My Story
November 4th, 2022
That is a day I will remember for the rest of my life. It is the singular day where I can confidently say I was changed and challenged the most. It was the only day (so far) that I have had to commit a crime in order to save my and my coworkers' lives.
It was my second project as a lead executive and we were driving back to the airport after “hunting Bigfoot” in rural Oklahoma. The drive back to the Dallas airport turned into a life-altering experience when the tornado sirens started blaring. The 10 minutes between hearing those sirens and me smashing in a school window with a 2x4 might not be directly applicable to my job, but the lessons I learned from that experience have made me better at every aspect of my professional life.
There are times when achieving results are a must; like how I maneuvered our last day’s shoot plan to get everyone out of the storm’s path as soon as possible. There are times when you must trust your judgement; like how I made the call to turn the car around and head back toward town when the first siren went off. There are times when you must keep a cool head; Like when I drove underneath a stoplight just as it burst into flames after a lightning strike. And there are times when you must take ownership of the tough decisions; like when I picked up that 2x4 and smashed that glass door to get my team inside the locked school to relative safety.
In the early years of your career, leadership appears to be an inaccessible skill that your superiors seem to have with effortless grace. However, it is going through challenging experiences when you have no choice but to be a leader that makes you realize leadership was within you all along.
Professional success relies partially on having the technical skills required, many of which I hope to build during my MBA tenure. However, the intangible abilities that separate future leaders from the pack are earned through tough situations and being thrust outside your comfort zone. While it doesn’t have to be a life-threatening situation to be effective, I most certainly would not give up my experience for the lessons it taught me.