The Expert Generalist
An Unpaved Road to Leadership
Dedication:
To everyone who thinks they can’t, YOU CAN!
“The hard thing that you are avoiding may be the greatest gift that’s ever happened to you.” -Monique Lecomte
Foreword
I always say that my childhood was robbed. By the time I was seven, I was the matriarch of our family. I cooked our meals, washed and hung our clothes, and ran errands like a grown woman trapped in a child’s body. By age 12, I was driving a car. But more on that later.
My life started in a single-wide trailer on a red dirt road in the middle of nowhere, Alabama. Today, I train C-suite executives and other leaders around the world. I traded dirty, bare feet at the Winn-Dixie for high heels on the cobblestone streets of Europe and beyond—living proof that where you start does not determine where you finish.
The fact is, it’s not the road that defines us. Our present and future are shaped by how we walk the long and ever-changing paths presented to us and how we can turn adversity into purpose.
Growing up in the 1970s, it was me, my mom, my brother, and my sister. A week into my baby sister’s life, our dad left us in a town that the naked eye could not find on a map called Deatsville, Alabama. Or at least that’s the story we were told.
We envisioned winning the Publishers Clearing House, playing every time it came in the mail. Then, we could upgrade to a double-wide trailer.
My mom used to say we were “poorer than poor.” There are people who live near town and are barely getting by. And then, there are the people who are stranded in the country, 15+ miles from the nearest grocery store. We were the ones who were still skin and bones on government aid and welfare, scraping by in the backwoods of a town with less than 2,000 people.
And yet, somehow, I made it out. I made it out in a big way. My nearly 30-year career has led me to global boardrooms and leading teams for some of the most iconic brands.
When people hear my story today, they typically have the same question, expletive and all.
“How the hell did you get out?”
The pages that follow may give you a chuckle, a gasp, or a knowing nod as we follow along my journey through impossible odds to discover my escape route together.
The book you’re holding offers a different perspective on success and leadership. I didn’t go to business school. I didn’t grow up with a dad. I didn’t have a blueprint or even a role model. Yet, the lessons are the same as any successful businessperson. But instead of learning entrepreneurship on an Ivy League campus, my backdrop was hawking peaches in a K-Mart parking lot.
Looking back, it was inevitable that I would become The Expert Generalist. My upbringing was the ultimate lesson in sink or swim; there was no choice but to quickly become an expert in not just survival skills but also in resilience and creativity.
An Expert Generalist is someone with a broad range of knowledge across disciplines. This enables them to connect ideas, solve complex problems, and easily adapt to challenges by drawing insights from varied perspectives.
If I had to break down my recipe, it would be 40 percent moxie, 40 percent chameleon, and 20 percent connection-maker—sprinkled with endless amounts of humor and a dash of mischief.
My life was a blend of stark contrasts. With cinder blocks instead of stairs leading to the front door of our trailer, I grew up surrounded by the smell of the local paper mill mixed with toxic black fumes of burning tires from my Uncle Beanie’s side hustle. Funny enough, the other smell was a sweet, earthy aroma from a six-foot-tall red rose bush—the only remnant from a grandmother I never knew.
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Do you remember your very first memory?
I was three years old. My mom was starting trade school in Montgomery. That first morning, she dropped my infant sister and me off at the free daycare on campus.
Back then, we were poster children for abject poverty in a place where over 60 percent of kids qualified for free lunch. The year I was born, over a quarter of the state lived below the poverty line, with a median family income of $9,265 per year. If you were one of the lucky ones that had a job, minimum wage was $1.60 an hour.
We had never been away from our mother at that point. She had been raising the three of us on food stamps and welfare. This was her chance to make a better life for us.
“Please don’t leave me,” I begged, clinging to her leg for dear life.
A few days later, I ran into her in the bathroom of the small trade school.
“Are you here to save me?” a mix of whimpering and excitement in my unsteady voice. She looked like she’d seen a ghost and shook her head as she scuttled out of sight.
At age three, a theme that would set my life’s trajectory had begun: no one is going to save you, except yourself..
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For years, I hid the oppressive poverty of my childhood. Recently, I realized that resilience and ‘overcoming’ are too often missing from today’s narrative on success. As it turns out, the hard thing you are avoiding may be the greatest thing that’s ever happened to you.
My fundamental belief is that leadership isn’t something you sign up for; it’s something you step into. The obstacles we face, the friction and hardships we endure, and the choices we make all define how we rise or fall. If we choose to be, we are all leaders.
Part of my story, captured in these short chapters, is an Aesop’s Fables-inspired rendition of life lessons on determination, grit, and refusing to take “no” for an answer. Achieving in life is about seeing the inevitable detours as opportunities to push through and create new plan after new plan.
My hope for you is that you embrace the power of your narrative and realize that no matter where you come from, you have the power to choose where you go.
In the Deep South, storytelling is as integral as sweet tea, serving both as a means to impart moral lessons and to entertain by recalling the past. These days, when everyone wants to “spill the tea,” I still prefer to sip slowly in good company, savoring all the hard-won wisdom we can learn from each other.
So grab a rocking chair and a glass of ice, and let me get the sun tea steeping for you.