Rising Through Resilience: Amelia Randolph Campbell of ARC On The Five Things You Can Do To Become More Resilient During Turbulent Times
An Interview With Savio P. Clemente
Dream on only what you want to happen. Where and how you put your attention is everything to how you feel and ultimately what will come to you next. When your head is focused on the bad, do all you can to pay more sustained attention to imagining good than reacting to what’s causing the current pain. We are always imagining things. I invite you to believe that you may as well practice using your imagination for good, and see what happens inside you.
Resilience has been described as the ability to withstand adversity and bounce back from difficult life events. Times are not easy now. How do we develop greater resilience to withstand the challenges that keep being thrown at us? In this interview series, we are talking to mental health experts, authors, resilience experts, coaches, and business leaders who can talk about how we can develop greater resilience to improve our lives.
As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Amelia Randolph Campbell.
Amelia Randolph Campbell, CEO and Founder of ARC,Inc. is a certified Speaker with The Big Talk Academy, TEDx Speaker and a Yahoo Finance pick for the Top 10 Motivational Speakers to watch in 2022.
She spent over a decade performing as a stage and screen Actor, based in New York, followed by years in Leadership and Sales Coaching, and has taken her two unique careers to create a platform which elevates the personal development experience for leaders, positive disruptors, influencers, and communicators.
Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory?
I grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico with the mountains and mesas and most incredible skies. I grew up devoted to dance and the theater, and took to New York right away after college to pursue my acting career. This evolved into entrepreneurship and starting a Family, both of which invited me to dive deeply into new levels of the study of personal growth, and one day I realized that my two careers had a beautiful overlap space which gave birth to my current platform…teaching mindset and growth through the lens of an actor.
Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?
The most interesting story so far is the one about trusting my path, because the career continues to unfold in a perfect storm manner. So much of what I teach is how to be fully in the present moment and draw from every part of yourself to keep fostering new growth and new discovery, and it’s just so true that if you engage in whatever you’re doing this way, you’ll arrive where you’re supposed to. In the days that I turned to business and sales as an entrepreneur at the same time as becoming a Mother, it felt like a departure from Acting, and I was at peace with that even though I said I would never love doing anything else. I threw myself into this new world and I did love it very much! My ability to be really present and open to learning inside all of that brought success in leadership, which brought me to speaking at my company conferences, which brought me people encouraging my speaking more, which brought me to a coach whose program led me to discovering the idea behind my methodology, and that methodology intimately wove back in my original love and skill in the study of acting…this time made whole and uniquely mine to deliver, because I said yes to every bit of my authentic path.
My takeaways are that whatever turns or detours you experience, there’s always a reason to trust in where they’re going to deliver you no matter how it looks to your vantage point at the time. It’s so wonderful to know that your path is always meaningful, always bringing you where you need to be to deliver what you’re meant to know and give to the world, and you get to find out exactly what and why along the way.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
I believe it’s the uniqueness of the point of view that makes ARC Inc. stand out, and the tools I provide to create tactile results for my audiences and clients. When I was being coached in preparation for my first TEDx, I got some confirming feedback which I’ll share with you. The event was produced both by lifelong theater professionals and people who made it their business to have watched thousands of TEDx talks full of fresh ideas, and I was told that it was very exciting because never in their lives had it occurred to them to think of it this way, nor had they heard of anyone talking about or teaching it.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
There are several very obvious names here, but if I had to pick just one, it would be Keiya Rayne, an intuitive life and business coach who I worked with about six years ago. I hired her both to help me get beyond a business growth plateau, and to evolve beyond some personal blockages as well. She was the key influence in kickstarting the most important growth journey of my life to date which continues to blossom tenfold, and if that weren’t enough, of course it was through her that I was first introduced to my current mentor and champion who I’m going to the next levels with, Tricia Brouk.
Keiya is an angel in my life who has always shone the light in advance of where I’ve been meant to go and who I’m meant to meet so far.
Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the trait of resilience. How would you define resilience? What do you believe are the characteristics or traits of resilient people?
Resilience is the quality of inviting growth inside of and surrounding any circumstance. It’s the ability to bounce, flex, bend, and regenerate oneself, trusting that things are happening for a reason and the learning is and will be rewarding. Resilient people are open, curious, multifaceted, willing, extra open eyed, and extra alive.
Courage is often likened to resilience. In your opinion how is courage both similar and different to resilience?
— I think courage is an ingredient of resilience. When I think of how courage feels, it pulls in one direction which feels like upward and forward. When I think of how resilience feels, it’s movement is in all directions, like a dance. So resilience requires courage and they complement and support each other, but ultimately resilient is what you become once you’ve jumped off the stepping stone of that singular ingredient of courage.
When you think of resilience, which person comes to mind? Can you explain why you chose that person?
If I could name each individual Mother on the planet right here and now, I would. I’m not sure I knew the meaning of resilience until I became one, and I want to shower acknowledgement on every woman out there, for the amount of resilience required in that journey. I choose Mothers because not much pushes one past any limit they thought they had than the physical, mental, and emotional demands that are mostly entirely unknown at the outset. Then, Motherhood in combination with any other challenge life presents, is a heroes quest.
Has there ever been a time that someone told you something was impossible, but you did it anyway? Can you share the story with us?
I don’t have one specific story tied to one specific quest, and I really am fortunate to not have serious naysayers in my core circle, but here’s what I notice. When we share the big tasks we’re up to and the dreams we’re pursuing, the response can certainly be positive and supportive, but people will also be quick to throw in their observation of the level of difficulty, competition, cost, scarcity of widespread success, etc. It’s up to us individually to not take that vibration in as belonging to our true north.
Did you have a time in your life where you had one of your greatest setbacks, but you bounced back from it stronger than ever? Can you share that story with us?
I’m fortunate not to have had very many obvious ones, but I also get really determined not to view any stumble or turn in the road as a setback, so it’s hard for me to go there with this one. I’m a real believer that life happens for us, even if we don’t get to find out why till later on. So whenever I’m in a tough time, I try to remember every other time known in my life and certainly known in others, and then think on the beneficial facts which came from it, to bolster faith that absolutely it will work that way this time.
How have you cultivated resilience throughout your life? Did you have any experiences growing up that have contributed to building your resiliency? Can you share a story?
I came into the world engaging in a high level of resilience right off the bat, having taken a breath in the womb and being born with a 15% chance of living. I spent the first three weeks of my life in the ICU, isolated and breathing through tubes, having been given the maximum amount of oxygen they could possibly provide without killing me, to finally get through. Since I can’t remember it, I love to wonder what magical and powerful negotiations transpired, what knowledge and skill were gained, as I danced with the universe in those weeks.
…Through early life and high school I built resiliency through full time commitment to dance and track competitions, and I’m a firm believer that team sports is an ideal way to engage with and learn life skills within the wider world.
And of course, there’s that first big heartbreak. Oh I went down hard, and getting over that one fresh into teenage years was incredibly fruitful in showing me how much life blooms after you think you might die!
Resilience is like a muscle that can be strengthened. In your opinion, what are 5 steps that someone can take to become more resilient? Please share a story or an example for each.
1 — Fully take in the present moment.
When something hits me, happens to me, in realization or experience of the unexpected, in examining it after the fact I realize that too often will rush to figure it out or fix it. I’ll want right away to move it to a more comfortable place in myself, or to make it more comfortable for someone else, as soon as possible. This is pretty natural, but when I compare it to the times that I had the presence of mind to do the opposite and take a moment to simply observe what I’m feeling and invite a moment of stillness in it (which an Actor gets to practice on the regular as our jobs are to be as fully present as possible all the time), I realize how much rich information gets missed otherwise. I realize how much more capability there suddenly becomes to be in the more full energy of response instead of the thinner energy of reaction, and I rejoice at knowing that this difference is always available to me with practice.
2 — Wrap the present moment in gratitude.
No matter what, there is ALWAYS something to experience gratitude about. My experience is that gratitude can soften anything and bolster you inside of sharp moments, releasing you as hostage to them sooner, and more gently. It brings perspective that saves the day just enough, and it’s the best thing you could do to practice this regularly in situations where the stakes are far less high, so that when they are high, you have an ongoing habit that kicks in naturally. I love to practice this in traffic, where I have a history of absolutely losing my mind and temper…I bet you can relate to what that momentum can feel like. Getting cut off, being at a stand still, losing the light because we all had to pull over for an ambulance…sure I feel the frustration come up, and then I immediately challenge myself to invite the idea of ‘wow, I’m so glad my brakes work well, I didn’t crash…wow, there are a lot of people sharing this road who have so much going on in their lives, I’m going to enjoy this ride alongside them and I wish them well…and this siren is raking my nerves and now I’m late, but I’m grateful there are people who work to bring us quickly to aid when we’re hurt, and I’ll just wait here and feel my own health course through my body. Wow, it’s pretty cool that we can all share this road and we do have a system to get where we’re going.
3 — Remember backwards to point forwards.
Remember that in every hard time you’ve had, good came of it, and if you haven’t felt that it has yet, then it’s not done arriving. This current experience may be a first for you, and bring up all kinds of new fears and uncertainty, and you can stabilize yourself a bit by remembering that the discomfort of this won’t last. How do you know? By taking one moment to remember as many other uncomfortable, even awful times you’ve had, and then immediately putting attention on how they DID change. What changed? What good came? What was learned? What was found in place of what was lost? This helps you feel like it’s ok to be in THIS moment, because in the flow of life you are always being taken somewhere different.
If you’re a parent, kids are a wonderful reminder of this. In a single day I watch my 5 year old have a few major tragedies over things like the color of a cereal bowl, a no to ice cream, a changed plan or expectation, not wanting to put his pants on…I watch him fully live this, and then suddenly all is well and it’s onto the next thing. I like to think that even if harrowing, my current upset in the grand scheme is in essence of the stuff of the wrong color cereal bowl, and that I will soon have so much perspective on it that I will lovingly laugh at what I didn’t yet know.
4 — Dream on only what you want to happen.
Where and how you put your attention is everything to how you feel and ultimately what will come to you next. When your head is focused on the bad, do all you can to pay more sustained attention to imagining good than reacting to what’s causing the current pain. We are always imagining things. I invite you to believe that you may as well practice using your imagination for good, and see what happens inside you.
5 — Let perspective heal you and inspire you.
In my e-book, ‘Pocket Perspectives — A Little Book of Instant Relief,’ I offer my specific tactic to ‘Feel Better in Five’ that I use to harness perspective in countless situations which arise in life. I hope you download a copy as my gift to you, and I would love to hear a story about when and how it helped you.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I would inspire the ‘FOR Frequency’ movement, where the number one practice would be purified focus while in the midst of something unwanted. I notice what can be an incredibly subtle but powerful difference on where our attention actually is when we’re fighting ‘for’ something. If you really look at it, what we do most is fight ‘against,’ which I believe actually makes those things stronger, and the potential outcome of the solution weaker. One of my favorite resources in life is Abraham Hicks, who helps crystalize this concept by drawing the parallel to tuning on the radio. There is one station we can receive clearly at a time, and what we tune to, we get. If the problem and the solution are two different radio frequencies which don’t exist in the same place, then you can’t focus on the one and get the other. Our attention is like a vote YES, and so the For Frequency movement would bring much more consciousness and practice to what we’re actually saying YES to most of the time.
A movement like this would be key in shaping the amount of power behind the cleaner thoughts, feelings, behavior, and leveraged RESULTS of the causes we champion through this time of incredibly rich and enhanced human transformation. There would be more streamlined change, with more joy and purpose experienced throughout.
We are blessed that some very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them :-)
— I would have to choose Oprah, because I love the power of her story, her example, and I would want to be part of and learn from her level of influence and ability to create incredible connections that lift so many people up. That’s the level I want to play on.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can find my everything on my website, https://www.ameliarandolphcampbell.com/ and I’m the most active on Instagram (@ameliarandolphcampbell)
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
THANK YOU, it’s an honor!
