When I was ten years old, we lost our home. It was the worst day of my life, the day everything changed. The day we became homeless.

I was only ten years old, the eldest of five siblings. My youngest brother was barely four months old, still nursing. My father had disappeared a few days earlier, leaving us in the dark about his whereabouts and his intentions. My mother had no idea that he’d stopped paying the rent, even though she had given him the money every month. She trusted him unquestioningly, even when he lied and cheated and gambled away our savings.

This background is the inspiration of “By Design”.

When I think about my ten-year-old self, I wonder what she would think if she could see how far we got to go and how much more we have ahead of us. I feel so much gratitude for the journey but also her resilience and courage to take what life threw at her and create something beautiful. I love the life I have created for myself today not because it is perfect but because every step I have taken has brought me to this point, and I will have it no other way. This is the backdrop against which the lessons, principles, and ideas in this book will be shared. My goal is to share some of the principles, trade-offs, and ideas which have guided me, how I have applied them to build a successful career across multiple companies and industries, including two Fortune 500 companies, and how you can apply those principles to your career planning and life design process.