lightning 
Features of the comandy operating system
We run toward blazing fires to serve others and to forge character. Bravely jumping into firefighting puts us outside of our comfort zone, but purges the dross from our life and reveals the gold. Fire holds no power over a life built from the strongest materials. Trials have a way of putting our priorities in focus and can always be redeemed to grow grit, resilience, and stamina. Our lives are flame resistant, allowing us to carry out courageous acts of service to catalyze change that others avoid due to high risks. We take action based on our conscious and convictions. We answer just calls to duty on the battlefield of life, but always engage with equanimity and virtue including humility, respect, kindness, compassion, genuine curiosity, and generous forgiveness.
We don’t just dream about new frontiers, we’re athletes who set out on grand adventures to reach them. We take risks to leap over giant gorges and discover the world’s biggest opportunities. We keep a hopeful, bird’s-eye view of our destination as well as a reality-based systems perspective of the ecosystem and challenges that surround us. We practice radical stewardship of resources--those entrusted directly to our care as well as those in the shared environment around us. We create sustainable routes for others to join us, including refuges for rest and replenishment to fuel our journey. We enjoy pathfinding exploration yet never take our eyes off of growing strength, endurance, skills, and camaraderie to overcome difficult terrain and reach the finish line.
We love hurdling. We are quick to understand complex systems and situations, anticipate terrain changes, generate potential solutions, and move with ease, flexibility, and rapidity to test and validate new paths forward. We expect obstacles and the need to change stride to set and reset the conditions for thriving. We are neither naïve optimists nor hard-hearted pessimists. We see and accept reality while choosing to embrace defiant hope and audacious joy. We strive to skillfully navigate from uninformed simplicity, through messy complexity, and onward to the elegance of simplexity that can only emerge on the far side of complexity.
more about My story
I specialize in tackling grand challenges and overcoming adversity in every corner of life. My top 10 formative experiences are:
- Growing up in rural America in a community of humble means and with a special-needs family member
- The privilege of attending a military academy (though women couldn't yet attend when I was born)
- Serving in the military, including as a commander and deployments, for more than 30 years (and I'm still not a morning person)
- Studying engineering at MIT and developing cutting-edge technologies (in both government and Silicon Valley)
- The joy and challenges of learning languages plus living and working abroad (and later graduating from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy)
- Growing a venture-backed quantum computing company from first revenues to unicorn valuation and an IPO on the Nasdaq
- Building strength and discipline through athletics including being part of an NCAA championship team (swimming), getting inducted into the Air Force Athlete Hall of Fame, and completing an iron-distance triathlon
- Brokering more than 650 global cross-sector partnerships for missions that are so big that no one organization can do it alone
- Visiting all 50 US states, 6 of 7 continents (still looking forward to a visit to Antarctica), and traveling across the US from ocean to ocean by bicycle (you can read about the journey here on my Bicycle Blog
) - The unconditional love, hope, grace, and joy I discover daily in my faith journey
I choose to live a life of adventure because I have nothing to fear. I've faced difficult things in life...things like assault, rejection, betrayal, loss, grief, oppressive authorities, tough physical and mental training, cultural assimilation, and even terrorists. None of those things defeated or defined me. And all of these experiences have been redeemed to make me a stronger, kinder, wiser, and more resilient person.
I don't want to repeat these difficulties, but I wouldn't trade my beautiful disasters and trials for anything.
My current theme song is "Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)." I've never been one to hang out in the safety of the boat. I love the adventure of setting out into deep waters, riding the ups and downs of the waves, and feeling alive among the powerful forces of nature. I've been swimming all my life and even became a lifeguard, encouraging others to venture out with me. But the ocean is powerful. World-class athletes know they perform best with rest. And we're wise to seek shelter in the boat during the big storms. I don't plan to be struck by lightning twice.
I've had a ridiculously winding career path. I'm so glad I didn't over-plan my career. It's the unique combination of experiences in large-scale leadership (leading organizations of thousands of people), engineering, and global adventures that allow me to be the global executive engineer that I am today. You can get even more details about my career background via my LinkedIn profile.
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