because although we’re more connected than ever on dozens of platforms, I fear we’re more disconnected and lonelier than ever. A.I. is making content creation easier, but it’s robotic.
We need human connection on all levels. Businesses whose services or offerings are altruistic especially need to be relatable. We all have something beautiful to offer but the words to explain that beautiful thing can be hard to find.
Outside of work, I plan to write books and stories to share my own stories of resilience, faith, and wisdom to encourage others to overcome their messy challenges.
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?
These are the three things that helped and will continue to help me on my resilience journey:
1) A deep spiritual faith. I realize religion is unpopular but I believe the promises God makes are true and unchanging.
2) Enough years behind me to know that very few things in life are permanent.
3) A lot of therapy and counseling tailored to my needs. As an HSP, I need to regulate my nervous system when triggers come so psychosomatic therapy and energy management are helpful. Triggers are my responsibility, not someone else’s.
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
I’d love to start partnering and collaborating with podcasters. I’m dreaming of starting one, but I would love to share how the things I’ve experienced and learned can inspire others to build resilience.
I have a lot to offer, from building discomfort resilience to wisdom in running a business, how to do brand storytelling to how to take personal responsibility for healing emotionally and physically.
I want to see people become whole to make a bigger impact in their personal lives and in their businesses.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.michelleloufman.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michellemloufman/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michellemloufman
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelleloufman/
- Other: Substack: https://michelleloufman.substack.com/
Image Credits
Michelle Loufman
