Beginning & Background
Long before she became a recognized authority on resilience, Dr. Taryn Marie Stejskal was a student of human behavior in training — first at the University of Michigan, where she earned her bachelor’s degree, and later at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she pursued both her master’s and doctoral studies. Her academic path didn’t stop at a single discipline; she went on to complete pre- and postdoctoral fellowships in neuropsychology at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, grounding her future work in rigorous, evidence-based science rather than borrowed wisdom or trend.
It was an unusual combination — psychology, neuroscience, and an eye toward organizational life — but it would become the exact foundation she needed for the work she was about to build.
The Spark & Motivation
Dr. Taryn Marie’s calling didn’t arrive in a single dramatic flash — it emerged from two decades of original research on resilience, conducted while she held some of the most demanding leadership-development roles in corporate America. She served as the Head of Executive Leadership Development & Talent Strategy at Nike, and as Head of Global Leadership Development at Cigna — vantage points that gave her a front-row seat to how people and organizations actually respond when things fall apart.
Watching leader after leader face change, ambiguity, and crisis, she began to notice something the corporate playbooks weren’t capturing. Out of that observation came her defining body of work: the empirically based framework, The Five Practices of Highly Resilient People.
Challenges & Obstacles
Resilience, for Dr. Taryn Marie, isn’t an abstract concept she studies from a distance — it’s lived. Her own public bio quietly tells part of that story: she describes herself as a single mom who became a co-founder of a nine-figure company. Behind the keynote stages and bestseller lists is the far less glamorous reality of building something significant while raising a family largely on her own — the kind of challenge that doesn’t show up in a bio but shapes everything underneath it.
Stepping away from the stability of established institutions like Nike and Cigna to found her own venture was its own act of risk. Leaving behind a proven career path to bet on an unproven framework — one built from her own research rather than an existing playbook — required the very resilience she would go on to teach.
Turning Points & Growth
The turning point came when Dr. Taryn Marie stopped applying her research only inside other people’s organizations and began building something of her own: the Resilience Leadership Institute (RLI), where she serves as Founder and Chief Resilience Officer. This was the moment her research transformed from an internal corporate tool into a movement with her name and mission attached to it.
That mission is unusually bold in its scope: to positively impact the lives of one billion people by enhancing hope, healing, and health, as well as increased consciousness and enhanced leadership, through the practices of resilience. It’s the kind of goal that requires both scientific credibility and the personal grit to keep building when results don’t come overnight — both of which she’d already developed through years in the trenches of corporate leadership development.
Achievements & Milestones
The milestones since have been substantial. Her book, The Five Practices of Highly Resilient People: Why Some Flourish When Others Fold, became a #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller, and debuted at #3 in the world on Barnes & Noble, topping the charts at #1 for Personal Growth and Self-Help & Relationships.
Her message has reached far beyond the page. Her TEDx talk, “How Resilience Breaks Us Out of Our Vulnerability Cage,” has been viewed over one million times, and her work has been featured by Fox and NBC News, Bloomberg Business, Thrive Global, and Forbes. The recognition from her peers has been just as significant: Global Gurus named her a Top 30 Thinker in Leadership, and she earned a spot among the Marshall Goldsmith Top 100 Coaches Globally (MG100), alongside being a finalist for the Tony Hsieh Award.
She also built a platform for other people’s resilience stories, hosting the podcast “Flourish or Fold: Stories of Resilience,” ranked in the top five percent of all podcasts, where well-known guests share the harder chapters behind their public success.
Values & Philosophy
At the core of Dr. Taryn Marie’s philosophy is a reframing of resilience itself. Rather than treating adversity as something to merely survive, she invites audiences to look within themselves rather than outside themselves for resilience — positioning it not as a rare trait some people are born with, but as a practice anyone can build. She believes resilience has emerged as the key differentiator that sustains people in moments of difficulty, ambiguity, and adversity, and that the sheer volume of change and complexity in modern life makes this skill more essential now than ever.
It’s a philosophy that resists easy comfort. Her research spans vulnerability, perseverance, connection, gratitude, generosity, and possibility the full, complicated terrain of what it actually takes to keep going.
Impact on Others
The ripple effects of her work show up in boardrooms and living rooms alike. One healthcare organization described her as “an IV to the soul,” saying she has been the key that unlocked the door allowing them to go deep within themselves. LA Progressive magazine has called her “the go-to person” and “a secret weapon” for organizations and teams looking to find their edge.
Audiences have responded with more than applause — she has received standing ovations on topics ranging from leadership and confidence to compassion, empathy, and innovation, with attendees describing her keynotes as “uplifting, thought-provoking, and unforgettable,” adding that one’s view of the world won’t be the same after hearing her speak.
Looking Ahead
Dr. Taryn Marie’s vision remains anchored in that same audacious number: a billion lives positively impacted through the practices of resilience. She continues to expand her reach as Chief Wellness Officer for Lifewrite, an AI-driven platform dedicated to mental health and wellbeing through the power of written human expression extending her
research into new technology-driven spaces. At home, her sons Samson and Sawyer remain, in her own words, ongoing teachers of the very resilience she studies — a reminder that for her, the personal and professional were never really separate journeys.
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