(An abbreviated version of this cover story article appears in the Winter 2010-2011 Edition of the Collective for Women Magazine, a supplement to The Women’s Book)

Young women typically turn to the top to find wise and experienced mentors.  While there is no doubt these women are of great value, we truly overlook young professionals and their potential to impact young girls.  We sat down with five young professionals in Columbus to hear their about experiences and advice for others.  As a college student and soon-to-be young professional, I soaked in every word these ladies had to offer.  But wherever you are in your career or in life, you will be able to relate to their stories and feel the passion for their family, work and community shine through their words.  While they come from different backgrounds and industries, these women share a passion for the Columbus community and show excitement for the potential this city offers for their career and personal development. 

Featured in this coversation are: Sarah Song, Advertising Coordinator, The Daily Reporter; Kelsey Walton, CPA and Assurance Senior, GBQ Partners, LLC; Hilary Corna, Author, Speaker & Kaizen Leader; Tasha Booker, Relationship Manager, United Way of Central Ohio; and Habiba Kamagate, Coordinator of Special Projects, OSU Multicultural Center.

Why did you decide to start making your mark in Columbus?

Sarah:  I think, for me, home is where the heart is.  I’ve lived overseas, and I’ve also lived out on the west coast.  As wonderful and as bigger of a city, or as more beautiful of a city as it might have been, I find that I love being back in Columbus and I embrace it more than I ever have.   All of my best friends are here, the love of my life is here – the reason why I moved back to Columbus.   I just realize that home is where the heart is; I love that it’s Columbus.

Habiba:  I really didn’t come to Columbus by choice.  Of course, I came because my mother wanted to move because all of her siblings are here.  But, I thank God that I  came to Columbus.  I’ve been here ever since I started high school.  I went to Columbus Public Schools, and coming to Ohio State really showed me everything that Columbus has to offer. 

Hilary:  I also have left for three years and came back to Columbus.  One thing that is unique and very special about Columbus is that there is great opportunity right now, great potential.  It’s a medium size city with a very rooted value system unique to the Midwest.  And it’s very different from the west coast in that sense.  I think there’s a lot of value and strength and appreciation for what we grow up with here in Columbus and the moral systems that we’re taught.  It’s unique to the Midwest and unique to America.  Columbus now has an opportunity in the future to really stand out and make itself different from other cities in Ohio.  I think it’s really about the potential and values rooted in the city.

Tasha:  For me, I never left.  But I travel a lot, and I thought about going to another city.  But, like Sarah said, home really is where the heart is.  All of my family is here, all of my friends.  I have an extended network and a great support system. When I think about that, there’s a lot of cities – the larger cities – where you don’t have that, so I feel very spoiled, but also very blessed to have that here.  It makes it harder for me to relocate.

Kelsey:  I agree with everybody here.  I actually went away for ten years when I went to go to college.  I met my husband in Richmond, Virginia, and it turns out we’re both from Columbus, Ohio, and our families are from Columbus and everyone is here.  When we got married and knew we wanted to start a family, obviously we wanted to come home and have our families heavily involved.  I think you see a lot of people coming back to Columbus because of family and the community and the network within Columbus.  I think that’s a big reason why people come back.  But when you get back, it’s different.  I think from going away when I was a senior in high school, I didn’t realize all the opportunities in Columbus.  I didn’t realize the vibrant corporations, the philanthropic organizations, all the networking opportunities – I mean there is so much to do here, there is so much entertainment.  The cost of living to do it all is appropriate, I think.  It’s like what Tasha and Hilary said about the other cities.  Not only the values, but the price that you pay to have more opportunities in Chicago or New York City…I don’t know if it’s worth it to me.

Sarah – Everything that we need from a big city is all here.  On top of that, what Hilary said, the fact that everyone here is rooted in their Midwestern values.  Everyone here is so friendly, and that’s another great factor of living here in Columbus.

Who are some of the mentors who have influenced your careers and your lives?

Habiba:  I have countless mentors coming straight out of school.  To start off, Senior Vice President Joyce Beatty.  She has really taken me under her wing and has exposed me to so much.  Not only at Ohio State, but in the Columbus community and beyond.  Also, Dawn Tyler Lee has been an amazing resource for me.  Also, Dr. Gaston, vice president for Student Life; I now work for her.  She also has taken me under her wing, and she has been a well of knowledge for me.  They’re not only professional mentors, but their personal mentors as well.

I also have two recent, new found mentors:  Karen Morrison of Ohio Health and I actually just had lunch with Mysheika LeMaile-Williams this afternoon.  They are both in public health and health administration, so they’re really just guiding me on my path as I’m starting to make my mark.  I didn’t even seek out Miss Morrison, she actually contacted me first.  That really shocked me, because, in my mind, you usually seek out your mentors.  You usually try to talk to them and contact them, and after meeting her one time, she e-mailed me and our relationship has just grown from there.  So I’m really grateful, really grateful.

Tasha:  I too have so many I’m afraid to mention and leave someone out!  I’ll start first, for me, my first mentor really was my mother.  She didn’t have the opportunities that I actually have today, so she made sure that she put people in my life that could help me get to this level.  So that was my first mentor.

Now I would be remised if I didn’t say I worked for the “baddest” sisters in Columbus.  Janet E. Jackson is the president and CEO of United Way.  She, because of her working relationship, can’t be a formal mentor to me, but she has always provided those coaching sessions – both professionally and personally – and provided some good guidance on decision making.  Also, Dr. Gene Harris of Columbus City Schools.  Obviously, with me going back to school to become an educator, there’s definitely a formal relationship there.  Also, Janelle Simmons…we have a lot in common.  It’s funny, because I just joined my first board, and it was the first board she ever joined.  She also had the same role that I had at United Way, and now she’s the director of philanthropy at The Limited, so maybe there’s a natural progression there.  Tei Street is one of the ones who reached out to me.  I met her once through another mentor, Shawna Gibbs.  I knew she was definitely going to be one of my mentors.  Kim Campbell from Mount Carmel East, you know, everyone who is in that non-profit sector…they just really look out for young women.

There are, too, men, and I do think as women we need to make sure we expand our network.  We still are operating in a very male dominated society and time, but there are two men who are mentors to me.  Ron Green, the CEO for the Boy Scouts of America, where I actually started before United Way, helped me navigate through a male-dominated organization.  Also, Michael Robinson from Nationwide.  They are two great people who continue to do check-ins with me quarterly and just help me understand the non-profit world and the business world.

Sarah:  That’s amazing.  How can I get myself involved to get in front of these mentors that you’ve come across?  I really feel like at this point in my life and my career, I would definitely like to take my career to a new level.  I just recently started a sales position, and I would like to get in a position where I would be very successful – not just monetarily, but also to be able to give back to the community.  So, if anyone is reading this, I am looking for a fabulous mentor!

Hilary:  I’ve realized the importance of mentoring from being abroad.  When I was overseas the past three years in Singapore, I had a mentor for the first year, and he moved away and left the company.  When he left I felt this gaping hole that really cannot be filled very easily.  It’s a very sensitive, touching thing to have someone in your life that you really value and respect and can take advice from.  It wasn’t until that person was gone that I realized how much he had helped me.

But before I left for Singapore, if I may say, TaKeysha Sheppard.  I was about 14 or 15 when I first attended a Leadership Institute, and TaKeysha was a facilitator as well as many other amazing women, which was put on by the league of women voters.  At the time I didn’t really go out there, do the institute to find a mentor.  Sometimes you sort of subconsciously are in a situation where you meet someone, and you just bond and connect, and you speak the same language without ever making the effort to try and connect.  You just see the same level.

That’s how it was when I met TaKeysha.  I think she must have been my age now when I met her, but I just remember thinking, “wow, that is the kind of woman I want to be in ten years.”  So we communicated and have kept in touch through the years.  Basically, I am so proud of her now with The Women’s Book.  I remember when I was 15 or 16, and she said, “I have this idea for The Women’s Book.”  And it was just an idea back then. 

Also for me, someone who was really important was my guidance counselor in high school.  I went to Columbus Public Schools, so naturally, being in an inner-city school, you don’t have the resources that you would from private schools.  It was a much greater challenge for someone, specifically a woman, to stand out and make a difference in high school.  So, my senior guidance counselor was just phenomenal in helping me do that, and kept in touch through the years in helping me make the right decisions.

Kelsey:  Listening to all of you speak about your mentors, I know this is an area where I could probably do a lot better.  I don’t normally reach out to people within the community, and I don’t have successful women throughout the community who are my mentors.  I think, along with Tasha, just looking at my mother and the women in my life.  My parents were divorced, so I had a stepmother and a mother, and a grandmother, who I was all really close to through that process.  Just taking bits and pieces of their personalities and the strong women that they are, and the morals and the values that they have really made me who I am.   But it’s something that I’d like to do better in the future, to reach out to people and to find those mentors that I think could really get me to the next level that I want to go to.  But, honestly, I have not been as outgoing in that regard to find those mentors.

One of the main struggles is figuring out the right balance between work and family for you.  Tell me what you ponder when you think about that balance.

Kelsey:  It concerns me, because I have no idea what I’m getting into.  I can kind of picture it a little bit, and I have made the commitment to myself and my family that I’m going to try to do the best I can at both work and at home.  But I know that even now, given the busy schedule of an accountant, and networking events and being involved in the community, it’s already difficult to balance the two.  I think I’m apprehensive about the future, what it will bring, and how I will juggle all of that and how I’m going to do it all well.  So, I am concerned. 

Here within GBQ, we have a women’s group.  So we’ve tried to mentor each other and find role models that have gone through those things.  But it’s also nice to find those people outside of your particular organization so that you’re a little bit freer to talk about the true struggles.  I think sometimes you’re more hesitant to talk about what you’ve truly encountered when you work for the same organization. 

Habiba: It’s so funny that you asked that question, because Friday and Saturday I attended a leadership retreat.  All of the girls, all African American students from Ohio State, asked the same question.  It seemed like all of them said they were scared.  They didn’t know if they wanted a marriage.  There was one young girl that said, ‘I don’t want to be married.  I don’t want to have any kids.  I’m scared because I didn’t have a good example.  My mother wasn’t there.  I don’t know what it means to be a wife, I don’t know what it means to have that balance.  And some girls said they want it – they want the family, they want the husband, they want the kids and the success altogether.  And I know that’s something that I want, but honestly I’m scared too.   Because I see so many successful women who don’t have it and so many successful women who do have it and can balance.  But for a lot of young girls right now, including myself are scared.  I don’t know if it is something I can do.  I want to do it, but still, I don’t know.

Tasha:  I’ll say, so my situation is different, because I chose love and marriage before a career.  I got married when I was 24 – I’m 31 now – and my husband and I, when we met, were putting ourselves through college.  So we supported one another and grew together that way.  So it wasn’t like I got out of college and got married.  I wouldn’t say it was backwards, because you find what works for you, and there are people who can have success in different ways.  You have to define what’s important for you.  Just recently, someone told me, ‘you make this look easy.’  It is not easy, but what I gave up was the guilt.  I am very fortunate that I have a husband who is very supportive of me being out and being at this event and that event.  He’s an accountant, so he has this personality where he says, “you go, you do that, and I’m home with the baby.”  You know, what I try to find is not necessarily balance, because to me, I don’t feel there really is balance.  I try to integrate a lot.  What I’ve started doing – which it took me a very long time to get to this point, and it was someone else – Yvette Nikki Brown – that you get to a point where you can start to say no to some things.  And only get involved with what makes you happy, with what is your passion.  There are some things you’re going to have to do, but for the most part I really try to integrate my time with my passions.  So the board that I just joined, the volunteer organizations with which I’m involved – those are the things I personally want to do.  So I can contribute that to also being professional, and it’s something I want to do.  I don’t feel guilty when I can’t go to a lot of the social events.  You pick and choose which ones you want to be at.  Most of the time you’re not really missing out. 

I felt like I was going everywhere but wasn’t really anywhere.  I just share that as a working mom, it’s not easy.  I’ve let go of feeling guilty about dishes sitting in the sink and just finding that help.  Not being afraid to ask for help is one of the reasons I haven’t moved to another city.  I have aunts and uncles who don’t have children of their own, so they’ll take my son at any time.  I have in-laws who will come here in a heartbeat.  If I was 500 or 600 miles away, that might not be the case, and I would be in a very different situation.  So I just say, find what works for you.  We need more married women and mothers in the workplace.  We have to break down those stereotypes.  We have to say that we’re willing to have a career that sacrifices our family.  Yes, you see a lot of women who have had success with no children, or have been divorced, and that’s okay if that’s what they want.  But if you ask them, many will say they regret that.  And I don’t want to live a life of regrets.  And I also think as women our age, we’re in a very unique situation.  The economy has really changed the way the family structure works.  You have a lot of dads who were professionals who are staying home now with the kids while the wives are the breadwinners and doing the traditional male roles.  We don’t have to define what being a successful mother in the workplace looks like.  WE can define it for ourselves.  If your husband stays at home and that’s what works for your family…I have a good girlfriend who is the CEO of her own home medical company whose husband stays home and takes care of the two kids, and they are just fine with that.  So we find what will work for us, and I do, and I make no apologies.  You know, sometimes I have to leave work at exactly 4:30 to pick up my son, but there might be that time where I’m there until 6:30 or 7:00, or I’m logged in on the weekend.  You just have to set your own boundaries and go from there.

Toni:  Let’s talk about making your mark, and think about where you would like to see yourself in ten years.  Tell me what 2020 looks like for you.

Hilary:  Well, I would say it kind of applies to the question before about what you really want out of your life as a woman in this day and age.  It’s not the same as it was before, and that’s the beauty of it.  A lot of people look at that in fear, and think that because of the pressures of society to be in this definition of success – you need to have this car and this pair of shoes and this house.  The beauty of today is actually, people are so less fearful of what other people think about them.  And they’re so much more rooted into really understanding what makes them happy.  Whether that is the father being at home or you are the CEO of a business for several years or that you actually quit and become a mother again.  It’s really up to everyone’s personal decision.  I think the ten year mark is really difficult to look at, especially in today’s day and age when things are changing so rapidly.  The accessibility to information is so plentiful that we have options galore, and our options change from month to month and day to day.

When I first moved out to Singapore, I knew okay, I want to stay at least two years. Coming back, I couldn’t tell you what I was doing three months ahead of time.  Now I’m looking at about six months.  For me, I do still want to have a family.  I come from a very big Italian family, a family of five and cousins whose names I can’t even remember!  But I love that and because I grew up with that, I see the value of having a big family.  And I want to have children, so personally, before I jump into that, sometimes you just can’t dictate what’s going to happen.  Really knowing what you feel most strongly about is – by far – most important.  That you can look at the world full of all these things going on, and you can say, “right now, this is what I need.”  And you just have to take it step by step.

Kelsey:  I really agree with you too.  And I’m at a different stage, where I’ve been working in accounting for three years, but I was in sales for five years before that.  I don’t know where I want to be in ten years.  I think it is because of the opportunities and the things that are available out there.  Up to this point in my life, I’ve made decisions that were good for me at the time, and for the next two to five years.  I’ve always tried to make the decision as far as my career as something I would enjoy, that would put food and shelter over my head, and have money for savings and entertainment.  I basically just wanted to support my lifestyle.  I think right now, being where I am and being pregnant, I don’t know where I want to be in ten years.  And I think it’s okay to say that.  I am truly blessed, and I’ve tried to listen to the Lord and His path that He has for me, and tried to follow that path when things and opportunities come my way, and really evaluate them at the time based on my own morals and my set of values and what’s important to me.

Hilary:  If I may interrupt, there’s an analogy we used to say at Toyota.  They strongly believed this exact thing, not just in life, but also in business, that if you’re trying to get from point A to point B, sometimes you go this direction and sometimes you go that direction.  Nobody knows what kind of external influences there are going to be on your path.  So the simplest thing is just taking it step by step and being flexible.

Learning to identify what your weaknesses are – not just your strengths, but also your weaknesses so you can know in such a situation where I didn’t know such a thing was going to happen or I didn’t know I was going to be faced with such an obstacle that you can take that and instead of freaking out and saying, “I’m off path,” or “I was going to get married by the time I was thirty.”  You can take it and say, “well, how can I use this to my advantage, and how do I deal with this.”  Those are the most successful people, the ones who are flexible.”

Sarah:  I think for me, it’s kind of simple.  For me, in ten years, I have a vision of myself:  happily married, with a family.  I was an art history major, so I have a passion about the arts.  I have signed up to become a member of the art museum, and have signed up for some of their art networking groups.  I also reached out to some of the people to become a docent.  I’ve also recently signed up to be a volunteer at the Wexner Center.  So in ten years, I would like to be more heavily involved, and perhaps be on the side where I can possibly contribute not just my time but also monetarily, and hopefully have a very successful career.  Really who knows, but that would be great.

Tasha:  Ten years is a long time.  Can I just say breathing?  You know, I say that kind of tongue-in-cheek, but was listening to Gail King, and someone was talking about how life is just so short, and life is so unpredictable.  The day could start out fine, but we could leave here and not come back tomorrow, so just to be alive and well and just be happy.  It doesn’t necessarily depend on if I have the good job, or the high paying job.  I don’t want to equate my happiness ten years down the line as seeing myself as an administrator or the CEO.  We don’t necessarily know if that’s true.  I would like to say…just here, and doing something positive.  Not necessarily being recognized for it, but just knowing that I am making an impact in the lives of not just women, but the city of Columbus.  That’s what ten years looks like for me:  being happy, volunteering, and breathing.
I used to hate that question in interviews:  where do you see yourself in three years?  I mean, can I just have the job and I can figure out my three year plan down the line.  I don’t know, and there are so many opportunities.  You know, someone could approach me tomorrow and say, “I have a wonderful opportunity for you,” and it might be completely unrelated to what I’m doing now, and that’s just life.  I hope that I’m at a point in my life and flexible so that, ten years from now, I can say whatever, I’ll try it.

Hilary:  This actually leads to your last question about employment and switching careers.  I think the whole idea of the question is why do you put this time on your career?  It comes back from the 50s and 60s.  You climb the ladder and you’re set for life.  That is really like a funny question.  Well, why are you putting a parameter around me?  Do I need to fit in this box? 

Tasha:  Not to mention, jobs aren’t even lasting that long.  I watched my parents work day in and day out at a job, and I look now, and they don’t even exist anymore.  I don’t think employers are holding onto positions anymore like they used to.  Our demographic, I think they said the average is three years, and the maximum is about six years at one company.  And even then, your position will change sometimes from year to year.  What you were hired into do may look totally different when you decide to lead or transition.  So who’s to say that you can’t apply that to your own life.  If businesses can do it, then if it’s time for you to make a change as it relates to anything, do it.  That’s how I am at this point in my life, and I hope that I’m still the same way.  And there’s the generation gap too.  People two generations ahead of me might say, “you need some loyalty.  There’s no loyalty in that.  Where’s your work ethic?”  But I think we have incredible work ethic, that we’re not so rigid, or we must succeed in whatever we started out doing and stick with it for fifteen years. 

Habiba:  I’m learning how to be more flexible.  I was so prone to having a plan and sticking to it.  Okay, you’re going to college, this is what you’re majoring in, and this is what you’re going to do.  I really wanted to become a nurse practitioner.  As my years in college went on, I got to my senior year, and I started thinking, is this really what you want to do?  As I got closer and closer to graduation, I realized,  you needed to stop.  You need to take a year off and do some self-reflection.  That’s what I’ve been doing as well as working.  I’ve been trying to figure out what motivates me, what’s my true passion, just taking the time to figure out what the next step is.  I was always the type of person who had a plan.  I never took the time to just enjoy where life is taking me.  I’m still learning.  I was allowing fear to control my life, especially in school.  I’m trying not to do that anymore

Kelsey:  I think that’s great that you’re taking that time for reflection.  My sister is a senior in high school, and she is trying to figure out what college to go to.

And she doesn’t know what she wants to do, and she has five or six different ideas, and I don’t think in today’s society that it’s a bad thing to take some time to think, “do I really want to spend all this money on an education that I may not be using in the future?”  I think that’s great that you’re taking that step and taking that time to think, “what do I really want to do and what’s really going to make me happy?”

Tasha:  So I would love quotes, and this quote will some it up.  Audra Bohannon, she facilitated a leadership program I was in, and she always used to say, “live your life by design, not be default.”  So we are the authors of our own life.

In making your mark, how have you discovered your passion and how is that passion fueling what you’re doing now?

Hilary:  I love this subject as well.  When I graduated from college in 2007, I hated when people would tell me, “just get a job.  It doesn’t matter what job, you just need experience.”  I thought, this is the worst advice you could be giving me.  I think it’s the opposite.  When you’re twenty-two and you’re young and your views are just exploding, that’s the best time to explore and have fun with it.  Take the risks financially, emotionally.  Jumping a few years back, I went to high school in Columbus.  I knew I wanted to get out of Columbus for college.  I just wanted to see something else.  I went to North Carolina and graduated in International Business and Asian-Pacific  Studies, and I decided to study abroad in Japan.  I studied the language and loved it, and from there it just spiraled.  Once you catch one glimpse of what it really means to interact with something that you’re really passionate about, the energy just keeps going.

When I graduated from college, I really wanted to work abroad.  I didn’t want to be 25 or 28, maybe settling down somewhere or in a relationship, and get cold feet to go abroad for a career.  So I thought, if I’m ever going to do it, I’m going to do it now.  So I bought a one-way ticket to Singapore, gave myself a budget and two months.  I told myself if it doesn’t work out, I’ll just come back.  And I went, and in three weeks I had five job offers, and Toyota was the last.  You just do it, and then once you do it, you feel the energy and you keep going.  Now, coming back, Toyota was genius for me and exactly what I needed for those two years abroad.  It was that stringent work style that made me realize what I wanted out of life.  It was almost like juxtaposition.  Now I’m back and I feel like I still have that connection with Asia.  I really want to be involved with those young people in Columbus and the rest of the United States who really have an interest to work abroad but don’t have the resources to get there.

You really just have to take it step by step.  You can’t dictate how your life is going to play out, but now I’m getting to work with young people and meeting awesome people like you who are so inspiring.  I’ve realized that people have passions in different places, and when you feel that energy for the first time, that you’re really doing something you’re supposed to be doing, it’s contagious.

Habiba:  My passion is the driving force behind everything I do.  I just want to help people.  I knew that from the very beginning, that all I wanted to do was help people.  Regardless of whatever field it is, I have to impacting somebody’s life.  I was born with sickle cell anemia, and for the past seven years I’ve been a blood recipient, so in my mind, I figured that if I want to help people, I have to help them through healthcare.  That’s where my mind has always been, so I thought I have to be a doctor to help somebody, or I have to be a nurse.  Over the years I’ve slowly realized that there are so many different ways that you can impact somebody’s life.  I see that in public health, because it’s not just locally, it’s nationally and globally.  Even after graduating (I got my degree in nutrition, which is another one of my passions.  With everything that’s going on with child obesity and hypertension, I just think I can help in that way.  With my new job at Ohio State in the Multi-Cultural Center, I’m working with students.  I love being a student, I can’t wait to go back to school, and I’m also helping the students right now.  Being a special projects coordinator, I’m coming to the table with a fresh perspective.  I’m sitting at a table with all of my past supervisors and advisors who are a bit disconnected.  They want to know what the students want, but they don’t have the fresh perspective that I do.  So, in that sense, I’m still helping the students and giving back to my peers and the people that I used to have class with.

My passion to help people and my passion to give back is what is driving me.  And I am slowly realizing that you don’t have to help somebody in just one particular way, but I can do it in so many different ways.

Tasha:  I think we all have a common theme here, and it’s education.  That is what I am most passionate about.  What keeps me motivated at United Way is knowing that that is one of our areas of focus, and it’s one of the reasons I went back to work on my Master’s Degree.  For me, education was life saving.  It opened up a whole new world for me, and it gives you a different perspective.  If I can be that educator to a student, to one or even two, that’s what it’s going to be.  But that’s really what I’m passionate about; the education of young people.  I’m definitely an advocate for Columbus schools – and any public schools, not just Columbus, but for public school education.  Not everyone can afford a private school education, but there shouldn’t be less value placed on a public school education than there is on private schools. 

Hilary:  There was a man I worked with in Singapore who spent a lot of time in the U.S.  He administers the Myers-Briggs testing.  Toyota sent me on the training.  It was really funny, because it was one of the first days I realized I wanted to leave the company.  His name is Ramij.  Basically, after the training I thought I have to learn more.  So I asked him if I could please meet him for lunch because I have so many questions.  I met with him, and at this time, my mind was racing.  I thought I could do so many things:  start my own company, expand peoples’ business.  He said, “what you’re doing right now is really making it a lot harder on yourself.”  He had this beautiful  quote, he said, “you need to figure out what resonates with you.”  I love that word, “resonate.”  It’s like vibration, relating to your heart.  Apparently there’s some doctor who studied the process of decision making, and he broke it down into four steps.  The first step was explore, where you take in your options and information.  Second is artist, where you draft all of your ideas, draw pictures and put out a sequence.  Third is judger, where you make a decision.  Fourth is warrior, and that’s when you take bold decisive action.  I thought it was beautiful, because I was butting heads with all four steps.  He told me, “you’re getting society’s and your parents’ pressure to make a decision.  At the same time you’re receiving all of these newsletter and magazines, and you’re talking to people about new opportunities.”  And at the same time I had all of this pressure that I needed to get out of Singapore in two months. 

He said, “you need to give yourself a break.  Take a vacation.”  Well, we took a lot of vacations in Singapore, but he really told me to just observe myself.  He told me, “when you’re talking to people, what gets you all excited.  What makes you ramble?”  When you start to observe yourself, it’s amazing.  No one needs to tell you, really you know.  I just thought that was great.

Sarah:  Like I said before, my major was art history.  I am really passionate about the arts and children getting involved in the arts and exploring what art can do for their lives.  I think that I want to be able to explore more on my own.  I just had this idea to just really want to get involved in the community and really have the opportunity to give back.  I think, first and foremost, Columbus has a lot of really great art venues that I can attach myself to and learn so much from.  That is what drove me to sign up to the art museum and the Wexner Center.  Just really wanting to get more involved in different women organizations as well.  Just in the past couple of months, even just meeting TaKeysha, was the world just sending me all of these clues.  I feel like everything at this point in my life has been exciting for me because of so many changes.  I’m planning a wedding now, and being back in my own city has been wonderful.  I lived in Seoul, Korea for two and a half years, and then I moved to San Diego.  Just being back and wanting to be more comfortable in my own skin but also my own city.  I want to find out what I can do to really feel like part of my own city, and what I can do to not just make my mark, but to make the city even that much better.  The venue that I would definitely want to go through would be the arts, and I’m getting a lot of great ideas just listening to these ladies.  This has really been inspiring.

Kelsey:  Listening to everyone else speak, I really feel like an engineer and an accountant.  Even though I don’t know where I want to be in ten years, I’m still more of a box-type person.  My whole goal in life has been to be independent, self-sufficient, and able to take care of myself, however that happens.  That’s why I’ve chosen the careers that I have.  You know, the reason I went into engineering is because I was good at math and science, and I knew I could make a lot of money.  That’s the honest answer.  That’s kind of how I’ve lived my life.  So, unfortunately, this question always scares me, when people ask what is your passion and what is your purpose.  I don’t feel that I have found something that I could specifically point to that I could say, “I am passionate about this and I want to take it further in developing that passion.”  It’s always been a scary question.  As far as, if I take look at what I’ve done and what I’ve gravitated to, because we’ve had a lot of networking events and opportunities here through GBQ, I find myself gravitating towards women’s issues.  Like I said, we have a women’s group here at GBQ and we’ve looked at work-life balance.  My parents were divorced.  My dad and I had a great relationship, but my mom was still a single mom.  She had to work the whole time I was growing up and really had to balance being a great mother to me and being independent and financially supportive of me.  So I value strong women that can take care of themselves, be independent and don’t need anyone else to take care of them.  I’m trying to figure out where that work-life balance is, and that’s really where my passion is.  I’d love to help younger people with that when I figure out for myself what that means.  Like we said earlier, that is really defined by you, and I think that is also something that is very difficult.  We do still live with certain ideas, and you still have the constraints to work with in so many organizations.  It’s very difficult to find out what that means to you and sell that to the organization and have them believe in it as well.  When you have your own business and are doing your own thing, you can obviously make that decision.  But when you’re working for somebody else, you have to be able to figure out what that means to you and then sell it to them, and hopefully they’ll buy into that.  If I were to look at what I’ve resonated with and what I’ve gravitated toward, it would be women’s issues and finding a work-life balance. 

The other thing is that I need to simplify.  At this point, I have been attending a lot of different events.  I know there are certain groups and organizations that I’d really like to get involved with, and that’s kind of been a putting out fire scenario, where you say “yes” to everything and you really haven’t figured out what you want to do.  Just trying to balance my work priorities and trying to get involved in a couple of organizations; really just saying, “no, this is what I’m going to do.”  I’m going to say no to other things.