Brilliantly Resilient

Brilliantly Resilient

What's your train wreck? Everyone has one–past, present, or future. But why do some people come through stronger while others never recover? Hang on for the ride as Mary Fran teaches you to move beyond crisis to discover your Brilliance and Resilience. You'll face challenges with strategies to come through brilliant, not broken, for personal and professional fulfillment and success!

Episodes

June 24, 2025 35 mins

"The 20s are not the best days of your life. It is a myth that needs to be busted.”
~ Kate Berski, Author: 30 Phobia: Why Your 20s Suck and How to Get Unstuck

Ah, to be 20 again, right? After all, the 20s are supposed to be the best time of our lives, right?

Not so fast. 

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“Great leadership starts by leading with a mindset that's scalable—being willing to see things bigger. What would this look like if...?”

~ Ivy Slater, CEO of Slater Success and Author of Best of the Best: Lead Boldly, Scale Rapidly, Create Your Legacy

What does the word "scalable" mean to you?

...

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“My work directly acknowledges that anxiety (around AI) and talks about what actions we can take to take care of ourselves, our families, our communities, during a time that’s high opportunity but also really high volatility.”

~Dr. Joan Palmiter Bajorek AI Expert and Author of: Your AI Roadmap: Actions to Expand Your Career, Money and Joy"

Are you afraid of AI? 

Artificial Intell...

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"The hardest thing you've ever done is the hardest thing you've ever done. And it is no easier or harder than the hardest thing I've ever done.... Hard is hard."

~ Ash Beckham, Everyday Leadership Coach, Inclusion Activist, TEDx Speaker and Author of Step Up: How to ...

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"Lasting resilience begins with acceptance. For me, acceptance is an every day prayer." 

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    "It doesn't mean all the snacks in the break room are the greatest. It means that you work in a place that recognizes the dignity of you as a person, recognizes the value of your contributions, and recognizes that ...

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    "Be involved in both your business and personal finances. 80% of women will die single. At some point in your life you are going to have to manage your finances. A man is not a financial plan."

    ~ Audrey Faust: Author of She Grows Rich; Expert CFO and Money Mindset Authority

    Are you in financial survival mode? Many women are. It's a mindset trap that many women, especially female entrepreneurs, ca...

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    "Acute and chronic pain are processed in different parts of the brain. If you aren't healing and are still in pain, it's possible that your brain has established learned neural pathways that can continue to cause pain, which becomes chronic."
    Patty Tashiro ~ Natural Brain Solutions

    Is your brain keeping you in pain? The emotional responses we have to trauma--which often stay with us--can trigger th...

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    "There is diversity within diversity itself. Even people with shared disabilities have different experiences. We are all diverse. Diversity includes everyone."

    ~ Toby Mildon, Author of Inclusive Growth: Future-proof Your Business by Creating a Diverse Workspace, and Building Inclusivity: Making Your Workplace Equitable, Diverse and Inclusive

     

    How many people in the world are exactly like you? EXACTLY like you, no...

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    The Maasai tribe of Africa greets one another by saying "How are the children?" We have to recognize that all the children in our community are our children.
    Christina Sorenson
    Attorney and Advocate for Foster Children at TeamChild

     

    Christina Sorenson was in 15 different foster care homes from ages five to fifteen. Separated from her sister and eventually adopted at age fifteen, C...

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    "Be where you are on the way to where you want to be going."

    ~ Christine Eberle, Author: Finding God Along the Way

     

    "Be where you are on the way to where you want to be going." Um...huh?

    The above sounds like a riddle, doesn't it? Then again, isn't life a kind of riddle we try to figure out every day?

    Christine Eberle, author of Finding God Along the Way, decided to seek clarity in answering life's riddle by unde...

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    I came down to those two words. Be better. I t...

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    "I needed to embark on a journey to reclaim my connection, both personally and professionally."

    Shawnta Hooks ~ Leading Belonging and Mindfulness Speaker. 

     

    Shawnta Hooks was never a believer in meditation or mindfulness. Working in accounting and corporate compliance during her 20 year corporate career, Shawnta found herself in a toxic work environme...

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    You have everything in you already to live a Brilliantly Resilient life. You have Resilience and you have your own personal Brilliance. It's already there. You were born with both of those things.

    ~ Mary Fran Bontempo, Author,

    From Broken t...

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    Let's have smarter intergenerational conversations. Let's be OK and not threatened by the fact that you see this differently than me. Let's figure out why and how that could actually be helpful and beneficial. 

    Dr. Megan Gerhardt

    Author of Gentelligence: The Revolutionary Approach to Leading an Intergenerational Workforce

    Do you work with people of different generations? Do y...

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    No one checks in on them, right? They often delay their own grief, put off their own mourning in order to support their parents and step up. But then? They remain there and they never really get a turn to express their own grief, or to be the mourner in the room.

    Annie Orenstein ~ Author of  Always a Sibling: The Forgotten Mourner's Guide to Grief 

     

    ...

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    “I'm trying to open stutter more. Because I I've reached a level of of acceptance that I'm proud of, but I'm nowhere near where I need to be. I interview people on podcasts who openly stutter, and I'm so proud of them because they do it without shame and that's the real issue. The real issue is shame, every day, when you stutter.”

    Brian Nolan

    President and Co-founder, Nolan Stuttering Foundation

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    “Here’s the myth I want to break: that self-love is selfish. The more we love ourselves, the less attention we have on ourselves and the more generous we become in a very natural, easy, relaxed way.”

    ~ Rachel Madorsky

    How to Love Yourself in Less Than a Week and Also for the Rest of Your LIfe

     

    Do you love yourself? Does even reading the question make you uncomfo...

    I led an independent study on making adaptive clothing for autistic children in partnership with a preschool….I couldn’t get a job during Covid so I started working in special education and trying to figure out how to turn the study into a brand. I could see how these kids were really struggling with things and how we could add sensory tools to clothing to help these kids throughout their days.

     ~Julia DeNey, Founder "Sense...

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    I’m a gold star chaser…. If you just give the right answer, everybody’s happy. I started this pattern of doing what my parents and the world wanted. It took me a long time to figure out there’s another way…. The gold stars make it really easy to ignore your gut.

    Sarah Gormley

    Author of The Order of Things

     

    Have you ever done something not because you wanted to, ...

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