Dominique Green

I started over a few years ago, really starting from scratch, and while my children are definitely my sounding board and I want to make sure I'm doing things for them, I really attribute my success to my resilience. I know there's something that I can do, and when I get positive feedback from others, it reinforces that. When I'm in a room, I try to be a light, and I never know how I'm going to be received or how other people are going to experience me, but I think just me pushing through and knowing that if I want to be the light, I have to be there to be the light. So my resilience and just pushing through is something that I believe has helped me be overall successful and hopefully continue to be successful as I move forward.

While I've changed throughout different careers, I've always had mentors that let me know that I could do it. When I'm going into something new, I never would have seen myself in housing, but I've consistently gotten this message from my mentors and anyone who's assisted me: you have everything that you need, and you're capable. That's probably the best advice I lean into when I feel like, oh no, I don't quite have it. It's just like, you know, you have it, you got it. Sometimes you have to take a step back and then go back into it, but you do have whatever you need - you're capable of doing it.

Network. Get with others who are like-minded. Get with those that are going to support you. We're out here. There's not too many people that I cross that, when they're telling me what they're doing, I'm like, please let me know how I can support you, and they give me that right back. It's been so great to know that not only am I pushing myself because I know that I want to continue going, but just to hear from somebody else, hey, I really love what you did, or hey, great job. I didn't understand how valuable that was to me, especially in this career and as I am moving forward. I definitely would suggest when you see someone and attach with them, and it feels right, lean into it. Lean into that community and really network and support those that are supporting you.

The opportunities are amazing - like today, I just was able to go and speak about the programs that I have. I don't consider myself a speaker and I've never really been one to throw my hand up and volunteer to speak, but what it has done is allowed me to engage in a different way. I'm trying to reframe it as going and talking about the things that I'm passionate about, so I try not to get as nervous, because I definitely get anxious a little bit. Having these opportunities to go and speak about our programs and make people more aware of the things that we are doing that some just don't know about has been really, really good. As for challenges, I think managing so many different personalities is one. Although I was a teacher for many years working with kindergarten through second grade and I love working with those impressionable minds, when you're working with or having to manage adults who might not be open to some of the things that you are trying to present to them, I'm trying to figure out how do I get them that buy-in and keep the team camaraderie up. The things we do can be very heavy, but overall we're doing a great deed for some that might not have these opportunities otherwise. So how do I bring that joy to the team consistently? That definitely was a challenge at first, but things are flowing a lot better than they were. It's a work in progress, but I'm figuring it out.

Being kind. There's enough darkness, there's enough hate, there's enough of all these negative things, and I do not want to attribute to negativity in any kind of way. I pride myself on being kind to others, and then also knowing that I deserve that kindness back. If it's not being given, I can remove myself from that space and still wish those people well or that person well. But definitely kindness.