Natasha Starceski, M.A.

I attribute a lot of my success to being a mixed-race kid. I'm half European from my father's Polish lineage, and my mother is Hispanic - I grew up in a bilingual family in a semi-speaking Spanish home. For an early part of my life, I felt like being mixed-race was such an anomaly and a downfall, like I was never going to be accepted no matter where I went. I never felt like I was completely white enough to be in some places, and I didn't feel Hispanic enough to be in others - I'm not even Mexican, I'm half Spaniard. But as I learned and progressed in maturity, I realized it was actually one of my greatest attributes. I'm not holding one or the other, and that's great - I can be a bridge between the two, not just someone who stands outside of either and isn't accepted. I get to be what bridges that. The first time I really understood this was when I was at a clinic and saw a Hispanic mom with an infant who couldn't speak English. I was there and got to help translate for a nurse what was wrong with her baby. I was like, why am I ashamed to be half and half when this probably saved somebody's life? I was, like, 18, so that changed my mindset. The other attribute that progressed from that understanding is not being shy about being the voice between people. I'm very much somebody that wants to find solutions, wants to find a way forward, wants people to walk away feeling like there was enough compromise for them to feel satisfied, even when there's a lot of division and hurt feelings and history. I think I'm really good at being somebody that can hear all that, take it in and filter it, and still make people feel they were heard, they were seen, they were welcomed, they were accepted. I'm a pretty good facilitator and negotiator. That's what I realized - that's what I want to be, that's where my strengths are.

The best career advice I ever received was that before you come to a table, you do come prepared. You figure out by either asking questions to yourself or asking people that are more wise and experienced than you - what do I need to do to prepare to be at this level? So I don't show up and just look like the anomaly in the room because I didn't come prepared. But not only that, the advice was to have a network of people in your corner. Have people that you can reach out to that are more skilled than you, more knowledgeable. Surround yourself with people that are going to be better than you, because that's going to challenge you to be better. But then always have that support system to lean on when you're not as good as you want to be yet. Have mentors, have people that are smarter than you, invest in those relationships. Always invest in positive relationships that challenge you to be a better person, better leader, better mother, anything. Have those people that challenge you to be better than what you are. But also have people outside of work, outside of directly what you do, that when you are struggling, you can take that to. So it doesn't muddy the waters for you as a leader or somebody within a hierarchy. Keep confidants outside of your professional circles, because not everyone has your best interests at heart. You can say the wrong thing in front of the wrong person, and someone's gonna use that as ammunition against you as a person, against your career, against your development. So keep that separated, but always have people that are gonna challenge you to be better.

Have mentors and build a network, and invest in those relationships to be better. Surround yourself with people that are going to be better than you, more skilled, more knowledgeable, because that's going to challenge you to be better. Always have that support system to lean on when you're not as good as you want to be yet. Have people that challenge you to be a better person, better leader. But also have confidants outside of your professional circles, outside of work, that when you are struggling, you can take that to, so it doesn't muddy the waters for you as a leader. Not everyone has your best interests at heart - you can say the wrong thing in front of the wrong person, and someone's gonna use that as ammunition against you. I'm also not shy about being honest with junior women getting into the organization, getting into the military. I'm not gonna lie to them or keep from them what challenges they're gonna face, but I'm also going to keep them motivated and inspired. I'm not gonna lie - I'll tell you how hard it's gonna be, but I'm also going to help champion you as well. As long as you're doing the right things and you're growing, I want to be that person. I'm going to give back what was poured into me.

One of the biggest challenges in my career field in the military is that we're already at a lower population than our male counterparts. We typically only make up anywhere from like a quarter to somewhere between that and 40% of ranks, and that's across every branch. So we're already at a smaller number, and as you try to get any one of those higher-level positions where you are influential and you do have a lot of say and control over the culture and the decisions that are made, it gets less and less and more challenging. There is still a lot of decision-making made at a really high level where a lot of people are just gonna choose a male and not even care about what is on your resume. They're just gonna default to 'I trust the male more in this role than I trust a woman,' without any consideration or historic digging, without understanding what does the person bring and are they a right fit. It doesn't matter, male or female. One of the challenges is us just feeling like we're gonna always be not the one considered and not the favorite. Every day it's like you feel like you reset, and you have to show up and bring your A game, because there's no room for error, there's no room for being tired. We have to want it more, and we have to work hard every single day. I don't have a day where I can show up like my male counterparts with my feet on the desk doing nothing all day. I can't do that. It comes with the challenge of working against a cultural default setting, but it also comes with the challenge of having to work twice as hard every day. Our efforts are always gonna be more, because if I am not the best of the best, I'm not going to get pushed forward. If I'm not in the top 10% or the top third, my career is over. For those that want to continue to progress, the amount of effort and sometimes stress that takes is a lot. And we have to balance being spouses, we have to balance being moms. It's a toll. Right now there's a lot going on politically and globally, and there's fear that a lot of women are facing in the field and profession that we're in - that we are being systemically removed from leadership and from the table that has voices and influence. We're going backwards in time, and that's frustrating and sad.

The things that are most valuable to me are just being integrous. I'm kind of a person where what you see is what you get. I don't change who I am when I'm around my son, I don't change who I am when I'm around my soldiers. I'm the same human in every circle I stand in. I don't change and I don't adapt for anybody to fit in. That's what makes me confident in what I do - I don't feel like I have to turn on or turn off a hat or a mask anywhere I go. I don't ever want to walk in a room and feel uncomfortable because I have to fake a different way of life in order to feel like I'm being accepted. So just being authentic and being transparent, understanding what works for me and what doesn't. I'm not gonna sit in every circle, and that's fine, but I'm also not changing anything about who I am. I maintain my integrity, my transparency, my honesty about things that I've done or gone through, to a degree depending on if that's a personal relationship or professional, so knowing that boundary of what I share and what I don't. But still not changing who I am, not budging on the morals that I've created for myself. The other thing that's big for me as far as a value is concerned is just a consideration for people that aren't like me - whether that's multicultural, whether that's just me and people from another state, whether that's me from small-town Montana having a curiosity and an openness to people from inner-city Chicago. Not having a fear or a judgment on anyone because I don't know their lives and they don't know mine. That's important to me - I don't come mentally pre-equipped with reasons to hate or dislike anybody. It's not my place. I think the two things are just to be who I am and don't judge anybody, because that person didn't choose where they were born, where they grew up, what gender they were born with. There's a lot of things they didn't choose in life. It's not my place to judge. It's not my place to make any sort of verbal anything against someone from Afghanistan or from Pakistan. That's not my job. There's a lot going on in this life, a lot that's out of a lot of people's control. And if we just understood that, it makes things better.