Sarai Fulton

I think a lot of it has to do with that learning mindset. I have this constant curiosity - when I learn something new, if I get even one waking second to study something that I don't know anything about, I take it. The nice thing about the company I work for is that they offer quite a few free trainings, and that enables me to learn something kind of outside of my wheelhouse. I don't think there's anything wrong with taking it by the horns and giving it a try, because what are you going to do if you fail? Just want to learn more. What's the worst thing that can happen? I'm the kind of person that doesn't really like the monotonous day, and I think what draws me to this career is that I like that level of ambiguity - some people don't like that, but I actually thrive on that.

I have have had many business mentors in my career life. For me, it started with Bob Carver, I assisted as both an Executive Assistant and Personal Assistant. He once told me, "You move mountains". Later, I worked for the local chamber of commerce where several local business leaders gave me 1:1 advice about multiple industries and spoke to me about how to best communicate to get the results that you desire. In healthcare, I learned from many executives about how to keep up with the everchanging industry. More recently, I have been mentored by two career EA's at AWS that have inspired me by legacy principles. I am open ears and absorbed it all.

I would say, stay alert and keep your eyes and ears open for opportunities to learn, because really, especially in the tech industry, it's always keeping that learning mindset and looking for new and more effective and efficient ways to do things. When you're a brand new person starting at this massive company, the best thing you can do is really just start to roll up your sleeves and get to know people, introduce yourself to folks, network with folks, not only in person but online through various platforms. You'll find a lot of like-minded people that are willing to be a mentor to you, or you might possibly be a mentor to them. I never really believed that any one person is an expert - of course there's SMEs, but when you see different perspectives and different viewpoints, the more ideas that you can bounce off of one another, I think the more successful you can become.

I'm really interested in exploring where tech is going to bring us, especially at this emerging time for the type of technology that our company provides. I think the world is just full of possibilities as far as any direction that can go. What I feel like I can contribute to the company is that I'm open to learning new concepts and new ways of doing things, all about efficiency and keeping that learning mindset in the first and foremost, because considering how things have always been done is not how it's necessarily going to be done in the future. That alone is exciting to me.

I think the number one thing that comes to mind is just being your true self. I think that you have to walk the walk, talk the talk, be that person if you expect the same out of someone else - absolutely sincere, and being honest, and just being comfortable in your skin of who you are. Knowing what you're good at and what you're not good at is actually a strength, but not being able to vocalize that is also a weakness. My big priority is trust and accountability and integrity - being able to, if you say you're going to do something, it believes that you're going to do it. If you ask me to do something, you better guarantee that I'm going to do it, or I'll let you know if I can otherwise. I think that communication is really strong, because that is what kind of threads the needle between all of us, is how we communicate with one another.