Personal development: Briana Ashley Stuart

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Secondly, realize what sets you apart from the competition. Briana’s competitive advantages are ‘Everyone Can Dance’ and being the Stepping Ambassador for Belgium, the only qualified instructor in Belgium to teach Stepping. Stepping “uses the body as an instrument, creating complex rhythms and sounds only with the hands, feet, and the voice”.

It’s part of who she is and her history, as she described to BRUZZ magazine: “When I step, it’s a shout out to my ancestors, the people that came before me. It’s an African-American dance form from this group of people that have existed in America. And coming from that group, it’s like every time I step into the floor, I am waking them up.”

Finally, know yourself. If you know yourself, so many things then flow from this: you trust that what you do is valuable and that no one else can perform your art the way you do. Since your art is valuable and unique, you understand the impact that it can make. “Being a successful freelancer is so multifaceted, it’s almost like taking a hold of what you would like to do in your particular craft, what impact you would like to make with it, and focusing that impact, knowing that the greater impact you make, the greater income you make.”

Having recently turned 30, Briana’s maturity and success are a little intimidating. She would tell me that it’s unhelpful to feel intimidated, instead it’s better to focus on what I do best, as she does the same. It’s thanks to her profound spirituality that she is so wise, assertive and self-aware. She cultivates her spirituality daily through action: meditating, journaling, reading and doing yoga (she is also a qualified yoga instructor), as well as through contemplation, practising gratitude and detachment, accepting things as they are, and trusting in the unfolding of life.

Accepting things as they are is what we all need to do during this COVID-19 pandemic. Undoubtedly, the pandemic hits Briana hard due to the nature of her business. Yet, it is not surprising that she remains positive, steadfast, resolute and, most of all, creative. She makes the most of this time to teach online, build her brand and focus on herself. Irrespective of what life may throw at her, she uses the positive and the negative to live her truth out loud: to make art in everything that she does. www.stuartsdance.com 

Briana Ashley Stuart
Personal Development