Monica Haywood

I'm a very spiritual person, and that's what grounds me. Having that spiritual foundation gives me something to always revert back to or go to when life gets crazy. My family is a big motivator for me. I'm a first-generation African-American woman in my family, and there's a lot that I'm doing that hasn't been done in my family before. I don't say that to brag, but to say that I'm an agent, and it's important for me to be able to show my daughter something different, and even my son. I may not get to be CEO of a major company one day, but I've been a change agent just within my family, and sometimes I have to remind myself, Monica, that's enough. My motivators are really my spiritual foundation, being wired to be a change agent, and then my family and my children who are looking up to me.

I learned this term about 5 years ago to be a lifelong learner. You never stop learning. Learning used to only be about what you can get out of a book, but now with technology, you can learn through listening to a podcast or a YouTube video. Learning looks different now. It used to be just reading a book to learn about something, but now with technology, you can go to Cloud or ChatGPT to learn, you can listen to a YouTube video, a podcast. We're very much a learning family, and that's very important to me.

My biggest piece of advice would be, one, to know your strengths and really stand your toes down on what your superpower is and what your strength is. In areas where you need to grow or you're not where you need to be, I would continue to put the time and effort to develop those skills, either on the job or outside of the job. My biggest piece of advice is really be true to who you are and to the spaces that you go into, and really know your superpower. Everyone has weaknesses, everyone has something they're not strong at. Even the best CEOs have weaknesses and things that they are working on, but it's most important that you know what your unique superpower is.

For me, it's staying grounded in who you are. I'm a systems thinker at heart. I think programmatically with my children at home and bring that into work as well. Being able to compartmentalize work, career, and being able to turn off being a leader, a technology leader, and be a mom, a wife - I have a business on the side as well. It's really learning the art of context switching, being able to turn off and on. It's the most underrated skill. Some people will say you're being fake, being this way on Monday, this way on Tuesday. It's not that. It's actually called context switching. You learn the skill of being a technology professional and operating in the corporate space, but I can turn that off and be a mom and nurture my children. It's really learning the art of context switching, and when you find that you're out of balance, therapy is important. I'm a big, huge advocate of therapy. Talking things out with someone unbiased, I think, is necessary when you get to the point where you feel like you're not balanced.