Keri Alisa Au-France

For a long time, I believed leadership was something proven by a title, a perfectly planned career, or a résumé without gaps or detours. I viewed the most difficult parts of my life as obstacles I had to leave behind before I could be considered successful.

Experience Taught Me Differently

My path has included work, motherhood, school, financial pressure, family responsibilities, career changes, and entrepreneurship. I have also experienced what it feels like to need help while facing systems that can be difficult to understand and even harder to access.

Those experiences did more than test my strength. They shaped how I communicate, solve problems, and advocate for others. They taught me that lived experience is leadership experience.

Seeing a System From the Other Side

A process can look simple to the person who designed it: fill out the form, make the call, submit the paperwork, attend the appointment, and follow the instructions.

For someone already carrying stress or struggling for basic needs, however, one more form can be a barrier. A missed appointment may be connected to transportation, childcare, work, lack of funds, fear, illness, or unclear instructions. A person who seems unresponsive may actually be overwhelmed and/or unsure where to begin.

When you have been on the other side of these systems, you learn to look deeper. You stop assuming; you learn firsthand that struggle is rarely the result of a lack of effort.

You Begin Asking Better Questions

What is getting in the way? Is the information clear? Does this process work in real life, not just on paper? What support would help this person take the next step?

That shift in perspective is where empathy becomes leadership.

Empathy Is a Practical Skill

Empathy is sometimes treated as a personality trait, but I see it as a practical skill. In healthcare, community work, customer service, and business operations, empathy improves the way we communicate and make decisions.

It means explaining complicated information in plain language. It means following through when someone is depending on an answer. It means recognizing that dignity matters, even when the day is busy and the process feels routine to us.

Empathy does not mean removing accountability or ignoring standards. It means creating conditions in which people understand what is expected and have a fair opportunity to succeed.

A compassionate system still needs accuracy, efficiency, and boundaries. In fact, compassion and strong operations support one another. When communication is clear, responsibilities are defined, and people feel respected, trust grows. Problems are identified earlier, and people are more likely to remain engaged.

Kindness matters, but kindness without follow-through can still leave someone stranded.

Resourcefulness Is Built Through Real Life

Some of the most important leadership skills are developed far from a boardroom. Resourcefulness can be built while stretching a limited budget, caring for a family, returning to college as an adult, learning a new field, or keeping a small business moving when plans change.

Balancing my education, family, and the daily operations of Seatown Collectible and Brick'N'Back taught me how to prioritize competing needs and continue learning under pressure. It taught me to find solutions when the obvious path was unavailable. I learned to ask questions, locate resources, adapt quickly, and take responsibility for the outcome.

These skills may not always fit neatly into a traditional job description, but they are valuable in every workplace. Leaders rarely operate under perfect conditions. They must make thoughtful decisions with limited time, incomplete information, and real people depending on them.

A nonlinear path can prepare someone for exactly that.

Education Gave Language to What Life Had Taught Me

Earning my Bachelor of Applied Science in Community Health Education helped me connect my personal observations to larger systems. I gained a deeper understanding of health equity, social determinants of health, prevention, and the role communication plays in improving outcomes.

My education did not replace my lived experience. It sharpened it.

The classroom gave me tools to examine why barriers exist. My own life helped me understand how those barriers feel. Together, those perspectives strengthened my commitment to creating services and systems that are not only well-designed, but genuinely usable by the people they are meant to serve.

This is especially important in healthcare and community leadership. Data can show us where disparities exist, but lived experience can help explain why. Policies can tell us what should happen, but listening to people can show us what is actually happening.

Organizations need both perspectives.

Making Room for Different Kinds of Leaders

Too many capable people believe they must hide every difficult chapter before they are qualified to lead. Not every private experience belongs in a professional setting, and everyone has the right to decide which parts of their story they share. (I sure as hell would never lay out my baggage for everyone, in every available space!) Still, we should stop assuming that only polished or traditional paths produce credible leaders.

• There is value in the person who knows what it feels like to start over.
• There is value in the professional who has personally navigated complicated systems.
• There is value in the parent who has learned to make difficult decisions while caring for others.
• There is value in the adult student who kept going even when life did not pause for school.
• There is value in the recovering addict who understands compassion and struggle on a different level.

These experiences do not automatically make someone a great leader. They must be paired with accountability, education, ethics, and a willingness to keep growing. When they are, however, lived experience becomes a powerful source of insight.

Turning Experience Into Service

I no longer look at my path as a collection of detours. It is an education of another kind.

It taught me to notice the person behind the paperwork. It taught me not to confuse a complicated life with a lack of potential. It taught me that strength can look like asking for help, changing direction, beginning again, or continuing one small step at a time.

Most importantly, it taught me that leadership is not about appearing untouched by hardship. It is about using what we have learned to make the path clearer for someone else.

Our experiences do not have to define our limits. When we reflect on them, learn from them, and use them responsibly, they can define the way we serve.

And that is leadership.

There is a common idea that success happens in a straight line: complete your education, establish your career, start a family, and perhaps build a business later. My experience has looked very different. I have pursued all of these goals concurrently, learning that meaningful progress is rarely linear or perfectly timed.

I am a wife, a mother, a community health professional, a college graduate, and a small-business owner. Each role requires time and energy, but each has also strengthened the others.

Returning to college while raising a family taught me discipline, adaptability, and patience. There were assignments to complete after bedtime, deadlines competing with family responsibilities, and moments when progress seemed slower than I wanted. However, those challenges gave my education greater purpose. I was not pursuing a degree simply to earn another credential. I was building a future for my family while preparing for a career that would allow me to improve the lives of others.

My education in community health showed me that health is influenced by much more than medical care. Housing, transportation, income, education, insurance coverage, and access to reliable information all affect a person’s ability to be healthy. These lessons connected strongly with my own experiences and deepened my commitment to helping people navigate complicated systems.

At the same time, my husband and I built a family-operated e-commerce business selling collectibles. Running a small business involves far more than listing products online. It requires inventory management, pricing research, customer service, marketing, shipping, problem-solving, and financial decision-making. Every order represents a customer who expects accuracy, communication, and dependable service.

Entrepreneurship taught me to take ownership of outcomes. In a small business, there is no separate department waiting to resolve every problem. When something goes wrong, we must identify the issue, communicate clearly, and find a solution. That responsibility has strengthened my judgment and confidence while giving me practical experience that applies directly to healthcare operations and other professional environments.

Building a business with my family has also helped me reconsider the meaning of balance. I no longer believe balance means dividing every day equally among work, school, business, and family. Some days require more attention in one area than another. Sustainable balance means understanding what matters most in the moment, communicating with the people around you, and returning to the priorities that may have temporarily received less attention.

My family is not an obstacle standing between me and my professional goals. They are a central reason I continue pursuing them. Parenthood has made me more resourceful, compassionate, and aware of the pressures many families carry quietly. It has taught me that behind every appointment, application, missed deadline, or unanswered call may be a person managing circumstances that are not immediately visible.

That understanding is especially valuable in healthcare and community service. People do not enter these systems as isolated problems to be solved. They arrive with families, responsibilities, financial concerns, past experiences, and competing needs. Effective professionals recognize the whole person and respond with both competence and empathy.

My path has included accomplishments, setbacks, changes in direction, and many moments of starting again. I have learned that resilience is not about pretending difficult seasons do not affect us. It is about adjusting, continuing to learn, and refusing to let one chapter define the entire story.

Building a career while raising a family and operating a business has not always been easy, but it has made my professional foundation stronger. I bring more than education or employment experience to my work. I bring the perspective of a parent, student, entrepreneur, patient advocate, and community member.

I am still building. I am continuing to develop my career, expand my knowledge, support my family, and work toward greater opportunities in healthcare and community health. I may not have followed a traditional timeline, but I have created a path grounded in perseverance, service, and purpose.

Success does not require waiting for every condition to be perfect. Sometimes it means building several important parts of your life together—and allowing each one to make the others stronger.