The experience meant so much to me. It truly was a once-in-a-lifetime for me. It was one of the best development gifts that I had ever been given by an employer, and I'm so grateful and I'm so thankful for it. From that experience, I gained a close relationship with my peer partner, and I learned from everyone else in my cohort. And from my leadership journey perspective, it was a really good opportunity for me at a time when I was in a period of transition and had quite a bit of questions that I was trying to find answers to about myself.

The learning partner relationship was really special to me, and I felt like it was a unique aspect of the AWL experience. I don't know that I had had that kind of component in part of a leadership development opportunity before. So I found it to be really, really unique. It was impactful because I had a one-on-one personal relationship with someone else who was going through AWL that I could get to know better. We could hold each other accountable and support one another through that experience. And not only through that experience, but also through life experiences, as things were happening in our personal lives while we were going through AWL. So I’m still very close with my learning partner today.

I would say you can't afford not to do it. That is a significant mistake that leaders oftentimes make. They feel that they can't spend the time to do this for themselves, or it's not the right time. And really, the response to that is that you can't afford not to. I don't think that leaders understand that when you are functioning and pouring from a half of a cup or from an empty cup, the quality of what you do on a day to day basis suffers significantly. And so from an engagement perspective, I don't think you can afford not to.

The ROI from the experience is a better equipped, more engaged leader, if I could just put it plainly. So it started out for me as a really exciting opportunity for me to spend some time just to explore me and how to best govern me from a leadership perspective, but it ended up also being an experience about self-care. And leaders are oftentimes so involved with caring for others, doing for others, going through everything that they do on a day to day basis to perform their role in a company, that the leader doesn't necessarily get the care that they need.

I have confidence that I don't have to know everything all of the time, comfort with living with questions, just investing in some of the relationships that support me and my engagement and my wellbeing on a regular basis are some notable things that I would mention here. I would say that in two more years, I will be more independent - working and living more on my own terms. I'm at the beginning of that journey.