INTL Connect - Resilience in Action

Every year, Silicon Valley International School (INTL) welcomes alumni, parents, and community members to its annual INTL Connect networking event. The event brings together voices from across the school’s vibrant global community to share insights, foster connections, and inspire one another. This year’s theme, “Resilience in Action” encouraged attendees to reflect on personal growth, perseverance, and the strength to move forward in the face of challenges.

The afternoon featured two distinguished speakers: Maia Chamberlain, an Olympic fencer for Team USA and Princeton University graduate, and Ben Lenail, INTL alumni parent, healthcare investor, and consultant. Together, they offered deeply personal perspectives on what it means to build resilience, whether on the Olympic stage or in the midst of life-altering diagnoses.For Chamberlain, resilience has been central to her athletic career. She spoke candidly about the mental challenges of fencing, particularly how athletes process loss. “When you lose a five-point bout, I can see people ruminate on what they did wrong, and then they would take that stress and that anxiety, and they'll hold on to that, and that would carry into their next match, and they'll just lose the next one and lose the next one, and that will ruin your win percentage. And in the end, you would not qualify for the semifinal of the NCAA competition. It's nice to embrace failure and then let it go..”

Her reflections highlighted how resilience is often about perspective, treating setbacks not as defining moments, but as stepping stones to growth. Chamberlain also shared the immense emotional toll of the Olympic qualification process. “The Olympic qualification period was really, really difficult. The most stress I had in my entire life. I didn't realize how high the high would be to qualify and how low the low would be after the event. So just having a strong backbone, my parents, was a huge support. My friends in New York were really essential for me to keep going to practice every day and not have a breakdown every single day.”
Lenail, meanwhile, approached the topic of resilience through his experience battling a rare disease, sharing his journey after he faced an unexpected diagnosis. “December 2011, I went on Wikipedia, and I read an explanation of the disease, which is horrible, and I'm completely shocked, and my family with me, and so over the years, the resilience that we've built, that we've built as a family starts with learning. In healthcare, ignorance is not bliss. You have to learn. You have to learn everything you know about what affects you, and learn not only the characteristics of the disease, but the ecosystem of the disease.”

For Lenail, resilience also means redefining identity in the wake of hardship. “I mentor a lot of men in my community who were just diagnosed. And the problem is there are young men who are absolutely devastated by the diagnosis, and they tell me, Ben, I was A, I am now B, and I want to go back to A. I hate B. And I tell them, you're not going back to A, you are B and you are going to C, and you have to decide what C is going to be. C could be turning inward towards loneliness and be despondent, or it could be a new self, a new version of you, a better version of you. I walk these men alongside that journey to say that there is a new you that's waiting to be claimed.” 

Through these powerful stories, INTL Connect reminded attendees that resilience is not simply about surviving challenges but about embracing transformation. Whether on the fencing strip or in navigating a life-altering health crisis, the message was clear: hardship can be the foundation for growth, learning, and renewal.

This year’s INTL Connect left the community inspired by Maia and Ben’s journeys and reminded of the enduring strength found in perseverance and the support of a compassionate community. 

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