My philosophy for leadership is to be curious, creative, and collaborative. They are three fundamentally interwoven ideas and they are critical for success.

I am driven to be curious. When I wake up in the morning and prepare for my day, I am constantly asking myself why I am doing what I do and how I can improve. When I arrive at the office, I keep asking questions: what can we do as a team today to improve? What can I do today to help my team? What things should we praise today for working and what things need to be eliminated from our behaviors? My curiosity can also help to build others. Whenever my team begins to become critical of themselves or a process, I begin by asking them why they think that it is the way it is. It can create some frustration: no one likes to have their paradigm shifted. But, with enough careful probing, you can generally reach the root cause and your team is left thinking that they reached the answer by themselves, when it fact you helped them along.

A good leader cannot not be creative. It is vitally important that as a leader you challenge your own perceptions and methods of doing things. I find myself questioning my methods pretty frequently. Before starting new tasks, I brainstorm a series of potential processes that could prove to be effective and I rank them based on their potential outcomes for success. I use the process and constantly evaluate it until it has proven itself to be ineffective. At that point, I have a starting place for my next method. Outside of work, I encourage my creativity as well. I thoroughly believe that you need a strong work-life balance to persevere. Within my personal life, I enjoy reading, print making, graphic design and photography. There’s a strongly competitive drive in me to be the most creative. While that isn’t a requirement for success, it challenges me to keep pushing and keep looking for new ideas.

Where ever you go, you shouldn’t go alone. A good leader knows that building relationships with the people around you is vital to success, but it’s not as much about the individual relationships that you form than the vision that you set. I strive to work well with others to create a shared vision. I recognize that I might not always be the smartest or most talented people in the room, but what distinguishes me is that I can bring those people together to achieve something great.

Leading others is not easy. It’s a constantly changing battlefield with new external and internal enemies emerging all the time. The only thing you can focus on is how you can be the best and most effective leader. The workforce has taught me that you cannot rely on someone else’s leadership brand or philosophy, but that you have to create your own.

Thank you to all of the lovely people that made our wedding possible. I wanted to take a minute to put a spotlight on my DIY projects as well as our many vendors.

I had a lot of fun with our wedding. The creative process was awesome and I loved getting to put my own spin on everything that we did. I started my DIY with my Save-the-Dates. After we received our lovely engagement photos from Sarah Bush Designs, I was hard at work.

At that point, we really weren’t sure what direction we were taking the wedding— we were happy to be getting married and we knew we needed to get them out fast. GotPrint.com was actually a huge boon to us and allowed us to print postcards at a fraction of the price that a stationary company was offering.

By the time we sent our invitations, we had a much more structured thematic piece in mind. At an awesome tiny shop, (Pumpernak’s in Lakeland, FL) I found our cake topper— a ceramic fox and stag combo from  (seen below). I’ve actually seen the cake topper in ‘Wes Anderson’ wedding idea style boards on Pinterest. Perfect for Ian and me. Our vision? Enchanted Forest meets the City.

Speaking of the cake, our talented in-laws crafted this sumptuous 4-layered cake (the top was a gluten-free almond and it also included, apple spice, pumpkin spice, and snickerdoodle layers— big hit with the guests).

I created my bouquet (I’ve got pretty sensitive allergies and I wanted to be able to keep it) from blooms that felt winter-y. I wanted more of a moody look. My veil is also a DIY, attached to this awesome tiara I grabbed from Amazon.

My bridesmaids (and bridesman) all carried lanterns. I picked these up at Target and they were initially a hodgepodge of colors (red, grey, white, teal), but a handy can of spray primer and gold spray paint created the look I was trying to capture.

Similarly, instead of boutonnieres, Ian’s groomsmen all had Pokemon gym badges.  This was a very hard sell for me. I had envisioned hand crafting some really playful ornamentation with feathers and hatpins, but we compromised in exchange for Ian not wearing a cape.

One of Ian’s unofficial best men (Ian decided instead of having 3, he would stick to the traditional 1) created flasks for all of the groomsmen that said “The Groomsmen” and a nickname for them. It was adorable. Glad I found out about it after the wedding as they were a *little* tipsy.

Our reception centerpieces and favors were also DIY and assemblage. We picked up these neat dodecahedron vases from Target and spray painted them sparkly blue. Our initial thought was to turn them into D12s, but we ultimately decided to leave them just the sparkly blue (after a paint pen fiasco).

The favor boxes we purchased on Amazon for 20ish dollars, and the favors themselves were seedbombs from FreeMountainDesigns.

We had a little bit of a misunderstanding with our cello/violin duo that led us to taking alternative avenues in terms of our music selection. Ultimately, a family friend handled our DJ needs and we were all set.

Our vendors were amazing. I would highly recommend The Piedmont Room, their service was amazing and the food was beyond incredible. Sarah did a great job with our photos and herded us appropriately. I also hired a college friend to be our day of coordinator which took a lot of the stress off of me in those final moments.

We went way over budget, but we had a great time, a lot of laughs and a lot of love from our families. 10/10 would do again.

Long time, no post. Here’s a list of things that have changed:

• I’ve moved full time to Georgia (until my company tells me to move otherwise).
  • Speaking of which, I started a full-time job with GEICO as an Emerging Leader (EL). I get the very interesting opportunity to rotate through our different operations departments and learn more about insurance while I network and mingle.
  • I’m also studying for a variety of CPCU tests (an advanced certification for insurance professionals) which reminds me very much of cramming for AP/IB tests in high school.
• I am now dog-mom to not one, but TWO gorgeous babes.
  • Ovieda is a 7-month-old ‘borador’ puppy (lab-border collie mix). She is rambunctious, 3x the size of Sasha, and she hasn’t quite learned how to walk on a leash.
• Ian and I tied the knot! October 23 saw the start of Mr. and Mrs. Brooks— more on that later.
• I was appointed to the position of District Director for a chapter of my business fraternity, Delta Sigma Pi. Very interesting, it’s teaching me a lot for our (hopeful) new alumni chapter.

Those are the major changes, at least. It’s a very different dynamic, working full time without going to school/participating in 101 different student orgs.

Here are some projects that I’m working on:

• Lamp Revamp- I’m trying to remodel the lamps in our common functional spaces so that they share a common theme (that way, when Ian and I leave this house we’ll have a thought for our apartment).
  • As of 01/14 I have updated the color of two lamps to sparkly-metallic charcoal grey. I’m contemplating adding a pattern, but I haven’t made a final decision.
• Adventures in Monotone- A series of greyscale photographs that capture the simplicity/nothingness of a garage. I started out with monotype film for a fujifilm mini camera, but I’m hoping to shoot some macro with my DSLR too. I think that American garages are overall very boring, but hopefully with the right lighting/angles/magic, something new can be uncovered.
• Insurance Identities- a collection of stories about real people working in insurance. Insurance is one of those weird industries where we tend to lump the associates all together as dirtbags— a similar feeling generally goes out towards car salesmen, realtors, and attorneys. Working in the insurance industry can feel, at times, very demoralizing, especially when you’re working in a call center.

Keep your eyes peeled for a real post (with pictures!) on Tuesday that documents my first 100 days of marriage.