The Strength That Got Me Here Wasn’t the Whole Story
From survival to self-discovery: How redefining strength transformed my life and leadership.
The Strength I Thought I Needed
For most of my life, I thought being strong meant being able to handle things.
Keep going. Figure it out. Take care of the people around you. Work harder when life gets hard. Don't fall apart when other people are counting on you.
And if I'm being fair to the younger versions of myself, that definition of strength served me pretty well.
I became a mother at 18.
Not long after, I found myself living in Arizona with my baby, far from family, with very little money, no car, and no real safety net. I worked at a daycare, and every day, my daughter and I spent hours riding buses just to get where we needed to go.
There wasn't much room to fall apart.
There was a baby to care for. Bills to pay. Work to get to. A life to somehow figure out when I was barely an adult myself.
By 20, I was pregnant with my second child and beginning to understand something that was difficult for me to admit.
The life I was trying so hard to hold together wasn't the life I wanted for my children or for myself.
So I came home.
At 21, I started working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in an entry-level office assistant position. Not long after, I became a single mother of two.
I worked full time. I went to school at night after my children went to sleep. I took advantage of every opportunity I could to learn, grow, and create a different future for us.
I had no grand career plan.
I just knew I wanted something different.
So I kept going.
The Woman Who Could Handle It
Over the next 25-plus years, that entry-level job grew into a career I never could have imagined when I first walked through the doors.
I moved across different roles and organizations. I took on larger responsibilities. I learned about business and operations. I partnered with leaders. I led teams and initiatives. I mentored people. I navigated change. I learned how to walk into complicated situations, bring people together, and create clarity when things felt messy.
And eventually, I became a leader myself.
That part still makes me smile because, early in my career, someone told me I would never be one.
I carried those words with me.
For a long time, I think part of me wanted to prove them wrong.
So I worked harder. I became dependable. Capable. The person who could figure it out. The person people could count on.
And I was proud of that woman.
I still am.
But it took me years to understand that some of the qualities helping me succeed professionally had started forming long before I ever had a career.
Our greatest strengths aren't always separate from what we've been through. Sometimes they grow directly out of it.
The Things We Learn Before We Know We're Learning Them
Long before I knew anything about leadership, I knew how to read a room.
As a child, I learned how to adapt. How to keep the peace. How to take care of other people's feelings. How to work hard for acceptance. How to stay quiet when speaking up might create discomfort.
Some of that came from complicated experiences around identity and belonging. Some came from being bullied and feeling different. Some came from learning very young that connection could feel fragile.
I didn't have the language for any of that.
I wasn't a little girl thinking, I'm developing patterns that will someday affect how I work, love, parent, and lead.
I was just being a kid.
I was figuring out how to belong.
And I became very good at it.
Years later, those patterns looked different, but they were still there.
Being responsible became over-responsibility.
Being helpful became putting everyone else first.
Being driven sometimes became proving.
Being compassionate sometimes became staying in situations longer than I should have.
And being strong became believing I should be able to carry almost anything.
For years, I didn't recognize these things as patterns.
I thought they were my personality.
Maybe you recognize some of this in yourself.
Maybe you're the one people call because they know you'll figure it out. Maybe asking for help feels harder than simply doing it yourself. Maybe you've spent years being proud of how much you can carry without ever asking why you believe you have to carry so much in the first place.
I hadn't asked myself those questions either.
Until eventually, strong became heavy.
When Strong Becomes Heavy
There were seasons of my adult life when things looked much better from the outside than they felt on the inside.
I had built a successful career. I was raising my family. I showed up. People trusted me.
And privately, there were times when I was hurting.
There were difficult relationships. Loss. Family struggles. Seasons when people I loved were hurting, and I had to learn one of life's hardest lessons:
Loving someone deeply doesn't mean we can carry their journey for them.
There were times when I lost pieces of myself.
And still, I showed up.
I worked. I took care of people. I handled things.
That's the tricky thing about becoming known as the strong one.
People learn that you can carry a lot.
So they trust you with more.
Eventually, you can become so good at carrying things that even you stop noticing how heavy they are.
For a long time, I thought that was strength.
Eventually, I realized some of it was survival.
And I didn't just want to survive my life anymore.
I wanted to understand it.
More importantly, I wanted to understand myself.
The Work No One Sees
Therapy became part of my life.
Then came books, podcasts, coaching, reflection, self-development, and a lot of uncomfortable self-awareness.
I started looking backward, not because I wanted to live in the past, but because I wanted to understand what I had carried forward from it.
Why did I feel responsible for everyone?
Why was disappointing someone so uncomfortable for me?
Why did achievement feel so closely connected to worth?
Why could I extend enormous compassion to other people while sometimes struggling to give that same compassion to myself?
Slowly, I began seeing my life differently.
Many of the things I had judged about myself weren't random flaws.
They were adaptations.
At some point, they had helped me.
Reading the room helped me. Being responsible helped me. Working hard helped me. Anticipating what other people needed helped me. Being able to keep going when things were hard absolutely helped me.
Those qualities helped a young mother build a life.
They helped an entry-level employee build a career.
They helped me become someone others could trust.
I didn't need to reject those parts of myself.
I needed to understand them.
Because a strength we don't understand can quietly start making decisions for us.
And that realization changed more than my personal life.
It changed the way I lead.
Leadership Gets Personal
For years, I thought leadership was primarily about what we do for other people.
Develop them. Support them. Give them clarity. Build trust. Help them grow. Create an environment where people can do their best work.
I still believe all of that.
But today, I believe something comes before it.
Leadership begins with knowing yourself.
None of us walks into work and leaves our life experiences at the door.
We bring them with us.
The child who learned that being perfect earned praise can become the leader terrified of making a mistake.
The person who learned to keep the peace can become the manager who avoids difficult conversations.
The person who learned to take care of everyone can become the leader who never delegates and eventually burns out.
And the person who spent years proving her worth can achieve everything she once dreamed about and still quietly wonder whether she's done enough.
That last one hits pretty close to home.
Our patterns aren't necessarily weaknesses. Sometimes they're part of what makes us exceptionally good at what we do.
The woman who learned to anticipate everyone else's needs may become exceptional at supporting people.
The person who spent a lifetime figuring things out may become an exceptional problem solver.
But self-awareness gives us something survival never could.
Choice.
I can be responsible without believing everything is my responsibility.
I can care deeply about people without carrying everything for them.
I can be driven without needing achievement to prove my worth.
I can be strong without always having to be the strong one.
And that understanding changed how I see the people I lead.
I'm more curious about what's underneath the behavior. I'm slower to judge. I've learned that the person sitting across from me has a story I may know nothing about.
Because leadership isn't only about getting the work done.
It's about understanding the people doing the work.
Still Becoming
After more than 25 years in the workplace, I made another decision.
I went back to school to pursue my Master's in Management and Leadership.
At this stage of my life and career, I wasn't doing it because I needed another credential to prove something.
I went back because I was still curious.
I wanted to understand leadership more deeply. I wanted to understand myself more deeply. And I wanted to continue becoming the kind of leader who doesn't just know how to get work done, but understands the people doing it.
There's something humbling about studying leadership after you've already been leading for years.
Experience teaches you a lot.
But experience doesn't mean you're finished learning.
I don't think we're ever finished becoming.
Maybe there's something you've been thinking about doing, too.
Going back to school. Changing careers. Starting something you've quietly dreamed about. Using a talent you've kept tucked away because life took you in another direction.
We can convince ourselves there is a certain age by which we're supposed to have figured out who we're going to be.
I don't believe that anymore.
Some of the most meaningful growth in my life happened after I thought I was already grown.
The Life I Was Trying to Build
Sometimes I think about that 18-year-old girl riding the bus with her baby.
She was exhausted. She was scared. She didn't have a plan for the next 25 years.
She was just trying to get through the day and somehow create a better life.
I wish I could sit beside her for a few minutes now.
I'd tell her the life ahead won't always be easy.
But I'd also tell her to keep going.
Because little by little, she is going to build a life she can't even imagine yet.
My children are adults now. Along the way, our family grew, and I became a mother again. Today, one of my favorite names is Gigi.
I found love again, too.
I'm happily married to a man who is my best friend and true partner, and our family has grown to include two bonus children. We are a blended family, with all the personalities, histories, love, and occasional beautiful chaos that comes with it.
The life I have today isn't perfect.
I don't think that's the goal anymore.
It's real.
It's full.
It's a life with love, family, meaningful work, laughter, growth, and people I deeply care about.
And perhaps what means the most to me is that I'm finally present enough to appreciate it.
Healing didn't erase what happened before.
It changed what I carried forward.
Finding My Voice
There is something beautifully ironic about where my life is taking me now.
As a little girl, I learned that sometimes staying quiet helped preserve connection.
Today, I'm a speaker.
Life really does have a sense of humor.
After more than 25 years in leadership and business operations, I'm stepping into a chapter that brings together two parts of my life I once thought were completely separate.
My professional life taught me how organizations work.
My personal life taught me how people work.
How we hurt. How we adapt. How we protect ourselves. How we survive. And, if we're willing to look inward, how we heal and grow.
I've realized those were never two separate educations. They were both teaching me about people.
And people are at the heart of leadership.
That's what I want to talk about now.
Leadership. Healing. Growth. Resilience. Transformation.
Not because I have everything figured out.
I don't.
I'm still catching old patterns when they show up. Still practicing boundaries. Still learning. Still growing.
I'm not speaking from the finish line.
I'm speaking from the road.
And maybe that's exactly where we're supposed to speak from.
Our stories don't become valuable only after we've tied everything up neatly and figured it all out.
Sometimes the greatest gift we can give someone else is simply telling the truth about what we've learned along the way.
Maybe This Is Your Story, Too
When I look back now, I have enormous compassion for all the women I have been.
And maybe there are versions of yourself you need to look back at with a little more compassion, too.
The woman who stayed too long.
The woman who worked too much.
The woman who kept everyone else together while quietly struggling herself.
The woman who thought asking for help meant she wasn't strong.
The woman who spent years trying to prove she was enough.
The woman who did whatever she needed to do to make it through.
Maybe she doesn't need your judgment.
Maybe she deserves your gratitude.
She got you here.
But she doesn't have to decide who you become next.
For a long time, I thought growth meant becoming a better version of myself.
Now I think it may be something much gentler.
Maybe growth is slowly letting go of the things we had to become and finding our way back to who we were underneath them.
The strength got me here.
I'm grateful for it.
That young woman who learned how to figure things out, work hard, keep going, and take care of everyone around her built a life I am deeply proud of.
I don't need to leave her behind.
I just don't need her to carry everything anymore.
And neither do you.
We can be responsible without carrying everything.
We can be compassionate without abandoning ourselves.
We can be accomplished without constantly proving our worth.
We can change direction. We can begin again. We can go back to school later in life. We can discover new purpose after decades in a career.
There is no age at which we are finished becoming.
I'm discovering that for myself right now.
Today, I'm learning to lead differently.
To love differently.
To live differently.
There is strength in softness. Strength in boundaries. Strength in asking for help. Strength in saying what you need. Strength in allowing yourself to be seen.
And strength in understanding that you don't have to spend the rest of your life being who you needed to be during the hardest parts of it.
I spent much of my life becoming the woman I needed to be to survive.
I'm grateful for her.
She got me here.
But perhaps the most unexpected part of my story is that after spending so much of my life learning when to stay quiet, I'm finally learning something else.
My voice matters, too.
And I'm using it.
