KayLeigh Nycole Fitzgerald

I definitely attribute my success to my family, and my family doesn't just mean my blood family, but also my friends that are very close to me and my husband. I'm a first-generation graduate, and I could not do anything without their support. I'm very close to my mom - I actually live with my mom, and she's my best friend. Growing up, I know that my family didn't have much, but they always gave me the tools I needed, and it was my job to figure out how to use them. I've seen them sacrifice so much and take care of me and push me and hold me, because I can be a bit of a tornado. They're always there, and I can never say that I've ever been alone. My husband and I just celebrated 2 years married on Valentine's Day, and ever since he's been in my life, he's been my best friend and my biggest supporter. He supports me coming back to the United States, being here, finishing my PhD, even though it's really hard, and he would never ask me to sacrifice my dreams. My family, and who I consider family, is definitely why I couldn't do anything without them.

Some of the best career advice comes from my mom, and she has always said to follow your heart, and the doors will open. She was a teen mom with me, and my grandparents kind of pushed her into a career. She's 43 now, I'm 25, and she's just now over the last 3 years really getting her footing into what she really wants to do. She's always allowed me and encouraged me to do whatever the hell I wanted to do, as long as I did it with passion and gave it everything I had. She's like, I don't care what career you choose, if you want to be an artist, be the best artist that there is. If you want to be a scholar, be the best one that there is. She never pressured me about money or whether I'd find success in my field. She was like, if you love what you do, then the doors will open. The path will be laid out for you. I followed that - I followed my heart and my mind and a little bit of logic here and there. And the doors do open, and if they're closed, you can walk or look in a different direction. She's always encouraged me to follow my dreams and to dedicate myself 100% to whatever I've chosen.

Follow your heart. I would definitely say that if it doesn't make sense now, it doesn't have to make sense now. If it feels right, then it is right. I think as women, we are more intuitive, and I really believe in trusting the intuition that your body tells you. Coming from someone who is bipolar and ADHD, I struggle a lot with neurodivergencies and trying to figure out, do I really feel this way? Is this just the neurons talking? But the one thing I can say is I can't trust my mind all the time, but I can always trust my body and my heart. If it feels right, even if it doesn't make sense, just keep moving forward, because eventually it will make sense. Some of the decisions I've made and the career paths I've chosen don't quite make sense to people, and I'm like, just trust the process. I'm into tarot cards, and there's a card called the Moon Card, and the idea is that moonlight's very soft, so you can't see very far in front of you. It's saying to trust that inner intuition of yours. You may not be able to see all the steps very clear in front of you, but just keep moving forward, and the light will continue to guide you down your path. Sometimes it's scary, sometimes you don't trust it 100%, and sometimes you run in the other direction, but you always end up back on that path. I wish people had more encouragement like I did to really follow what they really wanted to do, aside from it making sense or not making sense.

Trust is definitely one of my most important values. I believe that trust is the base - if you want my respect, you need my trust. I value freedom, freedom in the sense of being able to follow your path, not the path of someone else. I don't think self-help books about how to become a millionaire are the answer - that was their path, not yours. I also value relationships in all of my aspects. When I really care for somebody or believe in a mission, I will go above and beyond. Money's never driven me, and sometimes I wish it did a little bit more, but it doesn't. I value passion - passion in the quiet. I think passion sometimes gets dismissed in professional writing, but some of my dearest friends have this calm like a lake, but that doesn't mean they're not deep and passionate about what they do, it just comes in a different way. When you lack passion, I really think you'll lack drive. We all have something driving us, and if you don't, then I hope that people can find it. That's one of my things with human rights - that pursuit of happiness and pursuit of your passions. If your passion in life is to have a small fishing business and work 3 hours a day and just have what you need and hang out with your friends, I think that is just as amazing as somebody who wants to be an author and be really influential and well known. I think all of them are valid, so just really following that, following your heart.