Resilience is the Key

My mom was an immigrant from Italy, born in 1929, she spent the last 3 years of World War II in a German concentration camp. Once the war was over she had to walk back to Italy from Germany.

My mom had a 5th grade education, and yet is the biggest influence in my life. People who have grown up in a first generation immigrant family will know what I mean. There were very few affirmations, lots of criticism and such a high expectation for hard work.

It took me many years to understand why she was so tough on us, but eventually I understood that the work ethic she instilled in my sister and me are the reasons we can do and accomplish so much. I had a wonderful and at times difficult childhood but we were very loved, and that high expectation led to creating unbreakable resilience. Intelligence is useless without the hard work that is required to create something special.