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.
Dalton Zongshian Lu
Resilience has played a huge role in shaping who I am today, especially in my early days working in the film industry. One of my first jobs was at a camera rental company, where I worked as a 2nd camera assistant. It wasn’t easy, to say the least. My boss didn’t like me much—he constantly criticized everything I did, from how I built cameras to even how I drove. His remarks weren’t just critical; they were downright humiliating. Read more>>
Richard Lawson
When I was six years old, my mother divorced my father, and she took me and my sister, and she started a new life. In order for us to survive, she had to work two jobs. She was a nurse. And she he wasn’t a nurse with anything after her name, she wasn’t an RN or an LVN, she was more of a practical nurse. She dealt with simple stuff like handling bed pans, making sure people were comfortable, changing the sheets, things like that. She worked from 11am to 7pm, and from 8pm to 4am, and she really had no common days off. She did that for 16 years. Read more>>
Keira Chatman
Resilience has always been a core part of who I am. I learned it early on by watching my mother overcome adversity time and again. No matter what challenges she faced, she always found a way to bounce back, and that showed me the power of perseverance. I’ve also always been naturally adaptable and driven. When someone tells me “no” or that my ideas are too big, it only fuels my determination to prove them wrong and push forward. My independence has always been a source of strength, but having a family I can depend on has given me the confidence to pursue my goals with courage. Read more>>
Jeremy Golden
I never knew I was resilient until I had a friend tell me how resilient I was. Up until that point, I just looked at challenges as things that were there and just something else to overcome. It wasn’t until depression hit me square in the face and I was faced with multiple challenges that I realized how resilient I was. Read more>>
Marc Cartwright
I get my resilience from my family. They have always taught me to examine the things in life that inspire me and create a reality based around what I discover. Life is short and we all get the same 24 hours. Why not spend your time and energy pursuing things that truly ignite your passions. Read more>>
Danney Paul
Putting aside the reality of having any inborn characteristics, I believe that one becomes resilient by experience and overcoming. Constant conditioning and overcoming the hard parts. Understanding that the way forward will be an obstacle and pushing forward anyway. Overtime you become resilient and hard skined so to speak. It’s like playing the guitar for many years and developing hard tipped fingers. Read more>>
Justin Faison
Resilience is something that I would say is a big part of who I am today. My resilience came from the experiences and adversity that God has allowed me to go through. It came from him and my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. My dad unexpectedly passed away when I was 7 years old. This was the start of my journey of resilience. In that resilience, I leaned on my family, and most importantly God to get me through the loss of my dad. I played sports growing up and were a big part of my journey. I played basketball in high school and at community college, then I transferred to Arizona State University and switched to football. Read more>>
Megan Luchtel
I’ve been told “no” many more times than I’ve heard “yes” since starting my company. In fact, I heard “no” from Nordstrom after they reviewed my catalog, but two months later my products were on their website. I’d love to take credit for my resilience and say that it’s just something I muster up on my own. But I don’t believe it’s my resilience to own. It is a resilience that comes from the support and help of so many people who are behind me, in front of me, and always in my corner. Read more>>
Zarina Akhmetzhan
As a fashion design student, my resilience comes from a deep-rooted passion for creative expression and an unwavering belief in the power of transformation through clothing. Fashion, by its very nature, is fleeting — trends come and go, tastes shift, and the landscape of style evolves almost daily. To survive and thrive in such a dynamic industry requires more than just an eye for aesthetics; it demands the ability to adapt, to fail forward, and to find inspiration even in the face of rejection or criticism. Read more>>
Matt ` Croghan
Resilience is really important as a small business owner. My first introduction to resilience was probably during my basketball career in middle and high school. I was never the best player on the court, but I had height on my side. I am 6’6″ tall, so i was naturally drawn to basketball! I was cut from the team on my first year of try outs which gave me plenty of encouragement to try harder. Over the next year I played a ton of basketball, focused on eating everything I could and worked out to get bigger. The following year I not only made the team but I was in the running for a starting position. It was an early insight to the fact that hard work always pays off! Read more>>
Virginia Lopez
I will have to give credit for my strength and resilience to my extremely strong-willed mother. My mom has always been inspiring to me. Having raised nine children, she eludes love, strength, and positivity. She taught me to never give up, to move forward. And to focus on the positive moments of any challenge I face, to learn from any setbacks I encounter. I strive to be more like my mom! Read more>>
Charlene Widzinski
I get my resilience from the constant decision to use my life challenges as fuel to rise above and move beyond them. In all honesty there were many truly difficult circumstances I had to endure growing up and at various points later on that were brutal and might have brought another to end their life or seek an easy solution or quick fix, but I chose to embrace the depth of each experience and persevere through the transformative process of inner healing that took place in dark moments of solitude, as isolating as it may have sometimes felt. Read more>>
Ezra
Resilience, perseverance, and grit. My father is who instantly comes to mind. Growing up, he taught my siblings and I that there was nothing that we couldn’t do. If we wanted something, we had to work for it. During adolescence we were talking about making the all-star team or obtaining the most sales for the cookie dough fundraiser. As time passed the message still applied but in real-world circumstances and the importance of character. My dad made a lot of sacrifices for his family and himself to make it. Read more>>
Saraphina Churchill
The women in my family is a huge part of my resilience. I have always been very close with my Grandmother. Luckily I still am, she turned 90 this year but if you ask her how old she is, she will tell you 29. My whole childhood is filled with the stories she told of her own mother’s bravery. My great-grandmother was orphaned and had to care for her younger sister. They left Scotland and moved to America to start over completely. She married and started a family and then the stock market crash of 1928 left the new family in trouble. Read more>>
Severine Rigaud
From an early age, I have been captivated by the world of artistic expression, immersing myself in a variety of forms such as sketching, coloring, and painting. My creative journey has been deeply influenced by my extensive travels, which have exposed me to diverse cultures and artistic traditions. These experiences have served as a wellspring of inspiration, with beautiful and unique artworks encountered along the way igniting my creative imagination and enriching her artistic vision. Read more>>
Lasean Rice Jr
I get my resilience from a few different things. First off, my faith in God continues to strengthen me through each endeavor. My family has taught me many lessons and given me great moral foundation and teachings. Lastly, I would say the love I have for myself wanting more than what issues may have me shackled to. Read more>>
Brittany Guerra
I believe that there is only one place to gain resilience, and that has to come first from the presence of adversity. Just as in order to be brave, there must first be the presence of fear. My life, like many others, has had no shortage of adversity. Born to two teenage parents who spent their earliest years struggling to find themselves while raising me and later my sister—selling drugs and battling addiction—meant their choices left no shortage of challenges for me to overcome. Read more>>
Ebonee B
My resilience comes from overcoming the deep challenges I faced in my childhood, including abandonment, separation from my siblings, and navigating the foster care system. These experiences taught me to never stop believing in my own worth, no matter the hardships. I’ve had to stand up for myself, often being misunderstood and labeled negatively. But even through all the judgments, I fought not for others’ validation but for my own. Read more>>
Anthony Will
My resilience comes from a mix of my experiences, mindset, and the support I get from those around me. Over the last decade, facing tough challenges has taught me a lot about bouncing back and persevering through adversity. I’ve learned to see obstacles as chances to grow rather than just setbacks. Read more>>
Nicole Deroy
Ever since a young girl I was faced with chronic issues with my health. I was always getting sick, and had to persevere at a young age with chronic pain, and struggled with feeling at home in my body. Into my teenage years it would just get worse and worse and persisted into adulthood. I was poked and prodded by doctors for well over a decade, told I had incurable conditions and put on endless amounts of pills to manage symptoms. It wasn’t until my early 30s that I was finally diagnosed with Lyme disease, Endometriosis and SIBO, and this was all while I was putting myself through a stressful tattoo apprenticeship. Read more>>
Ann Wood
I discovered the extent of my resilience during Covid. Like most people I lost family members and experienced profound grief. At the same time, I felt a profound responsibility for saving our family business and protecting the health of my family, staff and customers. To this day I can point to moments of quick thinking, action and 100% luck that allowed our business to survive. My husband, Jeff Perkins and I have a musical instrument store called Music Go Round that survived 9-11 and the financial crash of 2009. Read more>>
Georgette Blay
My resilience stems from the tough decisions my parents made years ago. When I was two, both of my parents left Ghana for America, seeking a better future for our family. During this time, I stayed in Ghana with loved ones until they were settled and could bring me over. This early separation taught me resilience. Although I was surrounded by love, I felt something missing and had to naturally learn how to fill the void, to feel whole, and to nurture love, hope, and joy within myself. Read more>>
Crimson Sairina
Genetics? It’s always nice to blame the parents. In all honesty, we’re shaped by our surroundings and resources, and I was lucky enough to have a great role model and support system in my mother. Read more>>
Vilash Reddy
Resilience is based on learning to overcome adversity which is a hurt issue with all humans. We try to learn from our mistakes and growth as individuals trying to be better version of our lives. In order to be resilience you must endure hardships, because it makes us also empathetic towards all human beings that we can teach through our wisdom which is deep rooted in resilience. Suffering is a unfortunate part of life but it is the choices that we make, to succeed or to persevere. Read more>>
Ashley Korff
Back when I was 5 years old, my grandpa was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. My family wasn’t one that talked about hard things like that, everything got swept under the rug pretty much. I turned to sugary junk food to cope & became a sugar addict before I turned 6 years old. I became an obese child & had tons of secondary health issues really young. Read more>>
Zandra Bonick
Growing up in Sweden, I was fortunate to have a strong social support system with free education and other resources. However, my mom had me at 17 and became a single parent when I was just 3. She worked multiple jobs to make ends meet, often mending her own clothes because she couldn’t afford to buy for both of us. Watching her resilience and determination at such a young age taught me that anything is possible with hard work. Read more>>
Kia Frazier
My resilience definitely comes from my grandmother, my mother, and life situations. I didn’t have the worst upbringing but it wasn’t the best. Life taught me as a child that things won’t always be easy or comfortable. I watched my mother and grandmother deal with multiple unfair situations yet remain positive and still keep their faith. Read more>>
Randi Samuelson-brown
I get my resilience from a long line of women who, honestly, had no choice but to be resilient. I also think it is part of every person’s survival instinct. Human beings are remarkably adaptable creatures – it all just depends upon how they want to go about it. Read more>>
Yueyue (lydia) Zhang
My resilience comes from my love for art, a passion I’ve had since I was young. I’ve never been outgoing, and in school, while others chatted or walked, I preferred quietly drawing in my notebook. Art has always been my way of expressing myself—a quiet yet powerful friend. Like in Pixar’s Soul, where the characters search for their “spark,” art is my spark. Read more>>
Dr. Marva Brewington
My resilience comes from a deeply embedded desire to prove wrong those who spoke negative things over my life. This stems from negative things spoken over me as a child, words that I never forgot. Instead of letting these words define me, I became determined to make a difference in my life. Every obstacle I face is a chance to prove that I am stronger than the doubts that were cast over me. Others doubts fueled my determination to rise above and succeed. Every challenge I face is an opportunity to rewrite that narrative and show what I’m truly capable of. Read more>>
Jonathan & Lindsay Betz
It’s a mindset of determination, of zero excuses, and of embracing the reality that success begins and ends with our own choices and efforts. We clearly see God’s hand in orchestrating circumstances and experiences that revealed a calling on Jon’s life into photography and serving people with his expertise that he developed over years of training and experience. When we launched our portrait studio in 2006, it was with that confidence of the calling and with excitement for bringing this dream into reality as a team. Read more>>
Shun Cheng Hsieh
I’m fortunate to have a family that has supported me throughout my journey. They’ve given me the opportunity and resources to explore different paths, which not only helped me cultivate my sense of design but also allowed me to focus on my career without worrying about limitations. With their support, I’ve been able to pursue my passion freely, which has built my resilience and drive. Read more>>
Loretta Pena
I was bullied when I was a child. I didn’t fit in and no one wanted to play with me. Also, my parents were always fighting so life at home was just as bad. At first, I cried every day. As years passed, I got used to it. Those experiences taught me how to be alone. I firmly believe everyone is a product of their environment. It is up to the individual to take those experiences and do something with them. There is nothing that could hurt me like the past had. My experiences as a child helped me to develop thick skin. Read more>>
Isaac Valentín
I get my resilience from Puerto Rico. From my experience as a Puerto Rican, I’ve learned that resilience is embedded in us. The aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017 made me witness the solidarity, compassion, strength, and support people from all around the island gave each other during this critical time. It taught me that no matter how hard we fall, there’s a lot more power in getting right back up and continue moving forward. Read more>>
