Brilliantly Resilient

Brilliantly Resilient is back!! After some much needed time off, B.R. is back with new episodes, amazing guests, and more inspiration for you to live a Brilliantly Resilient life. Let us know what you think and reach out at howdy@brilliantlyresilient.net . Be sure to check out www.brilliantlyresilient.net for more! And now, on with the show! Who is to say my day is worth nothing? Take your power b...

Storytelling is a Trojan horse, with our activism inside. It's a much gentler approach to guide someone to a wider lens of understanding, compassion and empathy. ~ Kristen McGuiness Have you ever felt "changed" by a book? Those who love to read–and write–know what it's like to become lost in a story, feeling along with characters and experiencing their trials and triumphs along with them. Kristen...

Building community both in your business and with your customer community is essential. I see community as "common unity." Everyone in a community has something they care about and we want to be part of that. It's good for employees and good for customers.  ~ Kevin Nolan By their nature, entrepreneurs often start their businesses alone, taking on many roles as they try to build their companies int...

Gratitude is a tool that connects us to our happiness, success and power.  ~ Kristin Smedley & Mary Fran Bontempo NOTE** This episode was previously aired, but it's fun, has a great message and deserves to be run again! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!! Has it ever occurred to you that gratitude can help you tap into your power? We don't often think of thankfulness as a powerful thing. In fact, s...

I don't subscribe to the idea that women, as we get older, we just fall apart. This may sound crazy, but I believe menopause is empowering…after so many years of caring for so many people, this is our time. ~ Julie Gordon White Have you experienced "the pause?" As women, we are all destined to experience menopause, should we reach the age. If we believe the media, that's when we go from Snow White...

Normally, because of how I was raised, I would steer clear of anything that was confrontational because I wanted to keep the peace. But I started to wonder, whose peace was I keeping? ~ Donna Marie Hayes How many times have you avoided confrontation to "keep the peace?" How many times have you explained away red flags in relationships or situations because you couldn't or wouldn't face your own do...

By making best friends with denial and distraction, I was refusing to see what "could be" going on in my life, which was that my son had been struggling for a very long time with substance abuse issues. I kept holding onto what I thought my life and my son "should be," instead of facing and dealing with the truth. ~ Mary Fran Bontempo Have you ever known that a crisis was barrelling down on you bu...

We live stories and beliefs that we've inherited. It can be so difficult to get rid of the trash in our heads that weighs us down. But the truth is that we are all "Women That Influence," we just have to believe that. ~ Sara Canuso   Do you recognize your power to influence? It's not always easy to see how we can impact those in our lives and the world at large, especially when life's minutiae can...

The most important foundational pillar of being Brilliantly Resilient for me is perception. It is how you are seeing your challenges. Are you looking at your life the way it "should be," or are you seeing what "could be?"  ~Kristin Smedley How do you see your challenges? No one looks at challenges as a blessing, at least not at first. But many people report feeling as though their challenges chang...

Let's wake up every day and let's be on fire about a contribution that we're making to a broader audience. ~ Aleta Norris What's your purpose? Yes, it's a heavy question–one most of us grapple with often. But we can start to find our purpose once we look beyond ourselves. Aleta Norris , best-selling author of Women Who Spark and Women Who Spark After 50 , joins the Brilliantly Resilient podcast to...

We are always looking for signs of domestic violence, but we hear them more often than we see them. Domestic violence doesn't always look like broken bones and bruises. I was living in domestic abuse and I didn't even know it. ~ Dr. Jennifer Gardella Do you know anyone who is experiencing domestic abuse? Are you sure? As Dr. Jennifer Gardella aptly notes, domestic abuse is not always visible. In f...

Some people think of marketing as flash. I was Facebook rich and client poor for 5 years. Stop friending your peers, they aren't your clients. ~ Tai Goodwin Are you an entrepreneur? If you own or promote a business, how much time do you spend posting on social media? Better yet, how much time do you spend posting on social media and assume that you are marketing your business?  Tai Goodwin, founde...

Getting sucker-punched is part of everyone's journey. Sometimes the most successful people had more worst moments to share with the audience. But it always came back to them being resilient, getting up again, swinging that bat and eventually connecting and hitting that single, double, home run or sometimes grand slam. ~ John Lee Dumas, EOFire Have you ever envied—just a little—people who are highl...

For several seasons we've been bringing you all of the stories about how if we can do it, you can do it. Then it was with our guests, if they can do it, you can do it. But people were asking okay, "But how? How do you do it?"  ~ Kristin Smedley We're back!! Welcome back to a New Season of Brilliantly Resilient Live! As former teachers and moms, September is our New Year. We get excited about new b...

Doubt can go two ways: One direction leads to fear, the other to hope. ~ Dr. Lee Warren: Hope is the First Dose What does it mean to hope? As children, we hope for a bike for Christmas or a puppy. As we grow, hope may be in the form of a prom date. But as we grow, and life brings its challenges, it becomes harder to hope, sometimes resulting in depression or despair. Dr. Lee Warren has survived mo...

I went to Ukraine thinking I'd find victims of war and recipients of humanitarian aid. What I found were civilians creatively, consciously engaging in what was going on around them. Every person had their own process as a starting point to resilience. ~ Greta Uehling: 'Everyday War' Can you imagine life in a war zone? For those of us living in the United States, life in a war zone is something we...

Bad things happen. It's what we do with them. Grace is defined as an undeserved, unmerited gift. I've been given a gift. ~ Geralyn Ritter: 'Bone by Bone Have you ever experienced devastating trauma? We've all had challenges, but thankfully, most of us have never had to deal with crushing, life-altering trauma. Geralyn Ritter knows what can happen to change life in an instant. In 2015, a terrifying...

S.E.L.F. Serve others, Eat and exercise, Learn something, Forgive somebody. ~ Rob Kenney: 'Dad, How Do I?' Everyone has, or had, a dad. But not everyone has been lucky enough to have a great relationship with their father. Rob Kenney, a.k.a. "Dad, How Do I?" was one of those people. After a challenging childhood, Rob eventually became a father himself, and decided to become a virtual dad to anyone...

Look at your calendar from the last few months and see what put a smile on your face. What about those experiences can you do more of? ~ Fran Hauser: 'Embrace the Work, Love Your Career' Does your work make you smile? Not everyone grins when they wake up on Monday mornings thinking of work. Our friend Fran Hauser has a plan to help anyone struggling with work re-evaluate and move forward in the se...

"Create a silver lining. Do something, build something, create something." ~ Dr. David Fajgenbaum, Chasing My Cure Dr. David Fajgenbaum:  Chasing My Cure   David Fajgenbaum, a former Georgetown quarterback, was nicknamed the Beast in medical school, where he was also known for his unmatched mental stamina. But things changed dramatically when he began suffering from a form of Castleman disease, an...

The gift of suffering is that we are here to help other people who are suffering now. ~ Dr. Lise Deguire: Flashback Girl Few of us get through life without suffering. Yet few have suffered as our friend Lise Deguire, and even fewer have made a life-long committment to help others despite, or perhaps because of, that suffering.  Flashback Girl  At the age of four, Dr. Lise Deguire suffered third-de...

Week 3 of the Brilliantly Resilient Summer Reading List! Life not turning out exactly as you planned? Read about how to limit your "pity party" and find renewed purpose, energy and perspective from our friend Keith Baldwin in A Leap Year of Firsts! Limit your Pity Party. I threw a hell of a Pity Party, but those emotions don't help you with solutions or move you forward. ~ Keith Baldwin, 'A Leap Y...

Week 2 of Brilliantly Resilient Reading! Read more about Game Changer by Pictionary creator Rob Angel! I had to break things down into smaller pieces. I couldn't handle the entire thing at once; my mind doesn't work that way. ~ Rob Angel, Creator of Pictionary and Author of 'Game Changer' Who hasn't played Pictionary as a kid--or as an adult?! It's a classic, and we've got our Brilliantly Resilien...

Our Summer Reading list is here!! First up, our friend and mentor to women, Selena Rezvani, with her new book,  Quick Confidence ! Read on for more…. Experiment with dog-code and initiate a warm hello. When we start with warmth, it's like a door that we open. Be curious, ask questions, be empathetic. Start with warmth and focus on your competence later. ~ Selena Rezvani How confident are you? It m...

GET OUR SUMMER READING LIST!!! If you're like us, you're gonna need some resilience reminders and some super strategies from some of our most favorite guests all summer long. You'll get the book selections and the podcast episodes. ~ Kristin & Mary Fran It's SUMMER!!! We love summer here at Brilliantly Resilient, especially because it means Beach Reads!! And have we got a list for you! From so...