Case Study 7: Lana
Understanding fierceness is easier when you have an example to analyze. In this case study example of what being fearless looks like, consider Lana’s qualities and traits to get a better understanding of why she is considered to act fiercely.
Who is Lana?
Ever since she was young, Lana has always had a big interest in fashion. However, Lana isn’t interested in wearing what everyone else is wearing. Rather than sticking to mainstream trends, Lana chooses to wear clothes with some extreme flair.
The bigger, shinier, gaudier, and flashier her clothes and accessories are, the better! Lana believes that piecing together a great outfit with lots of different, fun colors and materials was an art form, and creating these new combinations feels like an artistic outlet for her.
Over the years, Lana’s fashion choices attracted a lot of attention. While some of the attention she received was kind and positive, much of it was the opposite. In fact, all during middle and high school, she was bullied relentlessly for her school wardrobe choices.
Kids made rude comments about her clothing choices and laughed at her openly when she chose a daring outfit choice over something simple and in-fashion at the time, like plain T-shirts and blue jeans.
Into college and adulthood, Lana continued to receive ridicule for her clothes and accessories. She heard snickers and whispering whenever she debuted a new outfit of the day. People gave her rude nicknames, such as Loony Lana.
Some of the more painful comments insisted that she’d never find a date or make any friends dressing the way she did. However, Lana realized after a while that these comments simply weren’t true; the friends she made and the people she dated genuinely cared about her and respected her fashion choices because they knew how happy they made her.
Rather than focusing on rude comments, Lana decided that she’d much rather focus on the positive people in her life instead.
No matter how rude people managed to be, Lana decided that she would not allow other people’s opinions to take away something that truly made her happy – her interest in experimenting with her wardrobe and personal style.
Trying new colors, fabrics, patterns, and materials in her wardrobe always felt like a huge adventure for Lana. She loves mixing and matching new outfits together and takes great pride in the combinations she created.
What makes Lana a fierce person?
Lana’s fierceness is embodied in her personal choice to be true to herself. Even though others disapprove of her choices, make fun of her, and attempt to make her feel bad about the way she chooses to dress and accessorize herself, Lana decides that following her own personal interests is more important than fitting in with the crowd.
Every time Lana chooses a new outfit and wears it out, she’s showing her fierceness in her personal choices. By the simple act of choosing an outfit that she genuinely enjoys wearing and then wearing it despite what other people may think about it, she’s being a fierce person who acts in a way that honors herself rather than other people’s opinions of how she should dress and act. Lana chooses to be happy, a fierce act all within itself.
The Bottom Line
Fierceness is often embodied by a person’s decision to act in a way that’s true to themselves. When you choose to do something because it aligns with your personal interests and beliefs, even when it may go against society’s norm, you are acting fiercely by being who you truly are.
Case Study 8: Jenny
Understanding fierceness is easier when you have an example to analyze. In this case study example of what being fearless looks like, consider Jenny’s qualities and traits to get a better understanding of why she is considered to act fiercely.
Who is Jenny?
Jenny is a mother to three children. All of her children are under the age of 10. Her youngest child is her three year old daughter, and as this child has aged into toddlerhood, she’s noticed that her behavior, mannerisms, and temperament are quite different from her other two children.
At first, Jenny thought her daughter was just a little different and unique, but as time passed, she began to think that something more serious might be happening with her daughter’s health. Concerned, she set an appointment with her family’s pediatrician for more information.
At the appointment, the pediatrician didn’t find anything unusual about Jenny’s daughter. To be safe, the pediatrician ordered some more extensive testing to rule out anything, but after this appointment, the pediatrician was still quite positive that Jenny’s daughter was perfectly healthy.
Despite the pediatrician’s insistence that the child was fine, Jenny felt that something was actually wrong. Deep down, her intuition was telling her that the pediatrician was missing something.
After another visit, the pediatrician was adamant that the child was completely fine, but Jenny still didn’t feel right about the diagnosis. Jenny decided to visit another, new doctor to get a second opinion.
Jenny is glad that she decided to trust her gut feelings and follow her feelings about the matter. The second doctor ran some different tests and revealed that Jenny’s daughter has a rare genetic condition that will require some extra medical care. If Jenny hadn’t followed her intuition and listened to the first pediatrician, she would have missed this important discovery.
As Jenny learned how to properly care for her daughter’s specific needs, she created a support group for other parents facing these medical challenges with their own children. Not only is Jenny’s daughter happy, healthy, and thriving, but other concerned parents are getting the support they need to be informed and confident in their understanding about what’s happening with their children.
What makes Jenny a fierce person?
Jenny’s fierceness is rooted in her intuition. When Jenny’s gut feelings defied the pediatrician’s opinions, she decided to follow those gut feelings and enlist the help of a second doctor instead. Because she listened to her intuition’s message, she was able to get her daughter the care she really needed.
In a situation where you may feel like you’re worrying needlessly or making too much of a situation, ignoring your intuition is easy – that nagging voice in the back of your mind is probably just from the stress of everything happening, right?
Jenny acted fiercely by choosing to follow up on her intuitive thoughts rather than ignoring them in favor of the pediatrician’s original opinion. Jenny’s choice to act fiercely is also helping other parents feel the same sort of support and empowerment. In this scenario, one fierce action begets a lot more fierceness because it creates a wave of positive goodness for many people.
The Bottom Line
Choosing to listen to your intuition is a fierce choice. When you’re allowing yourself to follow your gut feelings, you’re trusting yourself fully to act in accordance with your truest beliefs and values.
Often, going with your intuition allows you to continue acting with a special fierceness that often feeds into other projects and successes – that initial jolt of fierce behavior sparks a lot of positive energy!
Case Study 9: Shanae
Understanding fierceness is easier when you have an example to analyze. In this case study example of what being fearless looks like, consider Shanae’s qualities and traits to get a better understanding of why she is considered to act fiercely.
Who is Shanae?
Shanae is a teacher at a local high school. She teaches English in a very economically challenged part of the city. Because of the high poverty rates, a lot of her students struggle with financial issues, such as having food to eat, access to electricity and WiFi, and clean clothing.
Because of the poverty issues, she faces a lot of challenges in her classroom. The school often doesn’t have enough money for new school supplies and books. Her students are often disgruntled due to the lack of basic resources. Some of her students have serious issues happening at home, such as absent parents, abuse, or crime happening within the home, which makes it a challenge to keep them engaged at school.
Shanae recognizes that school is probably one of the few places where her students actually get to talk to an adult that cares about them. She recognizes that she has the power to make a positive impact on all the teens that pass through her classroom, and she combines that power with her love of teaching English in a way that leaves her students with much more than a solid education.
To help her students stay on track, Shanae has mini conferences with each student every few weeks to check in with them. She allows them to speak openly with her so she can best understand their needs.
When she’s able, she provides them with basic school supplies and items they can borrow from her when needed. Shanae keeps a small pantry of basic kitchen pantry staples and hygiene items for her students to take when they need them.
Although Shanae develops tons of good relationships with her students over the course of the school year, she understands that she won’t be able to make a total impact on every teen.
She still pursues a positive relationship with all of them, even when it’s quite difficult to do so. Shanae understands that some kids won’t ever accept more from her than a smile and some kind words, but she still gives them as much as she can every day.
What makes Shanae a fierce person?
Shanae’s fierceness lies within her passion and resiliency. She is passionate about education and caring for her students. She understands that her students won’t be able to learn and develop their education without their basic needs being met, so she does what she can to go the extra mile for her students.
Even when doing the “extra stuff” that she does outside of teaching her students’ English classes, Shanae pushes herself to do everything she can to help her students find success and peace within her classroom.
Although her job is emotionally laborious, Shanae bounces back each day, ready to do whatever she can to make her students’ days a little bit happier and more positive. Shanae is a resilient person, which helps her continue to be the fiercely passionate person she is each day.
The Bottom Line
When you’re pursuing something you’re truly passionate about, you’re acting fiercely. Passions coupled with resilience means you’re constantly allowing yourself to show up and work your hardest to make good, positive things happen for yourself and others. That type of work ethic – especially when it’s happening in the face of hardship – is a fierce quality!
Case Study 10: John
Understanding fierceness is easier when you have an example to analyze. In this case study example of what being fearless looks like, consider John’s qualities and traits to get a better understanding of why he is considered to act fiercely.
Who is John?
John is a man in his 30s who just moved to a new neighborhood. He just bought his first-ever house and is extremely excited to be a homeowner after renting for a long time. His new neighborhood has a strict homeowner’s association. The HOA has some extremely rigid rules about what homeowners can and cannot do on their properties.
As a new member of the neighborhood, John applied to join the HOA board because he wants to be actively involved and engaged with what’s happening inside his neighborhood. As a member of the HOA board, John is hoping to make a positive impact on the little community and build good relationships with his neighbors.
After the first meeting, John was a little less than impressed. A couple of the members seemed to dominate the whole group, and they failed to lead the meeting in an effective and organized way.
People with concerns and legitimate requests for changes they wanted to make to their properties were either given very complicated conditions or denied their requests altogether. At the end of the meeting, many people seemed extremely frustrated and fed up. A month later at the second meeting, John noticed that the exact same scenario played out again – people left feeling very discouraged and unhappy.
At the third meeting, John requested to make some suggestions about how the meetings could be run more efficiently. He proposed a system that would make it easier for homeowners to submit their requests.
He also made a simple system for either approving or denying requests that made the whole process a lot more fair to each homeowner. Begrudgingly, the two dominant folks in the HOA board allowed John to try out his new system.
The next month was tough – people needed time to adjust to John’s new system, but after a while, it became apparent that John’s idea did indeed simplify the process. John experienced some pushback and complaining, but he stuck to his plan and continued to help the HOA board implement his system. The payoff was worthwhile: During meetings, the HOA board had a more organized system for either approving or denying requests that was much more fair between each of the neighbors making requests.
What makes John a fierce person?
John’s fierceness is rooted in his willingness to stand up for his ideas. Although the existing HOA board and its leaders were very strict, stringent, and insistent on doing things a certain way, John saw where there was room for improvement in the way they led meetings and made decisions.
Without being insistent or rude, John explained why his suggestions would be a positive change for the HOA’s systems and stuck by them as the board tried using them. Even when he received pushback from others about how the system was changing, John acted fiercely by standing by his ideas and his decisions, seeing them through until the end.
The Bottom Line
Whenever you stick by your ideas, values, or beliefs, you’re choosing to act fiercely. This is especially true if your ideas go against the norm or the generally accepted methods of the others surrounding you.
Doing things differently among a group who’s already accustomed to doing things a specific way requires a level of fierceness to not only suggest a new method, but also implement it.
Case Study 11: Jose
Understanding fierceness is easier when you have an example to analyze. In this case study example of what being fearless looks like, consider Jose’s qualities and traits to get a better understanding of why he is considered to act fiercely.
Who is Jose?
Jose is a professional who is interested in a promotional opportunity at work. He’s worked at the same place for a few years now and has gained a considerable amount of experience. Every year, he earns top ratings on his performance reviews and believes he’d make a great candidate for the promotion.
Besides Jose, there are other employees in his department who are also interested in the promotion. These other employees are also ideal candidates – they have the right amount of experience, education, and skill sets needed to do the job well.
Jose believes any of them would make a good fit for the job, but since he’s personally interested in the job, he knows he’ll need something to help him have a competitive edge among such an impressive group of candidates.
Before the job is posted, Jose decides to take some extra classes so he can add some professional certificates to his resume. Jose also reaches out to some other professionals in other locations of his company who do the same job as the one he’s interested in interviewing for and arranges opportunities to shadow and interview them so he can learn more about the job and everything it entails.
Jose feels like doing this will give him more information and a better understanding of what he’ll need to be successful while also showing management that he’s serious about advancement.
A couple of weeks before interviewing begins, Jose seeks professional help from a resume writer to help him create a nice, new, cleaned-up version of his resume. He also speaks to a career coach for some interviewing advice and practice before he finds himself in his actual interview. He practices his responses to some common interview questions at home to help him polish his answers.
After weeks of preparation, Jose interviews confidently and honestly. He shares about all the effort he’s put into doing his current job while also highlighting his extracurricular learning experiences that have helped him get a better understanding of the job.
During his interview, he expresses exactly why he believes he would make a good fit for the position, and ultimately, all his extra hard work pays off – Jose finds out a week later that he was officially selected for the promotion.
What makes Jose a fierce person?
Jose’s fierceness is rooted in determination. Jose sets his eyes on an ultimate goal – in this case, earning a big promotion – and does everything he can to prepare himself to achieve his goals. In this situation, Jose spent weeks preparing himself to interview like a champ.
Because he’s serious about his success, Jose worked fiercely to go after the opportunity he wanted for himself. While his fierceness displayed itself in small efforts over a long amount of time, those choices resulted in a great payout – Jose ensured that he was taking care of himself and getting closer to his goals by finding ways to make himself the best candidate.
The Bottom Line
Fierceness can be a long game that requires determination to see the ultimate end results. Sometimes, your fierceness is rooted in the mentality that every day, you can take small steps and actions toward reaching your ultimate goals. By showing up each day and taking those small steps to reach your ultimate goals, you can achieve great success.
Case Study 12: Ebony
Understanding fierceness is easier when you have an example to analyze. In this case study example of what being fearless looks like, consider Ebony’s qualities and traits to get a better understanding of why she is considered to act fiercely.
Who is Ebony?
Ebony is a woman in her 50s. Over the last five years, she’s had a difficult time. About five years ago, all of Ebony’s children had either left for college or otherwise moved out of the house, leaving her with an empty nest. Ebony also retired from her job and was looking forward to doing lots of traveling with her husband and seeing the world.
Unfortunately, Ebony’s husband passed away unexpectedly, putting a halt on their post-retirement traveling plans. The death was very surprising and devastating; with her children being out of the house, processing the shock of the unexpected death was even more challenging. While her children did return home to help her with the funeral arrangements, they eventually did leave again to tend to their own lives and families.
After a few days of sitting alone in her house, Ebony decided that she wasn’t going to allow herself to fall prey to a pit of sorrow. Instead of staying home all the time, she decided to go ahead and venture out of the house to see what she could do in her local community.
She wasn’t sure if she was up to start traveling so soon without her husband, but she wanted to get out of the house and do something meaningful with her time.
Ebony found herself volunteering for her city’s local literacy program hosted through the public library. She helped many students improve their reading skills – some were English language learners, and others were trying to improve their skills enough to pass their GED exams so they could earn a high school diploma.
At first, Ebony wasn’t sure if she’d be a good fit for the position, but after a few days, she began to really love the work she was doing. After a few weeks, she was arriving early each day so she could get her classroom space ready and welcoming for her students.
She made tons of great new relationships, helped lots of people, and used her energy in a more positive and productive way after experiencing a tragedy.
What makes Ebony a fierce person?
When a big tragedy befalls you, it’s difficult to move forward from it. When Ebony’s husband passed away during a time in her life where she was already experiencing a lot of transition and change, she felt like she wouldn’t be able to escape her despair.
Ebony’s fierceness is rooted in her tenacity. Even when it would have been easy for her to give up and stay at home, feeling sad and depressed about her current situation.
Ebony decided to use her energy to not only improve her own situation, but to improve others’ situations as well. Instead of wasting her energy and potential after her husband’s death, Ebony’s tenacity led her into a better, much more positive environment that kept her mind engaged in an activity that helped her as well as others who needed her assistance and expertise.
The Bottom Line
Tenacity, or the extreme determination to follow through with something, is a great sign of fierceness. Being tenacious doesn’t always have to be a big, showy display of personal strength – often, it looks like Ebony, showing herself in a resolve to improve one’s situation through small steps and decisions.
