LaShata Grayson

I attribute my success to my faith in God, for sure. I am a believer. My mother, who had me at a young age, and my grandma - my mother was on her own since she was young. I have a strong family of women who have not allowed me to give up on myself. That's a testament to who I am today. My faith in God and my strong family of women are the foundation of everything I've accomplished.

The best career advice I've ever received is to not be afraid to try something new. You can change your mind in careers. My career has been a testament of trying something new every time. I went from being a special education teacher to working with college students, and now I'm working in a nonprofit doing training and development for pre-law and law students. It's a testament of not being afraid to try something new.

My advice to women entering my industry is to be intentional, be strategic, and be creative. Realize that your capacity matters. Understand where your energy goes, who has access to you, what systems support you, and what version of success is actually sustainable. When you're coming into nonprofit or people-helping industries like mine, try to figure out where your energy goes and what fills your cup the most. Who has access to you, whether that's in work or outside of work? What systems best support you - whether that's AI, the community you build outside, or professional associations you're a part of? And what version of success is actually sustainable? Even within this industry of training and development, we keep building and building, but is it sustainable for you? Have the answers to those questions as you're entering into this field.

The opportunities in my field include the ability to transform, to be creative, to reassess what learning and training looks like, and to really have the art and the science to things when it comes to training. I'm able to build connections, develop workshops, do wellness work, infuse my values into different places, and build scalable systems. I'm able to become more process-minded because I'm doing a lot of different things. The challenges are that it's carrying too much mentally - my brain holds ideas, responsibilities, leadership, and creativity all at once, and that's a lot to be carrying. I also have difficulty separating my identity from my responsibility and my work. A lot of high-achieving women have that issue as well, where I have my work professionally, but I also have my mission in life, which can overlap with some of the work that I do. So it can make it hard to rest, disconnect, or delegate because you don't want to disappoint people and you're very passionate about what you do. Another challenge for me is wanting spaces that stay surface level - I'm naturally an emotionally intelligent, deep conversation, intentionality type of person, and sometimes when you don't have environments or relationships or spaces that support that, it can be frustrating or disappointing.

The values most important to me are integrity, respect, wellness, and humility. I really live by integrity and doing what you say you're going to do. Respect is another big one for me - do what you say you're going to do and live by those things. Wellness is crucial - the well-being of myself and the well-being of others is through and through. I care deeply about neurodivergent learners, being one myself, and I also care about spaces as it relates to different people and different lived experiences. That's where a lot of my advocacy work comes from. And humility - I'm very humble for all the things that I've received as a first-generation college student, and I'm grateful to even be in this life that I get to live now.