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.
Shay Walicki
My resilience comes from my childhood. I learned very early how to adapt, how to keep going, and how to find stability within myself when things around me felt uncertain. Growing up in different environments taught me independence, emotional awareness, and the ability to show up even when things weren’t easy. Read more>>
Daisy Jones-Brown
For most of my life, I followed a path built on service. I served in the Air Force. I spent decades as a federal leader. I dedicated over 20 years as a Licensed Professional Counselor, helping others navigate trauma, transitions, and life’s hardest moments. From the outside, everything looked stable and successful. I had alot of labels – alot of titles. Read more>>
Erica Icovitti
My resilience comes from my father, who passed away when I was 18 from stage four lung cancer. Even before his diagnosis, he embodied resilience in the way he lived his life. Read more>>
GALIWANGO KENNETH
My resilience comes from the everyday lessons of survival and persistence I saw and lived growing up in Mpererwe, Kampala—starting with my own small hustles and the unbreakable examples set by my parents. As a child, I grew vegetables mainly Cabbages and tomatoes right in our home compound. Read more>>
Baron Stewart
My resilience started here. The Flight from Hell When Leaving Feels Like Survival for One and Hell for Another Palisadoes Airport sat like a promise at the edge of the sea. Read more>>
Karem Zafra Vera
I believe resilience is not something we acquire, it is something we are born with. We do not come into this world with a manual that teaches us how to respond to life, how to navigate pain, or how to keep moving forward. What we are given instead are the ingredients. Read more>>
Alyce Lopez
Resilience, for me, started at a young age. My parents separated when I was young, and by my senior year of high school I had moved out and was navigating how to support myself. Growing up without much stability meant learning quickly that if I wanted something, I had to go after it on my own. Read more>>
Amy Maggipinto
My resilience comes from building Kindred A Beauty Collective as a value driven space. It was created with intention.. community over competition, creativity over ego, and sustainability over burnout. Leading in that way has taught me how to adapt, stay grounded, and move through change with clarity. Read more>>
Jessy Folkema
Our resilience as event coordinators at Stori Events comes from a few deeply rooted places. We borrow strength from our couples’ stories. When timelines implode, weather turns, vendors are late, or plans shift (sometimes minutes before guests arrive), we’re grounded by why we’re there. We’re holding space for someone’s once-in-a-lifetime moment. Read more>>
Ramya Ravi
My resilience comes from my interest in designing experiences through technology that help people and the communities around me. As I try to re-enter the workforce and the current job market is challenging, I didn’t let it discourage me. Instead, I focused my energy on meaningful work. Read more>>
Luis Estrada
Resiliency is something build over a long period of time, not something you can just get. It’s creating momentum with a bad hand. Becoming resilient requires pain and failure, it requires guidance, nurturing, and honestly, a mind set capable of learning through chaos as well as you do through peace. Read more>>
Sara Arango
As a below knee amputee, I’ve had to learn resiliency over these last 10 years. In 2015, I became sick with an autoimmune disease called GPA, resulting in the amputation of my left leg below the knee. We don’t know how strong we are until we have no other choice. Read more>>
AJ Sharpe
My resilience comes from understanding my past and allowing that understanding to shape, rather than limit, who I am today. As a child, my experiences felt normal because they were all I knew. As an adult, recognizing that my childhood was anything but typical gave me perspective, clarity, and strength. Read more>>
Aglae Matl
I grew up as an undiagnosed highly masking autistic girl. On top of that my family moved every couple of years until I was 12. I lived in Vienna, Rotterdam, Berlin and back to Vienna. As long as I can remember I felt different, ‘the new girl’, ‘the weird one’ and ‘know-it-all’. I felt too smart and too dumb at the same time. Read more>>
Ciara Dickinson
I would say my resilience comes from my grandmother and my mother. They are truly the foundation of who I am today. My grandmother was a college professor and a single mother of three, and my mother works for a large corporation where she consistently gives her all. Read more>>
Stella Ferrao
I get my resilience from my faith in God, my life experiences, and my ability to adapt in challenging situations. Difficult seasons have taught me perseverance, self-awareness, and the importance of continuing forward even when things feel uncertain. Not having difficult moments means i am not growing so those are there to help me grow. Everything that comes my way is to perfect me. Read more>>
Katya Aragão
My resilience comes from a mix of place, purpose, and people. I grew up between worlds: São Tomé and Príncipe, Portugal, and Angola, which trained me early to adapt, start over, and find my footing even when life changes fast. That “in-between” upbringing taught me to be comfortable with uncertainty and to keep moving even when I don’t have all the answers yet. Read more>>
d’Shante Clarke
Resilience, for me, comes from responsibility and purpose. When people depend on you, whether it’s your family, your team, your clients. You learn quickly that you don’t always have the luxury of stopping when things get difficult. You adapt, recalibrate, and keep moving forward. Balancing a full-time engineering career, motherhood, and building a business has taught me how to stay grounded under pressure. Read more>>
Suhani Parikh
Truthfully speaking, there is nothing that will teach you resilience more than starting and running your own business. I was blissfully unaware of the plethora of challenges that one must overcome in order to be even remotely successful. You learn very quickly that if you do not bounce right back up the moment you are knocked down, you’ll stay down for good. Read more>>
Julie Badaracco, Psy.D.
Growing up, my family moved a lot. I remember feeling very different from my peers because we didn’t stay in the same place for a long time and because I was a “mixed kid.” We lived in many places where there were few, if any, other kids with parents of different ethnicities, and this often left me feeling isolated. Read more>>
Luis Dena
My resilience comes from the child I once was the child who dreamed of dedicating his life to art. The deep desire to express my most intimate emotions through music has shaped the discipline that drives me to pursue what I long for. Read more>>
Janibell Suero
My resilience really comes from my upbringing. I’m an immigrant, and when we came to the U.S., my mom raised three kids completely on her own. There wasn’t a safety net. She worked multiple jobs at the same time, constantly juggling responsibilities, and failure just wasn’t an option because she had us depending on her. Watching that shaped me early. Read more>>
Desi Osei-Bobie
My resilience comes from God first and foremost. I truly believe He has placed me in positions that He knew I could handle — even in moments when I doubted myself. There were times I thought I wouldn’t make it through certain seasons, and yet I surprised myself by continuing to push forward. Read more>>
Sabreena Frances Michel
People often call it resilience, but for me it was survival before it ever became strength. I didn’t wake up one day and decide to be resilient—I was entrusted with a child who needed me to keep going, no matter how hard the day was. Read more>>
Te’Asia Ganter
Choosing one of these topics was difficult, because in a way, they all tie together. Therefore it would be difficult to answer one question alone. However, I chose to talk about my resilience as it has so many stories within. While I have built my own resilience, much of it comes from my mother. Read more>>
Vantonio BeGreat OnPurpose Fraley
My resilience comes from a mix of necessity, purpose, and faith. From a very young age, I learned that life doesn’t always slow down for your circumstances—you either find a way forward or get left behind. Read more>>
Paul Sanchez IV
I was unhoused as a teenager and that experience recalibrates your relationship to fear and failure. You realize you’ve already survived the thing everyone else is afraid of. Once you’ve lived without stability, you stop mistaking comfort for safety. What you hold onto instead is curiosity, empathy, and a stubborn refusal to disappear. I also get my resilience from making something out of nothing. Read more>>
Roxanne Tome
Hmm, i think this is two fold. Being from South Africa, i think there is a base level of resilience that’s kinda inbred from the environment. South Africa experiences load shedding, which means the government enforces planned electricity blackouts for regions for a number of hours, depending on the grids capabilities. This could happen weekly, or daily. Read more>>
Haley Amos
My resilience comes from my daughter. On the days I’m tired, overwhelmed, or doubting myself, she’s the reason I keep going. I want her to grow up seeing what perseverance looks like — not perfection, but showing up, pushing through, and believing in yourself even when it’s hard. Everything I do is rooted in giving her a life where she feels safe, inspired, and proud. Read more>>
Dr. LaTibbie Cavett
Resilience, for me, was built in the quiet moments when I had no choice but to keep going. There were seasons of my life where stress felt heavy on my chest balancing work, caregiving, and the emotional weight of uncertainty. I remember days when exhaustion made getting out of bed feel like a battle, yet someone still needed me to show up. Read more>>
Sandra Kallenberg
To be honest, I had to look up the word “resilience’ in the dictionary in order to answer this question. I mean, I knew the word and the general meaning, but didn’t really know the exact definition. In doing my research, I found two definitions of ‘resilience’ that really spoke to me and gave me more perspective on how other people see me. Read more>>
Amy Shaw
Resilience in my life didn’t begin as strength—it began as a choice. Early on, I experienced a loss that quietly rewired how I would face every hardship that followed: the death of one of my twins at twenty-two weeks gestation. Along with the loss of my child came the loss of a future I had already imagined and held dear. Read more>>
Johnny Larson
A lot of it comes from growing up as a sickly asthmatic kid. I learned early on that some things are out of your control, but your mindset is not. I also experienced loss at a young age, which pushed me to mature sooner than I expected. Read more>>
Sister Roma
2026 marks my 39th year in the habit, which means I have devoted more than half my life to community service, activism, philanthropy, and queer joy. My resilience is fueled by my conviction that I’m fighting the good fight. Read more>>
Sarah Bennett
Since I was a young child, I have always believed that my life was important to God—that I was seen, known, and deeply loved. Even as a child, I felt the nearness of God as I navigated personal and family trials. I give all the glory and honor to God for sustaining me to this point in my life. Read more>>
Lashawndra Robinson
My resilience comes from lived experience and reflection. I have lived many chapters in one life. Some joyful. Some painful. Some confusing. All formative. Resilience, for me, is not about being unbreakable. It is about being honest… Honest about fatigue. Honest about fear. Honest about growth still in progress. I learned that resilience grows when you stop pretending and start paying attention. Read more>>
Lexi Jordan
I would say I get my resilience from my family and the people I have surrounded myself with. I think it’s important to be around people who share similar values and understand the importance of hard work. Read more>>
YeVonne Allen
My resilience comes from learning early how to navigate responsibility and uncertainty. I am a first-generation college student and the oldest sibling, which meant figuring things out without a roadmap and often being the one others looked to for stability. Those experiences taught me how to adapt, advocate, and stay grounded when outcomes are unclear. Being first-generation shaped how I understand systems. Read more>>
Susan Graham
I inherited my father’s strong will. That means we clashed when I was younger. My dad, who worked for General Motors, told me what college I should go to, that I should be an engineer, follow in his footsteps and work for General Motors. My first semester in college I took chemistry, calculus, and art history. The second semester I took chemistry, calculus, and photography. Read more>>
Robert Curcio
I’m not exactly sure where my resilience comes from. I guess partly from my parents, and a good portion is being an only child. My parents provided lots of love and support in many different ways, which allowed me to grow as a person without worries. I’m definitely not the ‘spoiled child’ that people think of when they think of an only child. Read more>>
Zoe Khristina
For a while, my relationship with my work was shaped by isolation and self-doubt. Not the overly dramatic kind, but more so slow paced.. where you’re so alone with your thoughts that they start sounding like facts. Read more>>
Charlotte Wang
As a child, I first learned resilience from my grandfather, a self-taught mechanical engineer who never gave up. He learned through trial and error and persistence. When something failed, he studied it, adjusted, and tried again. I was amazed that he could stay focused and remain patient even though there was no formal instruction and the task was frustrating. Read more>>
Manny Abreu
My parents, they thought me how to work hard and that not everything is going to be your way. Always proud to where you come from and represent on whatever you do. Read more>>
Laura Lynch, CFP®
I love that we are talking about resilience. Now more than ever we all need to be building our adaptability and resources – both inner and outer. The heart of resilience, though isn’t necessarily about always getting bigger, better, stronger. Resilience is simply our ability to live through and change to meet the present moment. Read more>>
Tom Witkowski
For me, resilience is rooted in passion. I love to write and create, and it’s what I was put here to do. When you discover something that makes you feel so alive, that you care so deeply about, there’s no wall you won’t run through to continue to do it in some way, shape or form. Read more>>
Bri Woodson
My resilience comes from surviving things I was never supposed to survive. It comes from moving through active addiction into recovery, from learning how to live again when my mind and body were used to survival mode. It comes from confronting my mental health head-on instead of running from it, and choosing healing even when staying the same would have been easier. Read more>>
