Autumn | Age: 16 | Augusta, MI
Founder, Empower the Shower
Leadership is... helping people work together for a better cause. Without some type of guidance to help people get work done and have fun while doing it, many groups would quickly become disordered and lose their structure, and leadership provides this backbone of cooperation.
Leadership in Life... A major setback in my life came when I realized that sometimes trying your hardest doesn't always directly lead you to your end goal. Life is filled with highs and lows, even if you are putting your all into what you are doing every second of the day. At some point you just have to accept that you will have amazing days, but often those days come at the cost of harder days too. From having to restart a project I planned for the community for months because no one showed up to not getting the job that I wanted so much, life doesn't tell you when it's going to let you down. The personal growth came in when I realized that the lows of life are not the end-all be-all barriers that I'm going to encounter. These lows will show up countless times throughout my life, but the only difference between me and someone like a high school drop-out is that I persevere through the harder times. Pushing through the lows of life, no matter how hard it may be, is the key to not succumbing to one's own despondency, and that's a lesson I have to remind myself of on almost a daily basis. The lows help me build upon what I can tolerate to trudge through, and they help me build not only a stronger perseverance, but a stronger character. We learn and gain from our mistakes and poor circumstances, and I've learned how to study, how to take care of myself, how to plan community events, and how to be a better person because of the struggle that life so often throws at me.
Advice… Don't let other people become boundaries for your life. Don't let other people hold you back from living the highest of dreams, and certainly when they try, don't listen to them. Although life is a series of hills and valleys, if you persist and stay true to your own determination you will get to where you want to be, so you can't get bogged down in other people's perceptions of you.
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