Confessions of an Ex-Millennial Mayor: Overseeing a Police Department

In a weak-mayor system, some municipal mayors get to oversee a police department. The first thing that I remember after being sworn in was being whisked away and handed two internal police investigations. I was curious, energized, ready to learn, and ready to lead. The mayor paid less than $100 a month, so my day…

Why Not You?

Audacity “The quality or state of being audacious: such as a : intrepid boldness knights admired for their audacity.” I’ve had about four or five careers (I’ve stopped counting), and I just embrace the art of side quest. Why not step out of your comfort zone? Why not learn something new? If you fail, it…

Confessions of an Ex-Millennial Mayor

I imagine 18-year-old me, 28-year-old me, and the me today sitting at a bar. They’d all get along kee-keeing with one another. They’d converse about talking the crying customer out of the plane bathroom before take off, or telling the one man, “I’m as hot and chocolate as he was going to get,” because we…

37 in Less Than 7 Days: Flexibility is a Flex

I will be 37 in 7 days. What am I learning? Mostly, I’ll never have it all figured out. After briefly being a flight attendant, my 9-year career in tech came to a pause. The position got eliminated, so I leaned heavily into pivoting. I will continue to lean into pivoting my entire life as…

We Are All Exhausted

We are all exhausted right now, but we show up with as much as we can every day. One hundred percent looks different to the same person each day, and we just do our best and try again tomorrow. Times in this political climate (which some of us predicted if we got there) are hard…

Capitalism Killed the American Dream

Once upon a time, in an American neighborhood, you could buy a house, work through college to pay your tuition with zero student loan debt, and have a child without feeling as if you would never financially recover. The credit score wasn’t even created until 1989. It wasn’t until 1978 that federal student loans were…

Leaders Who Won’t Step Aside Are Holding Movements Back

Watching the new Red Lobster CEO excel at his job and also know how to accept feedback is amazing. As someone who voluntarily left corporate America and read that a lot of Gen Z and Millennials would rather work at a cash register than climb a corporate ladder, it doesn’t surprise me. Young people are…