Kind of a Wreck, Kind of a Leader

I wasn’t one of those kids who knew what they wanted to be when they grew up.

I didn’t dream of being a nurse or a teacher or a veterinarian. I wasn’t drawn to a clear path with a single title at the end. When I was little, I wanted to be a Solid Gold dancer. I loved the glittery outfits. I loved the way they moved. I loved the spotlight. (And to this day, I still love glitter.)

But I never learned how to dance.

And while the dream faded, the wondering stayed.

What does it feel like to know your path from the beginning? What does it feel like to say, “I always wanted this,” and then actually get it? What does it feel like to become the thing you once imagined?

I imagine there’s pride. Fulfillment. Celebration. That the people around you beam when they tell your story, because it had a clear beginning and a triumphant end.

But then there are people like me. People who found their way as life unfolded. People who moved through jobs and seasons and titles not with certainty, but with curiosity. Or necessity. Or survival.

And I wonder how many of us, even now, with experience and skills and careers, still carry a quiet sense of being lost. Not ungrateful. Not incompetent. Just a little untethered.

We do our jobs. We do them well. We lead and manage and build and show up. But there might always be a part of us that wonders what it would’ve felt like to be one of the ones who always knew.

And maybe that feeling never fully goes away.

But maybe… maybe we lead differently because of it. Maybe not having a single dream made us better at seeing the potential in unexpected places. Maybe wandering taught us empathy. Maybe it taught us how to hold space for the people still figuring it out.

Maybe there’s more than one way to live a meaningful story. Maybe becoming a Solid Gold dancer wasn’t the point after all.

Maybe it was about finding my own kind of gold.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s exactly what I’m doing.