Let’s light this week’s Match!

Word: Clarity

Sentence:

Clarity is what waits on the other side of our greatest challenges.

Passage:

I became a teacher because teachers had once seen something in me that I couldn’t yet see in myself. My first assignment was as a substitute at an alternative high school for teens expelled from their neighborhood schools. I showed up greener than green, just trying to find my footing. Two weeks later, I was offered a job.

Not long after, a new student swung at me when I redirected him to read. What I didn’t know was that he was a tenth grader who had spent most of his life in foster care — and he couldn’t read. In that moment, I felt clarity for the first time in my career. I, too, had struggled to read. I had been pulled from my classroom and taught one-on-one until I finally caught up. My student hadn’t been given that chance, his failures had become his frustrations, and those hands landed on me.

That altercation forced me to see my own story in his. It was the moment I realized this was never going to be just a paycheck — it was my purpose. Clarity doesn’t come wrapped in success; it comes through crisis. In life, these moments don’t come often, but when they do, we face a choice. And in that choice, clarity points us forward.

Your Turn:

What crisis or challenge in your career gave you the clearest sense of your purpose?

Tell me how this shows up in your leadership—I’m here for the conversation.