I'm no longer who I was and that's a good thing. I've learned, I've grown, and I'm moving forward with clarity. I'm aligning my life with who I've become.

As an Assistant Professor in academia, I found meaning in mentoring undergraduate students. They have been some of the great joys during my time in my position. They are passionate, intelligent, capable, and ready to learn new things. Watching them develop their laboratory and critical think skills has been what has kept me going even on the toughest days.

Working in education taught me that resilience isn't about staying quiet - it's about speaking up. I found meaning when I embraced leadership as advocacy, using my voice to protect students, support educators, and challenge systems that ask people to endure instead of grow.

What helped redefine myself after the loss of my late husband in 2019, changing jobs, and at the start of COVID was writing. It was the beginning of my newest identity as a children's book author.

Re-engaging those thoughts, confidence, diligence, resilience and dedication that propelled me to present.

This quote by Maya Angelou is my motivation. "If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude"

My job title matters for less to me than the impact that I have. I find meaning in helping people feel supported, seen, and capable – whether that's a patient, a colleague, or a team navigating change.

I don't think redefinition is the right description for my career, actually. I'm going to go with 'realization' instead. I realized I could reach a much larger audience by writing stories (stories with ideas/lessons for anyone across the internet, as opposed to the 30 kids per hour I got to see in the classroom. One can only hope…

Once I stopped chasing a title and started focusing on serving people who valued what I offered, my work became more meaningful, and better opportunities followed.

I did it by refusing to let my past define me. From GED to Ed.D., I walked by faith, not titles.

How She Did It: I redefined myself when I realized that my job title was someone else's vision that I was fulfilling. I decided to work with Purpose and that could only be done by me writing my own job description and allowing myself to own my redefined title as Founder & CEO.

I redefined myself by shifting from simply chasing opportunities to intentionally building vision, discipline, and faith-driven leadership that could sustain real impact. By embracing growth, resilience, and innovation, I transformed challenges into clarity—leading me to where I stand today.

I always knew to intentionally take every moment as a gift to impact others. To encourage peers and friends, to cheer the ones whom I have the privilege to do life with. Make myself available to serve, listen and lift others up.

I realized my worth was never tied to a role; it was rooted in my values, vision, and impact. When I aligned my work with my truth, everything changed.

For me, meaning didn't come from a title - it came from impact. My work has always been about service, trust, and helping people understand difficult moments. Once I separated who I am from what I do, I found purpose in the values I bring to any role: leadership, integrity, and making space for clarity when things feel chaotic.

My testimony began with my husband, and I waited years to have a child. I believed that as a woman who was seeking to push my career to a level that far superseded the norm, a child could inhibit me. When my daughter was born, and I held her gentle body in my hands, I realized my job, the titles, and none of that mattered more than life and this precious being that God blessed us with. My lens added the importance of intentional love for me, still a queen, but a queen with priorities and boundaries. My mission is to fight for justice, equality for all, and fairness. I knew I had to make the world better for my precious child and all children. I knew that I did not need titles to mark my greatness. My footprints in the sand are with my God, carrying me and leading me to walk as a queen unapologetically.

Letting go of a prestigious role was scary, but it made room for work that aligned with my life and values. Stepping into entrepreneurship helped me define myself by purpose, not position.

After 100+ applications and countless rejections, I realized the market wasn't rejecting me - it was redirecting me toward building my own business that was authentically mine.

Outside of my job title, I define myself as a professional secret-keeper and someone you can tell anything to without feeling judged. I also define myself as a fun, warm, and lighthearted person, especially for the children that I work with. When working with children, their parents look to me for support and recommendations for their child to be best supported emotionally. In these circumstances, I define myself as a person parents can rely on and someone they can come to with their worries regarding their children.

I was adopted into a family of educators. So, from the time of my birth, I was soaking up every learning moment of the educational process. Naturally, I chose education as my life's work. What a ride it has been. From my first job teaching students at Graebner Elementary in San Antonio, Texas, to creating professional development opportunities for experienced healthcare professionals in the Oklahoma Career Tech System. Over the last 4 decades, I have grown into the seasoned educator that my parents once were. Yet, there was always one nagging question...where did I come from? I always knew I was adopted. People have asked me how I found out, and truthfully, I don't remember; I just always knew. Maybe it was because I was more brown-skinned than 90 percent of the population around me, or maybe my parents sat my brother and me down and told us. All I know for sure is that at 18, my adoptive mother gave me a folder with my birth records and some information about the hospital, the lawyer, and the original birth certificate with my birth mother's name on it. It was shocking to see in black and white the words illegitimate child. I never felt unwanted or unrecognized, so this wording stung. And so began my journey to find my birth family. Understand, this was the early 1980's. Computers weren't a household staple, and the internet was not a thing, yet. I didn't even have a word processor until the late 1980's or early 1990's. I looked up names from the library and cold-called several people out in California with the hope that I might just hit the jackpot. I filled out applications for adoptees who wanted to reunite with their birth family, and I even sent a letter to a television show in hopes that they might choose me to feature. It was not meant to happen. I continued with my life and career with the hope in the back of my consciousness that someday "it" would happen. Fairly quickly, my brother found his birth parents. I watched my adoptive mom become a little fearful and saddened, but happy for my brother. I decided then I wouldn't pursue it anymore. I made several job changes and one career move, and then it happened. My brother called me and said he had received a phone call from a private investigator. Her information was spot on. Within a few hours, I was talking to my birth brother from Southern California. He was a year younger than I am, and we hit it off, talking for an hour. About two weeks later, the PI had found our sister in Kansas. We also had 4 other brothers. The Labor Day weekend of 2015, we finally met. We could tell we were related, and it took little time to fall in love with our siblings. Our birth mother passed away in 2008. Five were raised together, and two of us were adopted. It has been wonderful getting to know them and making up for lost time. The story doesn't end there. By now, computers were hand-held devices, and discovering information was at our fingertips. I decided to find out the other half of my heritage through DNA. I began with Ancestry.com and then tried 23andMe to no avail. I received good information about my heritage and a little more information about my medical conditions, but I longed to find my birth father. Just as a last resort, I took another DNA test on the MyHeritage website. I received great information about my heritage and my Italian, German, and Puerto Rican bloodlines. Nothing happened for about a month, and then, I received the unbelievable news of a 100 percent match to my birth father. The only avenue to make contact was through the MyHeritage App. I forgot how many times I tried to contact him, but finally I got word that he got my messages. He was in total shock. He did not know I existed and would need some time to tell his family. I worried myself sick, but eventually he let me know that it was a big surprise to everyone and not an easy pill to swallow for some of his family. After careful consideration, he agreed to have dinner with me and my spouse. It was awkward at first. He wanted to know what I really wanted from him. His wife did most of the talking because he had suffered grave injuries from Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. The full circle moment was evident when he told me that he had a sister with the same name as me, and we wore our hairstyles the same as well. I learned that all the women on his side of the family had rheumatoid arthritis and struggled with their weight. Round had been my shape for many years, but I had finally committed to a healthier me. I admired his courage and saw many traits in him that I had inherited. This experience changed my life and set me on a course to wholeness, happiness, wellness, and most importantly, faith that my commitment to advocating for education, fighting for causes that I believe in, and following my passion for the arts created the person I was to become in this life.