as a shy kid was tough. I remember how uncomfortable it felt talking to adults until I was about 12 years old. To add to that awkwardness, I shot up to 5’10” by the time I was 14, and with my lanky frame, some boys thought it was hilarious to call me “stilts.” While I was studious and hardworking, I never really felt like I fit in with my peers. That sense of being “out of place” stayed with me—until a major life move gave me the chance to reinvent myself.

Let me explain. I like to say that I understood the power of “personal branding” before it was even a thing. In the middle of my Junior year in high school, my father’s new job uprooted us from our home in Minnesota and planted us in the more sophisticated world of Boston, Massachusetts. It was a massive shift, and I could have easily resisted it, but instead, I chose a different path—I embraced it.

Moving to a place where no one knew me felt like the perfect opportunity for a fresh start, a reinvention of my identity. Of course, it was still me, just a different version that had been hidden beneath the surface. And guess what? It worked. I stepped into my new school in January of my Junior year, and by Senior year, I had made great friends, was editor of the school newspaper, got elected to student council, and became a varsity athlete. Whoa!