For an organization to be truly resilient, its people must be courageously resilient. In our work alongside clients, we experience this truth every day. Within this blog series, we’ve set out to tell the stories of resilient friends, family, and colleagues who inspire and motivate us to persevere in the face of challenges and do good in the world and in our work.
In Part One of “The Resilience of People” blog series, we hear from our North Highland Summer Intern, Isaac Feiner, about the courageous story of his sister, Ariana Rose.
Businesses today demand commitment and passion from their leaders and employees far beyond what we have ever seen before. As these businesses transform, they require such individuals to maintain a high level of intent, as to not lose the business’ ethos: its true purpose.
The people that make up a company must go above and beyond to sacrifice their time and energy to put everything they have into their business, especially those in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs learn that both their business is their life and their life is their business at an early stage.
It takes a certain kind of individual to be an entrepreneur, one who is willing to sacrifice for an adventure they believe will change the way people think, act, and live. Certain businesspeople learn this value earlier than others: to be resilient takes full belief.
My sister, Ariana Feiner, author of “Ariana Rose: A Story of Courage,” learned this value at an early age.
When she was 16, she was diagnosed with Hyperthyroidism, an endocrine system condition requiring the immediate removal of the thyroid. Her surgery, unfortunately, did not go smoothly. Due to a surgical error, she lost all four of her parathyroids, which resulted in a rare metabolic condition called Hypopara.
Because Hypopara is difficult to treat and causes many life-threatening symptoms, Ariana spent years in and out of the hospital, never able to finish high school, despite the fact that she had been a straight-A student her entire life. This did not stop her, though, as she took the General Educational Development (GED) test and scored in the 99th percentile.
She continued on to receive the presidential scholarship from Oglethorpe University and write a children’s book specifically created to help young children living with a chronic illness feel that they are and can be just like everyone else their age; they just may have to “take special medicine and get extra rest, have a positive attitude, and do their best.”
The Dr. Seuss-esque rhyming book has helped children all over the world cope with having a chronic illness, as Ariana mostly donates books to hospitals across the globe.
Her passion for her business derives from immense intrinsic motivation to do good in the world, despite that the world has dealt her a difficult hand of cards. It is people like my sister that will progress the business world through tumult, recessions, and change.