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?

+ 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.

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!

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Meet Dr. Vernita Glenn-White 

 Dr. V the Brilliant Solutionist & Life Advisor 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 Embracing Brilliance Framework™ and movement, and Founder of The School of Brilliance ™ she helps you into and up-level their zone of genius, influence, and impact in multiple areas of your 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.