I got the opportunity to guest lecture at the University of Pittsburgh’s Leadership Course and it was energizing. I got to share with them about how not knowing what they wanted to be when they grow up is their biggest asset.

How many people know right now what it is that they want to do with the rest of their life? How many don’t and it keeps them up at night?

Surprisingly, I’m on my third-ish career. And not knowing what I want to be when I grow up is my biggest asset. I’ve been a mayor, councilwoman, IT business analyst, flight attendant, executive assistant, and communications specialist.

When on the journey to leadership there is no linear path. I never had it on any vision boards to run for mayor at age 29 but I’ve been navigating life on passion and the power of “say yes, and figure it out later.” During freshman year in college, I changed my major once, failed my first class (curse you, Quantitative Reasoning), and cried multiple times. I had no idea what I was doing. The good news is that the sooner I figured out and accepted that I would never have it figured out, life got a little bit more clear.

Carlow is absolutely to blame for my life in service. I blame them for my constant urge to fight boredom by helping a local nonprofit prune their garden or volunteer to pick up trash during the annual clean-up day. I thought at Carlow, we were just volunteering every year because they put it in the curriculum to graduate but it turns out that Carlow planted a seed in me. I cried at graduation because I had no idea what was next. I had no job, and no job prospects, and I just knew that the core group of gal friends that I formed in college would all scatter throughout the country. Spoiler alert, they did not and my RA ended up being my best friend.

No direction and no job prospects were the best thing that could happen to me. I even got laid off when I got my first big-girl job after college. That was awesome looking back at it because it was freeing in the sense that I don’t attach my value to a corporation anymore. I’ve been laid off twice so I’ve wired my brain differently and I know that a lot of people don’t have the strength to mentally get there. The thing I’ve always run to when things are chaotic in my life is always service. I drove to the border after being laid off and came home only to sign up for AmeriCorps which unknowingly watered the seeds that Carlow planted.

After AmeriCorps, I thought I wanted to be a flight attendant because I just knew that AmeriCorps wasn’t going to pay any of my bills and I had never been to Texas before. If I didn’t get hired at least I got a free flight, it forced me to get a passport, and I got to check out Dallas. It turns out that being a flight attendant didn’t pay the bills either. But flight attending taught me that I loved service just not in the capacity of being perceived as a sky waitress with free standby travel. Which somehow led me to the government. I absolutley one hundred percent just wanted to be a professional volunteer. I wanted to volunteer full-time and work full-time. The first campaign that I volunteered for was for Summer Lee’s State Rep seat. I canvased Braddock for the primary and then I did it again for the general and then I kept knocking on people’s doors. My one neighbor said, “One year you’re going to run for mayor.” I swore up and down that I would never do that. I just wanted to be a volunteer. I wanted to plan things.

Then I became a Home Rule Commissioner, a founding member of the Civic Plaza Planning Committee and then it happened. Mayor Fetterman got elected as Lt. Governer and nosey me was still attending Braddock’s council meeting every month just to know what was going on in the borough and how I could help. I didn’t want the position. I didn’t want to touch it with a ten-foot pole. I just wanted to go to work and then come home and volunteer until I saw that the applicants didn’t have the best intentions for the future of a borough that was considered financially distressed.

I applied.

The first time I was rejected for being too young although the only requirement to run for Mayor was being 18 and having lived in the borough for at least a year. It turns out the person that the council initially appointed didn’t meet the “live in the borough” qualifications. So I submitted my resume again for the appointment and voice shaky and all, I expressed why I should be Braddock’s next mayor and at age 29 I became the youngest Braddock Mayor in history.

Unfortunately, it was during a global pandemic but learning the inner workings of municipal government taught me that I was just getting started and that council was next. Braddock is a weak-mayor system. The mayor couldn’t make a change. Four years ago I was begging for police regionalization as overseeing the police department was the mayor’s only duty. Council turned it down and I just knew we had to have a common sense council to have any kind of change in the neighborhood. I then helped others run for office as everyday people might not want to run for office because we have no knowledge or “know how” but the government of any sort won’t get any better until everyday people sit in the seats that make everyday decisions on our behalf.

You may at this moment know absolutely what it is you want to do in life. I knew I was going to be a full-time writer living out my dreams as a journalist with a few published books. Several published books later I am a journalist but I’m also so much more. We have to accept the power of “and.” Don’t let your tunnel vision get in your own way. If I had just been a journalist and a published author I would’ve missed out on flight attendant, mayor,  Young Dems of America delegate, councilwoman, and executive assistant, and because I’ve been all these things I can lead with empathy and write about such lived experiences.