This picture was taken for my MBA graduation. I had been working for a few years after my university undergrad and then college education when I decided to go back to school on weekends to pursue an MBA. When I graduated from this program, I was 27 years old. I had just signed on for a new job with General Motors and got my first signing bonus. In many ways, I was flying high on life and felt anything was possible. I was smart, super ambitious, and ready for anything that came my way…or so I thought.

After experiencing a brain injury 10 years ago, the death of my Dad and husband, Jeff, to cancer within a few years of each other, and then came the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, I had to reach down deeper within myself than I knew even existed. What have I learned about life and my career along the way? And, what do I wish I could have told my younger self?