This is 35.

A few weeks ago in an interview, Angel Guerrero asked me to share my journey and what lessons I learned to get me to where I am today, and it was one of the hardest questions I've had to answer. First off, I didn't know where to begin. I feel that personal journeys are never linear, and to be honest, mine always felt like I'm constantly on the starting line. Her next question was about what lessons I've learned. Again, there wasn’t anything in particular that came to me immediately, there has probably been a million and not one that really defined how I got to where I am. I couldn’t answer these questions in such definitive timelines, but I did share a theme that seemed to be consistent in my life: I was never the smartest person in the room.

I always, perhaps unconsciously, surrounded myself with people I could learn from, people who inspired me, people I looked up to and was often in a state of gratitude to be placed amongst people who have done and experienced more. No pedigrees and such, I was aware of the things I lacked which made me grounded in learning, absorbing, and growing… there in the culmination of these things, lies my ability to execute better than most. Knowing what you can and can’t do, doing what you say you will do, builds trust. This is the journey I take each day.

To that I say, thank you to the people who have trusted me the last 35 years of my journey.