Order the New Book from the Brilliant Life Strategist Dr. Vernita Glenn-White
An inspirational guide for the high- and at times, over-achievers ready to stop hiding and ignoring all those hidden actions and struggles that got you where you are today and start embracing those accolades, acknowledgements, and awards. You are a big deal and don't you forget it.
Why This Book?
We often achieve so much in our professional lives that we forget to show up for ourselves in our personal lives. We approach our careers with such Grit that we usually crush all our goals, even the ones that may have been impossible. However, we aren't so Gritty in the other areas of our lives.
I was like that and to be honest, I can find myself back in that same narrow-minded-career-focused mentality at times. There is nothing wrong with being successful and achieving great things but the rest of who we are shouldn't have to pay the price for our definition of success.
I remember when it was "easy" earning my first four degrees while still having a social life. I was active in my Sorority, community, church, I was good with money, I was cute and had a great a social life with friends and family. Then life happened. Not that it didn't before but this time, my life would change forever.
I was in my late 20's and I felt like I had "peaked" as a mathematics teacher and instructional coach. I had opportunities to do above and beyond the duties of a typical classroom teacher. I initially wanted to be the U.S Secretary of Education so I was making moves, but it wasn't going fast enough for me.
After being blocked from taking what I thought was the next logical step in my career as an Assistant Principal, I decided I wanted to be called "Doctor" just so I could come back and tell those "non- know-it-alls" in my School District what to do. Our ego is funny thing. I was accepted into the doctoral program at the University of Central and I thought that the next three years of school would fly by just like my other degrees.
WRONG!
A few months prior to leaving my career to become a full-time student (which I hadn't done since undergrad), my mother and grandfather passed away three weeks apart. Now, most people would have delayed school and stayed in the career until things settled down. Looking back, I probably would have done that had my mother not told me to go and finish school no matter what a few weeks before she died.
I probably grieved for like three weeks then I was on to making arrangements to start my journey to becoming Dr. Vernita Glenn-White. For the next three years, I buried my head in teaching, researching, and anything else I could find within the academic bubble.
No one told me that grief wasn't something you could intellectually process and get over. No one mentioned the impact of holding onto trauma and the effects it could have years later. No one told me to keep a strong support system during all these major life shifts that happened all at once. Then again, I probably wouldn't have listened. I had a goal and I needed to accomplish it within a certain amount of time. I gave myself three years to graduate and that's what I was going to do.
Something was waiting...
However, in the midst of me proving to myself and others that I could finish, I walked away from the full life I had created for myself. My only friends were professors and other doctoral students and recent grads. After graduating, I realized that life was still happening but it somehow forgot about me. For some reason, I thought I would pick back up or jump back in but I didn't fit in anymore. School had changed me. I was now Dr. Vernita Glenn-White but the moment I crossed that stage grief, trauma, and drama where right there waiting on me.
It would take about another three years for me to realize that I had fallen into a deep yet functional depression and I had allowed every area of my life to collapse. How did I get here and how was I going to get out?
If we're able to Embrace Grit both professionally and personally, we will truly reach a level of Greatness we didn't know was possible.
+ It's for the woman who feels 'lopsided': heavy on the professional side and lacking on the personal side.
+ It's for the go-getter who may have lost her voice trying to fit in while moving up the ladder and wants it back.
+ It's for the visionary who knows that she has more to offer the company, her community, and the world but doesn't know where to start.
+ It's for the 'responsible one' who has a plan for her career but can't seem to make or follow a plan for her health, wellness, finances, Spirituality, or relationships.
+ It's for the overwhelmed, over-achieving perfectionists like me who says she believes in God but trusts more in her own intellect and performance.
The Path to Possibilities Framework ™
Discover the 5 steps to Becoming Professionally Powerful through Personal Empowerment to live the full life you were created to live and change the lives you were destined to change.
Regardless of what is being said about your degrees, position, or title, remember that it took a lot of time, hard work, and maybe tears to get to where you are and achieve what you have. It is not to be taken for granted. Instead, each process showed you how capable you are to build or rebuild any area of your life that you have neglected along the way. Grit got you there, now let's add some Grace and gird up to let that Brilliance shine!
What others are saying...
(Fellow Embracers!)
Melissa Stires
Jay Shetty Certified Coach Executive Leadership & Life Strategist
This book holds up a truth mirror to not only examine all areas of your life & provides answers. As a powerhouse professional I totally related to the premise of having it all together in business and in a crowd but falling apart when I got home. Grit for greatness provides a playbook to get all areas of your life in alignment and harmony. It is practical and relatable and you'll want a highlighter in hand. This will be a go-to guide for year's to come. I also recommend this book to anyone new in leadership roles. Cannot recommend this book more highly!
Valerie Jenkins
Business Coach & Event Consultant
"Big YOU vs little you" begin taking steps towards becoming your most "Powerful YOU"
This book offers insight that serves as a great refresher Professional/Personal Empowerment. What makes it a winner is the soft and supportive pace it offers the reader. This book keeps things very simple for you to get to a easier more comfortable space within yourself.💜💫💜
Tonya Nicole , JD
Educational Consultant & Parent Strategist
I couldn't put this book down!
Reading this book was nothing that I expected and EVERYTHING I needed. The information and concepts that Dr. Vernita shares are so relevant in life, especially for a high achiever. She addresses the compelling balance of our personal and professional life and how to align the two so that we achieve greatness in both. This book navigates this challenge in a way that resonates and encourages elevation. I couldn't put this book down from beginning to end, each page drew me into the lessons through stories, analogies, and concepts that just made sense.
Kellie P. Alston
E-Learning Strategist & College Professor
Empowerment Unlocked
Embracing Grit for Greatness reminded me of the heart-to-heart talks I used to have with my wise, loving, and straightforward grandfather. How? Because Dr. V. shared her experiences and then laid out the lessons learned coupled with unsugarcoated, matter of fact applications for me, the listener (reader in this case). Her tone was not preachy but supportive and authentic and it was apparent that she spoke from a place of personal practice and not theory.
As one who has committed to the field of education for decades in an often unbalanced, unhealthy way, it was refreshing to read about a better way, a way that included focusing on myself first so that I could serve wholeheartedly and appropriately. As a Ph.D. candidate, it was refreshing to read how Dr. V. accomplished such a feat. Her words, her testimony was just so empowering.
Purchase this book if you want a resource that will propel you into greatness and wholeness. It will serve to assure you that you can because Dr. V. did.
Dr. Vernita Glenn-White, (Dr. V) the Certified & Credentialed Life Changer, mentoring high-level individuals and teams across the globe to Embrace their Brilliance both personally and professionally. As a coach, consultant, speaker, author, Creator of the Path to Possibilities Framework™, the 4-E movement, and Founder of The School of Brilliance ™ she helps individuals tap into and up-level their zone of genius, influence, and impact in multiple areas of their lives.
A former K-12 educator, District mathematics specialist, and college professor, she left the comfort and stability of academia to pursue a greater purpose of transforming how people teach, lead and serve. Dr. V has appeared on a variety of national professional and personal development stages such as the National Association of Elementary School Principals, the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics, the American Educational Research Association, Better Leaders Better Schools, the Transformative Principal, Women’s Success Conference, S.H.E Empowerment Conference, and the Comeback Champion summit to name a few where she helps others seeking the importance of the BLEND- where personal growth impacts professional growth.
Dr. Vernita is a graduate of several private and public universities but lands on the University of Central as it is the home of her final degree. She is also a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated, a McKnight Scholar, and a regular contributor to a variety of professional journals, articles and podcasts. Dr. Vernita is passionate about the transformation of education, forward thinking leadership, “infopreneurship”, global travel, creating memories with her family and truly finding pathways for everyone to have access and opportunity to their imagined dream.