Brilliantly Resilient Mary Fran Bontempo & Kristin Smedley

If you’re only subscribing to someone else’s version of success, it’s not going to make you happy because it’s not your version; you never really wanted it. We have to take time on the front end to figure out what that success means to us. ~ Matthew Turner How do you define success? For most of us, the word “success” is tied to professional recognition, money and some level of prestige. But do those things truly bring happiness? And what is the cost of achieving them?
Author Matthew Turner explores those questions in his latest book, Beyond the Pale, in which his protagonist achieves society’s version of success, only to find he never truly wanted it. In this fictional account, Ferdinand fulfills the expectations of what he was told was success, only to discover that success means something entirely different to him personally. 
According to Matthew, personal success means different things to different people–one size doesn’t fit all. The way to discover what success means to each of us begins with focusing on the one thing we truly own–our values, and moving forward from there. 
Here at Brilliantly Resilient, we believe that defining personal values is the first step to accessing resilience and rising after challenges. When we act based on what is genuinely important to us, we follow our true path and open the door to opportunities that resonate with us–helping us to define our own versions of success, and allowing our brilliance to shine. It’s not always easy to change; as Matthew reminds us, Whenever you have an awakening, it’s almost always easier to roll over and stay asleep, but it is worth it.
Take time to decide what success means to YOU, and jettison the guilt you may feel at abandoning a path that may not lead you to where you really want to be. Tune in to hear more from Matthew on this episode of the Brilliantly Resilient podcast, and be sure to listen for these additional bits of Brilliance:
Whenever you have an awakening, it’s almost always easier to roll over and stay asleep.
How dare you have the audacity to change your mind? We put a lot of guilt into changing our minds.
We spend too little time focusing on our individual values and principals. If you don’t have values, what do you own? They are your version of doing the right thing.
We spend too little time focusing on our individual values and principals. If you don’t have values, what do you own? They are your version of doing the right thing.
Replace success with meaning and purpose and recognize that success is malleable.
Really successful people define success on their own terms. They deconstruct society’s idea of success and create their own.
Let’s be Brilliantly Resilient together!
XO, 
Kristin and Mary Fran
 

You have to trust yourself. If I didn’t trust myself when everything went wrong, I wouldn’t be where I am. Even if you trust yourself though, you also have to have someone else trust you. It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to feel what you feel. Keep talking and someone will eventually listen.  ~ Gabi Drobot
No sleep. Lousy diets. Stress and continuous overwhelm. Feelings of failure. Sounds awful, doesn’t it? Yet, that’s precisely what many of our college students experience every day.
In our idealized vision of college life, we see the independence and fun of college life–the partying, the fun, the self-absorption that comes with the freedom of life away from home and its obligations. Yet, at least half of all college students report feeling exhausted, overwhelmed and unable to keep up. 
As Gabi Drobot reports, this lack of self-care is epidemic, and sometimes even glamorized, by the young people experiencing its effects. 
A college sophomore and staff writer for the paper at her university, Gabi developed an interest in spotlighting mental health for students after experiencing her own challenges and recognizing the lack of helpful, open conversation around the subject. Gabi has become an advocate for encouraging students not to see ignoring self-care as a badge of honor, but rather to recognize the perils to both present and future when students fail to take physical and mental care of themselves.
Here at Brilliantly Resilient, we know how challenging it can be to carve out time to minister to oneself. Life’s obligations often mean we are last on our own lists. Yet the effects of ignoring our physical and mental health can quickly damage our personal and professional lives, causing cracks in the very foundations we are trying desperately to keep strong.
Remember to take time for self-care–especially by getting enough sleep!--and watch for signs that the young people in your life are struggling. Together we can help prioritize our mental and physical health, allowing us all to live Brilliantly Resilient lives!
Read Gabi’s article on Deglamorizing the Lack of Self-Care in College Students and be sure to listen for these additional bits of Brilliance on this week’s edition of the Brilliantly Resilient podcast!
Fifty percent of college students report daytime sleepiness and 70% report not getting enough sleep.
I felt like I couldn't share my feelings because it wasn’t a “normal” conversation. If we make it an open conversation, how many people could this help?
I chunked off my day. Morning is class, afternoon is work and at night I can do what I want. It helped me put aside my FOMO.
Surrounding yourself with people with common goals and spending time by yourself is so important.
Let’s be Brilliantly Resilient together!
XO,
Kristin & Mary Fran

I just wanted to say that I really needed to hear this today. I’m going through something and I really needed to hear that I can do it. Thank you. ~ Attendee from Soroptimist “Dream It, Be It” Conference for Girls  It’s not easy to be a young person today. Conflict is the norm, uncertainty is the future, and Covid has wreaked havoc on every aspect of life, particularly affecting young people, for the past three years. The U.S. Surgeon General has warned of a crippling mental health crisis affecting our youth.
Enter Soroptimist International, a volunteer group founded in 1921 with clubs in 121 countries that is dedicated to the advancement of women and girls. Each year, Soroptimist International hosts the Dream It, Be It, conference, where young women of high school age are offered sessions to learn about career options, career skills and planning, time management, resilience strategies, and more. 
Nancy Staich, a Soroptimist volunteer, notes that it’s important that young women know it’s okay to reinvent themselves as life changes. Evolution is natural and it’s never too late to take a new path and recreate yourself. Nancy adds that the need for resilience is never ending, and building a supportive tribe is equally essential for a young woman’s current and future success.
We were blessed to be able to share Brilliantly Resilient with this amazing group of young women and provide tips to Reset with Resilience, Rise and Reveal their Brilliance. The quote above was from a young lady who came to us immediately after our presentation to affirm that it’s important to remind our young people of their strengths and continue to provide them with tools and mentors to grow towards success.
We all have a responsibility to equip our youth with the tools and strategies needed for success. Get involved and make a difference. Tune into this episode of the Brilliantly Resilient podcast to learn more, and be sure to look out for these additional bits of brilliance:
We want girls to think about what they want. What am I really passionate about? What do I care about?
We want girls to remember that they’re bringing their entire selves to work. They have to see themselves as whole people.
It’s okay to recreate yourself when you need to recreate yourself. It’s never too late.
We want the girls to build a tribe and talk to people who can help them learn and grow. There are mentors out there who want to help.
Learn more about Soroptimist International of Indian Rock at: www.investindreams.org
Let’s be Brilliantly Resilient together!
Mary Fran & Kristin

 
Don’t operate from a fear mindset, operate from a growth mindset. Look at life from a Brilliantly Resilient lens. ~ Kristin Smedley and Mary Fran Bontempo Happy birthday to us!!! We can’t believe it, but this week–March 7th–marks the 3rd birthday of Brilliantly Resilient!
When we started Brilliantly Resilient, we planned a “world tour” of speaking on stages, sharing our process to Reset, Rise and Reveal Your Brilliance to the world. We prepared, we created, we dreamed and then, on March 7th, we had our first Brilliantly Resilient live event! It was amazing!! We couldn’t have asked for more and we were so excited for the future of Brilliantly Resilient.
Then, on March 14th, 2020, the entire world shut down. And so did all of our plans.
Given what we preach, you’d think we immediately started to Reset with Resilience. Instead, we cried, we complained, we shook our fists at the heavens…and then we got over ourselves.
We realized that we couldn’t control anything that was happening in the world, but we could control our response. So, we decided to practice what we were preaching and started to look for ways to share Brilliantly Resilient–when we couldn’t leave home.
Fast forward three incredible years, and we have a top-rated podcast, a book, we’ve traveled around the country, both in person and virtually–all to share the Brilliantly Resilient program with thousands of others. As we often say, we are our own best case study, and have implemented each step of the Brilliantly Resilient process over and over again–proving that it works.
We work the Brilliantly Resilient steps every day, and we’ve moved from a fear mindset to a growth mindset. Simply put, that means that instead of crashing and burning with challenges, we acknowledge them, make values-based decisions, check our perspective and see what’s in our control. We can then take imperfect action (we’ve learned that nothing is perfect, and that’s okay) and evolve with what happens next.
Sharing Brilliantly Resilient has been a joyous opportunity, and we’re incredibly grateful for those of you who have learned, laughed and discovered your resilience and brilliance with us. Thank you is not enough, but a heartfelt thanks to you all for your support. We're just getting started!
Tune into this week’s podcast to hear more (from us!), and be sure to listen for these additional bits of brilliance:
When everything is taken away, you get to go back to your basic values, figure out what’s important, and make decisions based on that. You can create a process for managing things.
I look at life through a Brilliantly Resilient lens now, not as a victim or in anger. Now I know how I’m going to show up when a sucker punch comes along. 
You can bring your transferable skills to every experience. Figure out what your Brilliant skill set is and bring that to every experience and see what happens. Then find others with complementary skill sets to add to your tribe.
Kids don't look at failure as failure. They look at it as a learning opportunity. 
Let’s be Brilliantly Resilient together!
Kristin and Mary Fran
 

I had a very successful fitness business, but I had to get away from the toxic expectations of the fitness industry. I couldn’t sell six pack ab products anymore. I had to shut it down. ~ Katie Bramlett Have you ever had something that’s supposed to be good for you end up feeling bad for you? Many of us feel that way about exercise. We know it’s good for us, but it doesn’t always feel that way. 
Katie Bramlett, this week’s guest on the Brilliantly Resilient podcast is a fitness guru. But even Katie knew, despite having great success in the fitness industry, that the traditional view of exercise and fitness had become toxic. 
Realizing that the key to fitness was more about intentional movement connected to self-care than endless crunches, squats and striving for unattainable physiques, Katie closed down her businesses and started WeShape–intending to build a community focused on a shift away from a number on the scale.
By focusing on movement as a self-care practice and adjustable programs to help all users achieve success, Katie built a company based on shared values and gratitude for what any body is capable of doing.
When we live a values-based life, we often find that our work and personal lives reach out to each other, allowing us to be true to what we believe and to find ways to incorporate those beliefs into our actions.
To hear more from Katie, tune into this episode of the Brilliantly Resilient podcast and be sure to listen for these additional bits of brilliance:
The idea of fitting in jeans will not be a sustainable reason to keep up with an exercise program. I hated exercise because I was doing it for the wrong reasons.  It has to be an act of self-care.
If we focus on a number on the scale, even if we get to that number, it’s fake fulfillment. It’s external fulfillment. We can’t have a belief that our worth comes from a number on a scale.
We have to understand that with 8 billion people in the world, we all can’t have the same body type. Feel gratitude for what your body can do.
I had to fight my own mindset of “I’m not an expert.” I just knew this was so important, so I did it despite the internal and external negativity against making fitness about connecting to the self.
WeShape is based on a meaningful shift away from the number on the scale to movement and connection with self and community. Our program is based on movement we can scale up or down depending on what the user needs.
~ Katie Bramlett
Let’s be Brilliantly Resilient together!
Mary Fran & Kristin
 

Alternative pathways to learning and education are really the key to educating today’s students. So, how are we interconnected to businesses? How are we connected to the community? Everyone has that buy-in. How can we get businesses and the community and non-profits involved? ~Carlos Aponte Do you remember what you learned in Geometry class? Philosophy? Chemistry? Much of what we learned as students was intended to offer a well-rounded education, gearing us towards college–where we often took classes that were equally forgettable. (A course in James Joyce for English? Mary Fran had a headache for a solid month!) 
Carlos Aponte taught in the Philadelphia school system for over ten years. Having lived through childhood trauma, Carlos recognized that many of his students were also struggling with serious challenges, and the educational system was not meeting their needs. Further, the path for students not headed for college often seemed like a dead-end.
Knowing there was a better way, Carlos created the non-profit We Love Philly, a program that allows students to earn high school credits while learning how to practice self-care, engage with their community, create their own personal brand, and apprentice at area businesses.
 Carlos recognizes the value in educating the whole student, and knows that encouraging the individual, as well as area businesses and organizations, to engage and support each other allows young people to feel a sense of worth and belonging that carries into adulthood.
 Here at Brilliantly Resilient, we believe in building powerful tribes based on complementary skills sets so that everyone brings their best selves to every challenge. And living based on values with an emphasis on self-care helps our young people recognize their own power and worth, helping them to find their place in the world–both big and small.
Tune into this week’s episode to hear more from Carlos and listen for these additional bits of brilliance:
You can’t have an ounce of judgment in your bones when you’re working with young people. You have to get through the trust / mistrust stage before you can reach kids. Once your body, mind and soul are aligned, you can do anything.
There is a major disconnect between administration, teachers and students with the diverse learning styles and proficiencies in those groups. The brains are different and learn differently.
 Let’s be Brilliantly Resilient together!
 Mary Fran & Kristin