Tsion B. Michael, MBA

I attribute my success to my faith in God. For me, the principles I share are all biblical, and it's about being able to bridge the gap and apply them in every area of your life. That's probably the most profound thing in my life.

You have to grow your capacity. Sometimes you have to develop vertically before you grow horizontally. If you have not maxed out your capacity, it's probably not wise for you to go to the next level until you've learned everything that you have at your level. Yes, there's something to just going out there and winging it or learning as you go, but if there's some foundational things that you don't know, it'll probably make your next step to that next level all the more harder. Things like self-mastery, communication skills, and how you show up - your body language, listening skills - all of these soft skills that I think people don't focus on. They think that if they have all the technical skills and the education, they wonder why they're not getting the position or the promotion. Well, have you taken the time to develop your communication skills, your people skills, your leadership development? I think the largest gap in the workforce is not competencies, it's leadership. This is what my mentors Lorraine Neal and Dr. Cindy Trim taught me - they're building capacity in me.

Follow your passion, even if it doesn't look like it will end up being financial abundance in the beginning. For me, it was this simple thing - I want to help people. I wanted to see people prosper and do well. Follow the thing that turns your lights on, that brings a level of light to you. Do that! And step by step, you'll find opportunities and doors will open because you followed what you know you have a natural passion for. But then you've got to do the practical thing - you've got to put the work in, and you've got to put your time in. So for me, I think it was a mix of both, getting the right education and being in the right place with the right people who gave me opportunities. Wherever you can find problems you believe you have the skill set, the know-how, or the want to solve that problem, go for it. What is that one thing you can do today, not next week, to honor your goal, to honor that passion or that drive or that hunger that's just been in the background? Do that one thing this week to lead you to that place of being extraordinary. Unless you have people who are willing to help stretch you, you don't even know what your capabilities are sometimes. When we're out there committed to things, the momentum starts to happen - you create it with that one first step.

The biggest challenge I face is that people judge a book by its cover. We each have our own individual biases, so oftentimes when people look at you, they have a certain ideology of what they think you'll be. When I start coming into the workplace and working, they're like, wow, okay, she knows a lot, because I look young - younger than I am. I'm small, but I think good things come in small packages. Sometimes overcoming those hurdles has been a challenge, but I've come to expect it, so it doesn't really bother me as much, because I know that things take time to develop. Relationships take time to develop, so once people get to know you, they'll say, wow, you've got a lot more than we thought. As for opportunities, the opportunities are really lying today with people who are willing to learn, unlearn, and relearn, especially in the age of AI. It's learning how to utilize the tools wisely in your particular field, whether you are a lawyer, HR, or finance person. A lot of accountant positions are being done away with, but it's the people that know how to utilize the technology that will be gap fillers, that will be able to come in and be successful anyway, even with all this transition.

Truth and transparency are most important to me. I think it's important that, as a leader and as a person, you have truth within your relationships. There's so much pretense, red tape, and bureaucratic stuff. When you have the truth, then there's an opportunity to have alignment. When you're honest with yourself about who you are and what you want, then you can actually start doing something about it. In my personal life, that's the high ideal, or what I work towards in my relationships - ensuring that in every situation, you could just be as honest as possible. Out of that comes alignment, and then you can move out from pretense and hypocrisy. Another thing in personal life and in business is integrity - being integral in all of your communications, being integral in the things that you're doing. And then lastly, stewardship. Are you a good steward of your time, your health, your finances? All of those things. And in the workplace, I know we talk about equality, but one thing I strive for is equity - finding that things are fair across the board. That's what led me to really learn more and become a scholar of labor and employment law. It had to do with this value of mine for fairness. What is just? What is right? So I would say truth, integrity, stewardship, and fairness or justice.