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.
Salena Bracamontes
I’d say my resilience comes from within. I ask hard questions, take accountability, celebrate wins, and still stay humble. I’m not just enduring I am evolving, and that takes courage.
I’m not just resilient by chance I’ve built it, every step of the way.
I’m active, I give back, I celebrate others. That reciprocal energy from your tribe gives me momentum. I’m not in this alone, and I know it. Read More>>
Lauren McSorley
For me, resilience looks less like grit and grind, and more like riding the wave that is entrepreneurship—trusting the motion, even when it’s messy. It’s about being open to things not going exactly as planned, and learning to be okay (and sometimes even excited) about that.
As entrepreneurs, we’re constantly pushed outside our comfort zones. And honestly? That’s part of the thrill. I’ve found the biggest breakthroughs happen when I stop overthinking, step away from the spreadsheets, and just go for it – trusting my team, my instincts, and the reality that missteps are part of the process. Read More>>
Natalie Courtney
My resilience is rooted in lived experiences shaped by the full spectrum of life, from the difficult moments of my childhood to the complex challenges of adulthood. Each hardship has served as a teacher, carving depth and empathy into my being. Alongside these experiences, I carry a quiet, steady understanding—an innate wisdom that has always felt like a guiding presence. It’s an unseen force, something unlearned yet deeply familiar, reminding me that I come from a lineage of strength and endurance. Read More>>
Robb Havassy
My life philosophy is grounded in gratitude. Gratitude and being fluid and able to go with the flow when things aren’t happening the way you hoped or planned are the keys to my happiness and strengthen my resilience. In short it is about being grateful for all the positive things in my life no matter how small. That gratitude gives me strength and arms me. I accept the fact that life is hard and full of suffering. I am aware of others suffering and try to be cognizant that so many others live with pain and challenges that seem unimaginable. Read More>>
Dom DaCruz
Where do you get your resilience from?
I’ve always been known for my persistence and resilience. I wasn’t always the smartest kid in the room or the most well-connected, but I’ve always had a way of pushing through—externally and internally—to achieve what I set out to do. Read More>>
Nicole “Spoonafly” Sullivan
I’m Nicole “Spoonafly” Sullivan and im the creator and owner of the brand Hood Spiritual. I was Raised By My Family In Love Heart And Soul Which Included My now deceased Godparents who raised me since I was 2 years of age. Childhood I would proudly say I had a great foundation My childhood was amazing for the most part. I was blessed with love wisdom and knowledge that will forever be embedded in me. I went to a Private School named Cush Campus and In school, we had Karate Class. Something that stuck with me was our sensei brother Askia taught us how to properly fall. He taught us how to protect ourselves even when we were falling. Read More>>
Dr. DeAndrea Fleming
Let’s be real—resilience didn’t come wrapped in a bow. It came in the form of breakdowns, burying both of my parents too soon, and raising two children while trying to lead whole communities through storms I was barely surviving myself.
There was a season where I was burnt out but still showing up in boardrooms and classrooms—smiling, serving, solution-building—while quietly unraveling inside. I was an elected official, a school leader, and a voice in the community… but I had stopped hearing my own voice. Read More>>
Kelly Rose Magnusson
I was born to two parents who are both resilient people. I was also born with several lifelong chronic illnesses. I’ve learned to become resilient because I’ve had to be. I don’t have a choice. Its either resilience or you pick suffering, and I pick resilience every time. I was born with Common Variable Immune Deficiency and Bipolar Disorder. I also have Hashimoto’s Disorder (auto-immune condition affecting the thyroid), and Endometriosis. I have fought my whole life for my health, physical and mental. Resiliency develops when you choose to fight for your life and the quality of your life daily as opposed to giving up and giving in. Read More>>
Anamaría Willars
I guess in the simplest of facts, resilience kicks in when it is the only option. As humans, we adapt and redefine our perspective in order to justify life.
I have found that, there is something in trusting that the body can be smarter than the brain and, while in uncertainty, we can give grace to ourselves, allowing little by little to let the body find a way out or make peace with a situation. Read More>>
Vincent M. Catalano
My resilience is an imprint of my upbringing. My mother was/is a very strong minded figure. She has overcome many obstacles in her life before and after having her children; my sister and me. I believe my resilience was an inherited program from my mothers own survival instincts. We were always told that we were strong, and had the ability to overcome anything in our way. These phrases of affirmations started to materialize my reality, I am resilient. Read More>>
Kasumi Sonoda
This is such a good question.
I’ve lain in bed thinking about this an often. Why do some people break under the slightest weight and other people rise from utter devastation?
In my own life, I’ve experienced both. Read More>>
Dr. Hayley Taylor
A lot of my resilience comes from my personal story-both the parts I’ve shared and the ones that live quietly beneath the surface. I was adopted from Seoul, Korea and raised in a predominantly white community, so from a young age, I learned how to move through spaces where I didn’t always feel like I fully belonged. That shaped how I see the world-with empathy, sensitivity, and a deep inner strength. Read More>>
Lauren Liebermann
For a long time, I thought resilience meant powering through—gritting your teeth, holding it all together, never missing a step. But I’ve come to see it differently. Real resilience, for me, has looked a lot more like surrendering, listening, and beginning again. And on my own terms.
I spent 20 years in a fast-paced corporate world, leading teams, managing crises, building brands. It was a job that looked good on paper. But somewhere along the way, I lost the thread of who I was outside of the performance. When I left that world, I didn’t have a five-year plan. Read More>>
Brian
I grew up with resilience baked into the DNA of my experience. Raised by a single mom on welfare, first in Springfield and then in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I learned early how to adapt, hustle, and keep moving forward — long before “fake it till you make it” was a catchphrase. Cambridge gave me a more fertile ground to grow: a multicultural, intellectually rich community where I was surrounded by other kids from blue collar USA like me, but also by peers from all over the world — some born into opportunity, others like me, chasing it. Read More>>
Elizabeth Hook-Chittum
I get my resilience from a lifetime of having to do everything the hard way and NOTHING being easy to obtain. Along the way I learned how to keep pushing even when it felt like I’d never achieve what I set out to achieve, but as long as I stayed head strong and persistent, My Papa always told me as long as I kept fighting for the life and things I wanted, I’d never fail. Read More>>
Sidney ‘SidSation’ Alfred
My parents REMAIN persistent in their everyday lives. Growing up with them whilst watching them prevail through their careers and personal lives, has been the mold for me to keep digging deeper when honing my craft of singing, writing and recording. Although I am my own worst critic to be better than my last performance or recording, I often share my art with them to articulate and idealize better ways to deliver the best of my artistry through each song being performed or written. Read More>>
Jessica Funches
My resilience definitely comes from my family. I am the product of extraordinary women and men who never accepted the status quo and weren’t afraid of a challenge. My great-aunts owned businesses and held supervisor positions during a time when African American women were rarely seen in those roles. My grandmother owned her own beauty salon before there was a Black beauty shop on every corner. My mother was an elementary school principal who, along with my aunt, grandmother, and her sisters, made sure I understood one thing: never let anyone treat you like you’re less than worthy. Read More>>
Martha Fletcher
I didn’t have to search far to understand the meaning of resilience—I saw it in my parents.
They endured an insurmountable loss that could have broken them. And yet, they kept going. Not without sorrow. Not without moments of unraveling. But with a quiet, unwavering resolve to keep living, loving, and showing up for me and my sister. Their resilience wasn’t loud or dramatic. It lived in the everyday acts of courage—rising each morning, finding reasons to smile through the pain, and planting seeds of hope even when the future felt uncertain. Read More>>
Stacey-Marie Williams
Honestly, I think it’s a toss-up between my faith and my buttercream! But truly, my resilience comes from my relationship with Jesus Christ. Just like dough needs time to rise, I’ve had to learn to be patient and trust that every challenge is shaping me for the better. Through Iconic Desserts, I’ve realized that even when things don’t go as planned, there’s always a way to turn it around; kind of like salvaging a recipe and ending up with something even better. My faith gives me the strength to keep going, and my passion for baking and bringing joy to others keeps me inspired. Read More>>
Lindsay Tyler
My resilience comes from the experience of grief, chronic pain, creative setbacks and the challenges of building an art career from the ground up. Through it all, art has been my anchor. Creating helps me process what I can’t always put into words. I draw strength from nature, in waterways and wild spaces and from the belief that meaningful work finds its place, even if it takes time. Resilience, to me, means showing up anyway, especially when it would be easier not to. Read More>>
Tami Wong
I’ve faced a lot of challenges in my life. My hair started thinning when I was 15 after taking an acne medication, and I was eventually diagnosed with androgenic alopecia at 23. It was confusing and isolating, especially at an age when I just wanted to feel normal.
Around the same time, my dad went to jail and my small-town world exploded with gossip about my family. It was devastating. I felt like I lost my dad overnight and was left with a mother who was emotionally abusive and neglectful. It was a really traumatic time, and I didn’t talk about it for years. Read More>>
Lynaea Russom
Being grounded in the privilege of being a staff member of the school I graduated from, I am graced with the inspiration from the students, staff and faculty that inhibit the space daily. Growing through the pains of being a woman, being perceived as one, and questioning my womanhood, my strength lies in the comfort that my body will always be there for me. As a person first and an artist second, I have overcome financial, abusive, and mentally challenging obstacles. A line from Eileen Myles’s ‘American Poem’ has always stuck with me in times of doubt. It is absurd, chin scratching, but it makes the most sense when nothing else will; “I am not alone tonight because we are all Kennedys. And I am your President.” Read More>>
Amine Hachem
My resilience comes from a mix of family, faith, and culture. I was raised by parents who led with grace and grit, in a country that has endured so much yet still finds ways to sing and celebrate. That spirit is in my blood.
Spiritually, I’ve always believed in something greater — a divine current that runs through music, through love, through the quiet strength of those who keep going when they have every reason to stop. Singing, for me, has never been just performance. It’s prayer, it’s defiance, it’s medicine. Read More>>
Brandilyn Hallcroft
My resilience stems from a decision I made a long time ago to persevere, no matter what life threw my way. I didn’t grow up with stability or emotional safety. I experienced trauma, rejection, and loss early on. But through it all, I never stopped working toward something better.
Even in my darkest moments, I found ways to move forward. When I was homeless for three months, I still showed up to meetings and built websites for clients. I created a business from nothing, using public libraries to charge my laptop and connect with professionals who had no idea what I was going through behind the scenes. Read More>>
Lexi Parker
My resilience comes from everything I’ve had to overcome just to be seen — and not just seen, but understood. I grew up feeling like the underdog, often overlooked, doubted, or targeted by people who didn’t know what to do with someone like me. I wasn’t loud or flashy, but my presence spoke volumes. That made me a mirror, and not everyone liked what they saw in it. Read More>>
Allan Gill
This is a tough query. What resilience I have probably has a lot to do with my varied interests. The elders encouraged variety, dedication, and an open mind. Scholastics, literature, sports, games, and music all engaged me from childhood on. When one activity caused frustration, I could focus on another. I am not terrifically resilient, but my broad selection of likes must have helped me flex. Read More>>
Fatima Ezzahra Mahdar
My resilience comes from a deep, unwavering love for animation and storytelling. I’ve always believed — with my whole heart and being — that stories can change lives, because they changed mine.
For me, storytelling isn’t a job or even a dream; it’s something I need to do to feel whole. It’s how I make sense of the world, how I connect with people, and how I hold on to hope when things are uncertain. Read More>>
Naomi Colon
I feel like my resilience has come from a lifetime of both disappointments and huge wins. I don’t remember much of my childhood. I was put out by my parents at 16 and have pretty much been on my own since. I feel like even with those situations and many more that I haven’t mentioned I’ve always come out on top. So my resilience really does just come from the fact that I know it’s gonna get better. I know that not everybody is the same so whether it be a disappointment from a person or something that happened, I have the faith now, knowing that there’s light on the way. Read More>>
Gina Caracci
Honestly, resilience didn’t come from a book or a mentor—it came with my existence. I’ve been resilient my entire life, not because I was taught how to be, but because I had no other choice. From a young age, life demanded it of me. I’ve had to persevere, to endure, and to keep getting back up—again and again—without letting my circumstances define my worth, my future, or my mission.
There was no blueprint for the path I’ve walked. I’ve carried the weight of mental health battles I never thought I’d survive. I’ve lived through loss and grief so deep it left me breathless. I sustained a traumatic brain injury that changed everything—and still, I kept going. Read More>>
Lex Smith
In my line of work, as a Spiritual Consultant, I have been faced with every type of adversity, in every dimension, you can imagine. From former bosses and colleagues, to whole institutions that have attempted to copy my intellectual property or siphon my time, energy and resources. And, that’s just in the real world. In the spiritual world, adversity once manifested as confrontation with witches, pastors, hypnotists, yoga studio owners, and literal demons and tricksters. I have had men and women both tell me that my business will fail, I’m not allowed to do it “that way,” and go so far as to cast spells to slow my progress. Read More>>
Mini Talwar Singh
I don’t feel like I have an option . I don’t have a plan B of anything waiting for me.
I get my resilience from knowing that I’m the only one responsible for creating the life I dream of. I’ve learned to pick myself up every time life knocks me down — not because it’s easy, but because I know the version of me on the other side deserves it. And if I can do it, so can you. Read More>>
Yosely Maldonado
My resilience was born the moment I became a teenage mother. The world had already written my story, but I picked up the pen and rewrote it. Despite the odds stacked against me, I was determined to rise. I pursued college, graduated, worked full-time, raised my child, and kept moving—even when I had minimal support and every reason to quit. I had a fire in me that refused to let my circumstances define me. Read More>>
Jenny Jimenez-Sullivan
I have always used words both to heal and to assert my identity—especially in the face of childhood trauma and societal silencing. That creative spark was nurtured early, giving me the tools to process inner turmoil and advocate for others. Writing became both a refuge and a catalyst for personal healing. Therapy, journaling and deep coversations helped me in healing past wounds, reclaiming lost joy, and nurturing the parts of myself that needed it most – which was incredibly powerful. Read More>>
Rabbi Levi Begun
My resilience comes from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. The Rebbe taught that no Jew should ever feel alone, and that every place, big or small, deserves a warm and welcoming Jewish presence. He taught us never to give up on a single soul and to always find the light, even in the darkest moments. Read More>>
Vincent Adejumo
I get my resilience from my experiences with disappointment and patience in childhood. For example, I grew up in a working-class environment primarily with my single mother and sister with frequent visits to my now late father and bonus mother’s residence. Both households were working class with particular emphasis placed on thrift and necessities with little room for luxuries. However, my peers all had items that I wanted as a child. Read More>>
Daniela Bumann
My resilience comes from a blend of life experience, deep inner work, and a connection to something greater. Growing up in Switzerland gave me a strong foundation in discipline, structure, and precision. Later, building a life and business in the United States invited me into a more fluid rhythm—one that called for adaptability, openness, and self-trust. Navigating these two cultures has taught me how to balance structure with flow, and logic with intuition. Read More>>
Luis Tun
From selling food with my mother every Friday to help pay rent, recycling cans to afford bus fare, and walking every day to Starbucks to do my homework and apply for scholarships—my Mayan-Mexican immigrant mother taught me the value of hard work and resilience. I was born in Yucatán, Mexico, and came to the United States at the age of six, without knowing a word of English. Read More>>
Julie Paige
Resilience isn’t just something we “have” or “don’t have.” It’s a way of moving through life that we can all learn—especially when we’re invited (or forced) to meet the hardest parts of being human.
For me, resilience means allowing the pain, grief, and confusion of loss to move through us without becoming those things. It’s about listening inwardly with compassion, and looking outwardly with curiosity—even when we feel broken. Especially then. Read More>>
Marcelo Bengoechea
I think resilience is something we learn with time. For me resilience comes with wisdom and wisdom comes from experience. The more I learn, the more comfortable I am with the unknown. It used to be scary but now the unknown is exciting. I can dive into it feeling comfortable that everything is going to be all right at the end. Not saying it will be easy but I know that I will be able to survive it and that confidence makes me very resilient. Life can hand me the worst but I am resilient to handle it all. Once you have that confident outlook in life, being resilient is not that hard but you must trust the process. Read More>>
Stavroula Toska
It comes from my maternal grandmother, Stella Kanari.
She lived through nearly every kind of upheaval: World War I, World War II, years of political imprisonment and torture during the Greek Civil War, and the long shadow of a military dictatorship. She lost three of her six children when they were still young. She had no formal education. And yet—she built a home, raised a family, and never lost her sense of humor or her sharp wit. Read More>>
Saira Umar
Being a creative person, trying to “make it” is always going to be filled with a lot of rejection. Ultimately, your passion has to outweigh the doubt, and your determination to get better and keep going until you get your chance has to come from within. Turn every “no” into a “not yet” until you get a “yes,” or decide to give yourself a “yes.” You have to have a unwavering hope and belief in yourself, because the alternate is giving up or doing it half-baked. Only you have to give yourself permission to create. Read More>>
Rayna Noel
I get my resilience from the strong women in my life. My grandmothers and mother have had to overcome many personal obstacles, but they always made it through. They set an example of strength and persistence during times of great loss and sorrow. They and many women do impossible jobs because they have no other choice, working through sickness, pain, and grief. These women outlived their spouses, siblings, and some of their children. Read More>>
Allison Ernst
At Stacked by Prevail, our resilience stems from an unwavering sense of purpose that drives us to prevail against all odds, the wholehearted support of cherished friends who stand by us through thick and thin, the deep fulfillment we find in helping others—including our beloved rescued animal companions who’ve found their second chance—and an unshakeable determination to rise above whatever challenges life throws our way. Read More>>
John Pope
My resilience came from adjusting to real life after graduation. School was always kind to me. But it was also a “bird’s nest”, which I inevitably had to leave.
Graduating high school was encouraging for me – I was granted several multi-thousand-dollar scholarships that catapulted me out of my lower/middle-income bracket and into my Meisner training at NYU, which was equally as validating and fulfilling as my high school successes. However, leaving that educational safety net was difficult for me, and I had trouble finding my feet. I always felt that education and performing under instruction was great for me. Read More>>
Patrice Hudson
Patrice’s resilience isn’t something that just appeared one day. It was forged in silence, in storms, in seasons where no one saw the battles she fought. It was built piece by piece through experiences that could have shattered her, but instead shaped her. She is not made of fragility she’s made of fire and grace. She gets her resilience from growing through pain without losing her softness. From waking up after sleepless nights with swollen eyes but still choosing to smile. Read More>>
Kim-Marie Boylan-Ray
I grew up in a council estate in Clondalkin in Dublin, Ireland. There was many things around me I had to say no to as a child. I think my resilience started from there. When it came time to grow up my resilience was tested with love. Through that experience it made me follow and trust my gut more often in life. From there on I built up resilience towards anything that was not serving me in life.What is right for you and what is wrong for you , only you know so never be afraid to say no to protect your values and morals & always stand on YOUR business. Read More>>
