We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brittniee Simmone a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Brittniee, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

Creating a beautiful loving character to inspire children to dream big.

Brittniee, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m very creative and I love what I do. Bringing my characters to life in unique ways is important to me. I strive for unique, insightful and different in my craft. It brings me joy to bring my characters dreams and ideas to reality. For example, a penguin is cute, cuddly andinstantly recognizable. So, I created one that’s blue, green and wears a hat. You’d think he just sings, dances or just looks cute. Donovan, which I’ve named him, is an inventor. He created a sport called Iceboarding. It’s different and unique. I added the hat with a D on it to jazz up his swag. For me every character has a look, a uniform that displays their style. So, I changed his style and switched up his uniform. Fashion marks a style, uniform and even a social standard. When you see a penguin, you see professional suit and tie. Donovan breaks all the rules and looks good doing it. My clients, so to speak, are kids. They want something different and appeals to carving their own path and you see that in fashion. Blue is cool, calm and smooth. Green is bright, bold and brings good luck. And you add a stylish black hat to a cute Penguin…. And you have Donovan a sport creating Penguin. Plus his supporting class of family and friends. I’m that kind of dreamer and thinker. I don’t just draw in the lines, I create a whole new portrait. The world is my canvas and when you follow me… 😉 I’ll show you what I see.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I began to take a different approach, so to speak. I feel like going to the past to give myself advice isn’t it. I’m just telling the younger me what to do. I’m still holding to what’s already done to prove I know better. Instead, I listen to her. I knew what I wanted to do and still do. To quote Mulan, when will reflection show who I am? When I started to listen to me and my voice things changed. I had to unlearn ignoring me and ignore those unsolicited and disappointing critical comments. I’m old enough now to follow my heart, listen to me and ask the eright people. Now, I have a conversation with myself and find out what works for me.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

For me being resilient is important because it brings growth. It brings a higher level of awareness of me. Being an athlete always challenges me to grow and go hard, by any means necessary. On my 12 and under AAU basketball team I was pushed to another level. The drill was to catch and shoot. When my turn came my coach made me do it over and over again. I was determined to perfect my jump shot. A patented catch and shoot makes it hard to defend. In life, you may have to practice over and over again. When you can perform a task until your tired of failing another side of you comes out. It becomes a sore spot, a nagging itch that develops a hunger. You want it and despite the blood, sweat and tears you gotta have it. It seems so juvenile to believe a pb&j sandwich created that strength but it did. Plus, it lead me to the best coaches and tormentors that pushed me to go hard, no matter what.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Simmone brittniee
• Facebook: Brittniee Simmone
• Other: [email protected]