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.
Evelyn Arrestegui
My parents use to say, “No matter how little you have, there’s always someone with less”. Despite not having much during my childhood, my parents always emphasized 2 core values, education and helping others. My father viewed education as a path towards success and he expressed the importance of being a lifetime student. Read More>>
Lexa Gillespie
My resilience doesn’t come from some abstract concept or motivational platitude—it’s been forged in the crucible of lived experience. When you’re 21 and facing brain cancer, when the people who are supposed to love you unconditionally abandon you in your darkest hour, when your entire life trajectory shifts overnight, you discover that resilience isn’t something you have, it’s something you cultivate moment by moment. Read More>>
Paul Luebbers
For me, my resilience comes from my faith in God. I know He’s in control and have full faith that He will do what is best for me in the long term (my joy is not based on my circumstance but my relationship with Jesus). While my circumstances will vary greatly, God promises He will never give me more than I can handle. I know my future is secure and that while things at times might not be great, I know it’s only temporary. Read More>>
Hank Byrd
My resilience comes from my parents and my constant study of people who have inspired me in film, history, and my personal life, Learning the stories of how they all overcame their environments and the sociopolitical climates they were in inspires me to push forward through obstacles that are in my way. Read More>>
Raychell Simmons
I draw my resilience from my mother, who is the embodiment of strength and perseverance. She overcame a deeply traumatic and challenging upbringing, including experiences of abuse, domestic violence, and becoming a mother as a teenager. Despite these hardships, she broke generational patterns and created a nurturing, stable home environment for me—one built on love, intention, and purpose rather than circumstance. Read More>>
Tina Jui-Yu Sang
I’m fortunate to have received unconditional love from my paternal grandmother during my childhood. She was my primary caregiver until I was 14 years old. My grandmother (in Chinese my 奶奶) exemplified the soft kind of strength that let me feel loved and protected. Her story of surviving the Chinese Civil War in the late 1940s, fleeing from China to Taiwan, and starting all over again while also caring for her young children is a continuous source of inspiration and resilience for me. I think of her life experiences when I am struggling through difficult times. Though she passed away several years ago, I still feel like she is guiding and comforting me. Read More>>
Laura Perez Gavidia
My family, and knowing that all my efforts will be a gift to them. Read More>>
Madisyn Genender
I get my resilience from my mom! She’s from another country (Buenos Aires, Argentina), and she recants a lot of her growing up in a one bedroom with her family. She met my dad and they were able to build to a life here in the United States for me and my brothers. One thing she always reminded me was being my own person to rely on, and not relying on someone else to take care of me, so she really pushed me going to college. Read More>>
Mary “Reign” Daniels
After a failed young marriage, I remarried my first husband, believing love and time could fix what was broken. But when the relationship turned dangerous, I made the hardest decision of my life: I ran. I packed up my teenage sons and escaped to California—chasing safety, not stardom. We ended up living in a homeless shelter for a short time. It was then that I learned the true meaning of sacrifice and resilience. Read More>>
Lovely Lay Beats
I attribute my resilience to the unwavering strength of my parents. During my teenage years, I faced the harsh realities of poverty and homelessness. Yet, through every hardship, my parents instilled in me a powerful lesson: to persevere, no matter the obstacles life presents. They taught me that nothing is impossible to overcome. That mindset transformed my outlook. I chose to focus on hope rather than despair, and to see opportunity where others might see adversity. Read More>>
Scout Latshaw
I think resilience is one of the most important things you learn as an actor. It takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there, especially during auditions where you pour time and energy into becoming a character, memorizing lines, and filming, only to sometimes never hear back. Along the way, I’ve learned a few tricks to protect my mindset. Read More>>
Yannick Agliardi
From growing up in a broken household without a dad, and watching so many opportunities pass by. I promised myself that when I would be a father I would become the father I wished I had had, and help my children live out their potential and their dreams Read More>>
Anika Joseph – Henry
Resilience, for me, has never been optional. It has been a requirement – an act of survival, of faith, and of obedience to a calling much bigger than myself.
My resilience comes first and foremost from my faith in God. I am grounded in the knowledge that my life is not an accident. I believe deeply in His promise that He has a plan for me, plans to prosper me and not to harm me, plans to give me a hope and a future. Read More>>
Breann Smith
I get my resilience from the battles I’ve survived and the God who brought me through them. Life has handed me moments that could’ve broken me, seasons of loss, disappointment, pressure, and pain but I’ve learned that every time I didn’t think I’d make it, God showed me I already had what I needed inside me. I was raised in a faith-filled environment, but I had to grow into my own relationship with God. That’s where my real strength started to rise. Read More>>
Bryan Terrell Clark
Where do I get my resilience?
I get my resilience from my parents. My mother was a schoolteacher who became a principal, and a Sunday school teacher who eventually became a minister. While raising three children, she also supported a husband who was struggling with addiction. She never gave up—on us or on herself—and still managed to rise in her career and her purpose. Read More>>
Alejandra Monday
From my faith in God. Knowing that he has a lesson behind every difficult moment in my life keeps me strong and eager to keep rowing forward. Read More>>
Faith Ellis
Growing up I was in a really sad family environment. Our childhood was emotionally and physically abusive and from a really young age we were forced to find our own independence. We would work, cook, clean, go to school, come home, do chores, and repeat – there wasn’t much of a childhood. Around 17, I was forced out of the home and while I was still finishing high school, I was working, sleeping in my car, at friends houses, and ended up renting a room from an elderly lady. Read More>>
Darya
Resilience? I think I earned it one failed pitch, one hard lesson, one small win at a time. I believed in the mission more than in my ego. That belief that education can and should be transformed has kept me going, no matter what.
When I first set out to build CleverBooks, I thought I had the perfect idea of an app that would change how kids interact with maths and geometry. Read More>>
Fiorina Marietta
I was born in Munich, Germany, and raised by a father who’s an entrepreneur. He taught me early on that if I wanted to succeed — especially in an industry as competitive as fashion — I’d need more than talent. I’d need to work harder than anyone else, be disciplined, and master every skill required to build something of my own. Read More>>
Cassandra Claude
It comes from a mix of my culture, emotional depth, and the responsibility I feel to others. As a first-generation Haitian-American, I carry a strength that has been passed down through generations. Resilience was never something I had to invent; it was already in me. Spiritually and emotionally, I’ve learned to process pain and uncertainty rather than avoid them. That has kept me grounded. Showing up for others, especially my students and community, has strengthened me more than anything. Read More>>
Jennifer Zach
My resilience comes from a combination of life experience, values, and intentional practice. Growing up, I watched people around me face difficult circumstances with strength and persistence—it taught me that challenges are part of the process, not the end of the story.
Later, I built on that foundation through personal growth and reflection. I’ve learned to pause, check in with myself, and respond rather than react. Over time, I developed tools—like somatic awareness and emotional regulation—that help me stay grounded under pressure and bounce back from setbacks with perspective. Read More>>
Yemi Oluseun
Resilience, for me, comes from deciding not to waste the hard seasons.
I’ve had launches that flopped, projects that went quiet, and seasons that looked like failure. But I’ve learned this:
All work works.
Sometimes it works for you.
Sometimes it works on you.
But it always works. Read More>>
Kathaleen Lopez-Smith
I get my resilience from my ancestors, grandmother -material and parents. I acknowledge that they have lived through a lot in their lives. Both of my parents came from families that were migrant workers. My father Irish migrant workers and my mother side Chiricahua Apache/Mexican migrant workers., As a inter racial couple in the 70’s they had a lot to overcome. Read More>>
Charlene “Char” Holmes
My resilience was born the moment I realized no one was matching the energy I was pouring out. It didn’t come from being hardened; it came from being awakened.
Through the pain, the letdowns, the silence when I needed support most, I stopped waiting for someone to rescue me, affirm me, or walk with me through the fire. And instead, I learned to trust that I was the one I could count on. Not because I had to do it all alone forever, but because I finally understood my strength wasn’t rooted in who stood beside me, it was rooted in me. Read More>>
Rachel Green
Resilience isn’t created from one isolated event. It is built slowly over time after every challenge, setback, and failure. I’ve developed mine partially from trying to learn from my mistakes. Whether that be by trying to be more open with my husband after acknowledging that a lack of communication was the biggest reason my first marriage failed or by learning to set clear boundaries for myself after foolishly trying to start two businesses at the same time. Read More>>
Desirée Levingston
It can be quite daunting pursuing a career in a creative field. Perfectionism and questions of worthiness can loom in the back of my mind, but the thing that I’ve noticed when studying successful individuals is that the only ones who don’t make it are the ones who stop trying. I find that it’s easy to compete with the timeline of others, especially in the age of social media, but not everyone is going to find what they’re looking for in their first season of life. Read More>>
Alyssa Truesdell
Absolutely—here’s a version that weaves that insight about motherhood into your resilience answer seamlessly:
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### **Where does your resilience come from?**
My resilience comes from a mix of life experience, motherhood, and a genuine love for the work I do. I’m passionate about building websites and brands that truly reflect who our clients are—not just what they offer, but what they believe in, how they think, and how they want to show up in the world. That creative process lights me up. Helping someone feel seen through their brand never gets old. Read More>>
DellShavon Telemaque
I get my resilience from my mum and life experiences. I went through a lot at a young age as so did she and she still carries herself with such grace and does not look like what she’s been through. I may have learned that from her. I almost lost my life in a car accident four years ago, did the work to heal from that and now believe that I can heal through ALL things. As long as I am alive, I can’t give up. Read More>>
Jason Hess
In the spring and summer of 2003, my world was a bombed out building baking under the sun of Northern Iraq. Tasked with building an entire IT network from scratch for a new Forward Operating Base, my reality became a tangle of cables and the constant hum of a generator. We were weaving a digital lifeline out of the dust and chaos. But the chaos had its own rhythm, a rhythm punctuated by the sudden, violent crack of incoming mortars. Read More>>
Santoria Sawyer
My resilience was forged through lived experience. I am a survivor of childhood trauma and, later, other forms of adversity. But more than that, I am a product of community of mentors, family, and faith that reminded me that my story didn’t end with hardship.
I draw strength from knowing that every challenge I’ve faced has shaped my ability to lead with empathy, communicate with purpose, and keep going even when the path wasn’t clear. Being a coparenting mother while building a career has also strengthened my resilience. It’s taught me how to juggle pressure with grace and to show up every day as both a nurturer and a professional. Read More>>
Lauren DiCredico
“Girls… GIRLS!!!”
My mom yelled up the stairs in a panic as we stepped out of our rooms.
“Your dad’s dead.”
I was 18. It was senior week of high school. My softball team was in the playoffs with a game in a few days — and I was the pitcher, a leader on the team. Read More>>
Peter Caruso
Nearly two decades in commercial real estate has taught me a lot, but above all, humility. Great ideas can get shot down in seconds. I had to learn early that hearing “no” is part of the process. And with time, I realized something even more important: “no” isn’t always permanent…it often just means “not yet.” Read More>>
ROWYNN DUMONT
My resilience comes from necessity — not some polished version of strength, but the raw, relentless drive to survive when there were no other options.
I was kicked out at 15 and lived in a treehouse behind my high school, still showing up every day with perfect grades and makeup on. I’ve survived being kidnapped, trafficked, abandoned, and erased — and somehow still found a way to keep building, learning, and creating. I’ve lived in dozens of cities, worked every job from bartender to professor, and built a life from the ground up more times than I can count. Read More>>
Loretta Goldberg
I grew up in Melbourne. Australia in circumstances that were very constricted economically but intellectually and culturally exciting.
I credit my parents for any resilience I have. It was no-option but to plug on. It sounds dull but is utterly romantic at its core. Read More>>
Jennifer Marie
Resilience, for me, is something that’s been built through every season I thought I wouldn’t make it through—but did. A lot of it comes from watching other women I love and respect. My mother, for example, who faced adversity with quiet strength and unshakable grace through a difficult family history. Read More>>
