Rhonda Sciortino helps others succeed personally and professional not just despite, but specifically because of, what they’ve been through. She states, “We each have experiences that have influenced us and helped to shape us into the people we are today. We can mine the lessons out of ugly experiences, identify the coping mechanisms that helped us survive, and combine those things with our natural skills, talents, and learned abilities, to create the stepping stones to our success.”

Specifically, Rhonda encourages people to reframe their experiences by identifying the coping mechanisms used to survive and the characteristics developed in adversity. And then leveraging those coping mechanisms and characteristics to create personal and professional success. For example, the abandonment by her parents taught her that no one was going to rescue her. That was the root of the self-reliance and independence that helped her launch and grow her companies. The poverty, hunger, and homelessness she experienced as a child developed in her resourcefulness, which helped her as a young, under-funded entrepreneur. The abuse she experienced at the hands of her guardians developed in her an empathy for victims that cannot be learned in a university classroom. All of those things, and more, equip and qualify her for what she calls her “Life Assignment.”

In fact, Rhonda has done that herself. On her own at 16 after a childhood of abandonment, abuse, hunger, and homelessness, she bought her first house when she was 19, started her first business at 27, her second at 34, and built her businesses and real estate and investment portfolios into a multi-million dollar balance sheet.

Her first book, From Foster Care to Millionaire, was released in 2008 for foster kids, followed by Succeed Because of What You’ve Been Through in 2010. She plans to release her next book, 8 Characteristics of Successful Survivors in the fall of 2014. She created an online learning course called, Succeed Because of What You’ve Been Through Level 1.

Rhonda Sciortino serves as the National Child Welfare Specialist for Markel Insurance Company, spokesperson for Vanguard University’s Global Center for Women and Justice, spokesperson for Foster Care Alumni of America, and as Chairperson of Successful Survivors Foundation, through which she collaborates with child advocates to build bridges between churches, public and private child welfare professionals, foster families, and kids who have been mistreated. Rhonda’s dream is to help others find and fulfill the good plans for their lives.

Women,