The Four ‘C’s of Resilience with Survivor Winner Erika Casupanan
Erika Casupanan has been building resilience since before she knew the word.
When she was a kid, her grandfather passed and it was the first time she ever experienced loss. As she tried to make sense of grief on her own, a new TV show premiered: Survivor.
Watching strangers push themselves through hunger, storms, and exhaustion gave her something to hold onto. It was both an escape and a quiet lesson – that strength could be built, and that doing hard things could heal.
“I remember being an 11-year-old kid watching Survivor and saying, ‘I’m going to be on that show and I’m going to win.’” - Erika Casupanan.
Years later, she kept that promise to her younger self. She quit her stable corporate communications job to make television history as the first Canadian to win Survivor.
Reframing Resilience
In a conversation with Eric Janssen for Sales Reframed, Erika talks about resilience. Not the loud kind that demands attention, but the quiet power of adaptability, emotional intelligence, and staying true to yourself when the world tries to tell you who to be.
Her story embodies what Eric calls the Four Cs of Resilience, a framework that shows how personal will isn’t something you’re born with; it’s something you build:
Cause is your why, the deeper reason that fuels your effort and an authentic reason that keeps you moving when motivation fades.
Capability is your how, the skills and mindset you develop by doing hard things and learning from them.
Capacity is your fuel, the energy, rest, and self-care that help you sustain resilience over time.
Community is your who, the people who challenge, support, and hold you accountable when things get tough.
Below are snippets from their conversation and the real-world lessons behind them.*
The Four ‘C’s of Resilience
Pillar 1: Cause
Building your resilience starts with Cause, it’s the “why” that drives you.
For Erika, her identity and purpose began forming long before Survivor, rooted in her family’s immigration story and her early understanding of difference.
Eric: Erika, if someone were to ask you in your own words, what’s your story? How would you answer that?
Erika: I think that the story a lot of people externally would see from me is the story of this girl who goes on Survivor—first person living in Canada to be on the show—and then wins and makes history as the first Canadian to win Survivor.
Fame, fortune, great life after.
But when I think about my story, I think it really begins when I was a kid. I was born in the Philippines, and then my family immigrated to Canada when I was just one year old.
I grew up in Niagara Falls, and I learned very quickly that I was really different from everybody who was around me. I had the experience of going through elementary school and high school, being one of the only people of colour in the school, let alone the only Asian or Filipino person.
So I learned really early on that I had to figure out my own way of doing things and how to find belonging and everything within myself.
Lesson: The story you tell yourself matters more than the one people project onto you. Your Cause (your ‘why’) is what keeps you grounded and resilient when everything else shifts.
Pillar 2: Capability
If your Cause starts inside, Capability is how it takes shape in the real world. It’s about developing the mindset and skills to do hard things.
For Erika, flexibility, resourcefulness, and ability to adapt, traits she once overlooked, turned out to be her winning edge on the island.
Eric: What were some of those other skills that you had overlooked that were actually really helpful for you in winning?
Erika: Definitely being flexible. I was someone who grew up in a home where, unfortunately, my family had to work around the clock just to make ends meet.
I had to develop a lot of resourcefulness and figure out—okay, if I’m handed a deck of cards and there’s probably not a lot in here—how can I make that work to last until tomorrow, and to the next day, and to the next day, and to the next day?
So I was someone who was really good at making something happen with what seemed like nothing.
Before I was on Survivor, I was actually good with not having control. I was good with being flexible. I was always like, okay, let’s see what today brings—I’m gonna be able to figure things out.
Lesson: The quiet traits that help you survive tough circumstances often become the same traits that help you win later. Resilience isn’t built in big, dramatic moments – it’s built in the small, quiet habits of patience, flexibility, and figuring things out when no one’s watching.
Pillar 3: Capacity
Resilience also depends on Capacity: having the strength and self-care to keep showing up when things get hard.
For Erika, that meant learning to navigate public scrutiny while holding on to her sense of self.
Eric: I want to talk a little bit about resilience. Post-show, you probably had this high, right? But then from what I read, there was like this weird kind of pushback afterwards.
Erika:
I think that resilience was something that was always just built into me. I don’t think I remember a time in my life where I wasn’t being resilient in some way—if that makes sense.
I think that from being a kid going to school and realizing I had to code-switch and talk about my family in a different way at school versus at home, that was something I picked up early on. I’ve just always known resilience in some way.
When people started to have negative feedback toward me winning—or tell me that I didn’t deserve to win—I also didn’t realize the length of time it would go on, to be honest.
I knew as soon as the show ended, people would have a lot to say. Then the next season aired, and I’m like, okay, people are still messaging me. And I think it was about a year—every day—that someone was either messaging me, DMing me, writing comments, or tagging me in videos or tweets talking about how I didn’t deserve to win.
I am fortunate that I had so many more people, I would say, who showed me love—and those are the people who have stuck with me. I think all the haters have moved on to their next target.
So I think that now, it’s been four years, and you know, every now and then I’ll get a message—but now I just laugh at it because I’m like, that’s on you that it’s four years later and you’re still this mad.
But I think even with having resilience for that period—especially when it came to the criticism I got from winning—at that point, I was like, ‘Screw it. I did it, okay? I did the thing. I won. I came home. I was proud of myself. I know I deserved it.’ And I had to really, really add this new tool to my resilience toolbox—where I had to be able to uncouple the exterior perception and the public feedback from my sense of self and who I was as a person.
And I think that through learning that, it’s almost like a part of my brain has rewired now—where I’m like, I did everything right and people were still mad, or people still hated me. So now, I may as well do whatever I want, because what people think doesn’t really change anything anyway.
Lesson: Resilience isn’t a single burst of toughness. It’s the daily practice of protecting your energy, enduring tough moments, honoring your boundaries, and finding your way back to yourself.
Pillar 4: Community
For Erika, the final piece of the Four Cs — Community — works hand in hand with the first, Cause. She believes that when you’re grounded in your why, it naturally draws the right people and support systems to you. That’s what fuels long-term resilience.
Eric: I talk about four C’s in my class: Cause, Capacity, Capability, and Community. Did those four resonate with you, and is there one that stands out as being particularly important?
Erika: I love that framework. I think that it really all comes down to the first one—Cause—because that is what’s going to keep you motivated to make sure you have the Capacity.
And it’s going to bind together potential Community, and it’s what’s going to keep you motivated to ensure that you are keeping up your Capabilities.
Like, you can carve out time to create Capacity, Capabilities—you can learn any skill out there—and Community, there’s so much out there. And I think that if you are lacking in any of the other three, you can figure it out and you can fill them.
But if you’re unsure of the Cause, you could have all of the other three, but then that’s when you could be floundering a bit, and you could feel disconnection or resentment from what you’re doing.
So, Cause for me has always been at the forefront.
Lesson: Community grows from Cause. When you’re grounded in your why, you naturally attract the people who help you stay rooted, rebuild after setbacks, and grow stronger through every challenge.
Bonus: Advice
Eric: Any advice to the 20-year-old version of Erika?
Erika: I’d say two things.
First, you are enough. You don’t need to prove your worth to anybody. Yes, do these things because you love them and you’re getting the experience, but you are enough. Your worth isn’t going to come from your output.
The other thing I would tell her is the point of life and what happens after graduation and beyond is not to do everything perfectly based on your expectations. Really, the point of life is to explore.
And now that I’m older, now that I’m turning 36 at the end of this week, I’ve learned that nobody knows what they’re doing. We’re all doing our best. We’re figuring it out with the experiences that we have.
So your only responsibility right now is to just explore.
Up Next…
Erika’s story isn’t just about surviving an island, but about understanding what drives you to keep going when things get hard.
Her approach reminds us that resilience isn’t loud or flashy. It’s built quietly, through purpose, flexibility, and the people who lift you up when you’re close to giving in.
Today, through her award-winning podcast Happy to See Me, Erika shares stories that help others step into their power, embrace their identity, and build real confidence and resilience.
Want to build your own resilience?
Start by asking Erika’s favourite question: What’s your Cause?
Then, listen to Episode 1 of the Sales Reframed podcast, “The Resilience Engine: The Hidden Upside of Rejection,” where we take that idea further by breaking down the science and stories behind the Four C’s of Will: Cause, Capacity, Capability, and Community and explore how each one helps you build real-world resilience.