The meaningful moment is a series of moments of how people look at me. It’s funny that you bring this up because someone as recently as this weekend said: “Everyone knows you no matter where we go. People are attracted or drawn to you.” That meant something to me. I am someone who allows myself to be accepted by everyone and approachable by anyone. I don’t have any guards up. That was a meaningful statement about who I am as a person.

One of the most important things is to be genuine and work hard. In my experience recently, younger adults seem to look to take the easy way out and I don’t want to generalize, but it seems that sometimes when we look for solutions to get something done, we’re not willing to take on the pain and the task at hand to get it done correctly. Some additional advice would be to be open to change, but I also know that that’s not for everyone. I have a very close friend who has been on the same job and the same role for years and she doesn’t want change. You must know who you are as a person, but if you’re open to change, there is nothing wrong with failure. You learn from it, you grow from it, and I’m not going to say I succeeded in every role, but I took something from it. I learned from it, and it helped me helped prepare me to be better for my next role.

So the first thing that popped into my head was Remember the time by Michael Jackson, because my brother and I love that song. Remembering the times and the hard work and the things that got me to the point where I won the award.

I have a lot of passions and one of my passions is coaching and teaching youth. If you give me something where I can coach a child on how to play baseball, soccer, basketball, or football, I can talk the whole day on what to do, how to make it in a team, and how to make it about the team and not the child. I love to coach. I do a lot of things within my community, and anything related to children and helping and community I could speak for days.

Inclusion and Unity. The first thing that popped in my head is why isn’t there more inclusion in all things that matter within our society? I just see such unity in children, everyone gets along. They get to enjoy themselves, grow, and become better. When I step out of that realm, and I turn on the news and there’s just so much hatred and pain. So, why can’t we just continue to expand on that from that youthful view into adulthood?

It was a journey that took me to different spots and locations. My first job out of college was with an interior design company and I knew nothing about it. The first day on the job, the two top people in the customer service department had the flu, so they assigned me to the call center. I was answering phone calls about interior design and I had no clue what I was doing. Within three months, they offered me a manager position there. With each job that I’ve done, I’ve come in as one role and have done 100 other roles. So, for me, it’s about once I get in, it’s not about being satisfied, but opening my eyes and saying, oh, here’s something I might like. Let me try this, how can I help, or let me participate here.