Rising Tide

Tabetha Summerlin: Being Honest With Yourself

Episode Summary

In August 2021 Tabetha did something for the first time that has forever changed her life. Tabetha shares what she has learned as she re-examines her life story

Episode Notes

Tabetha Summerlin has been a mother her entire adult life and had not stopped working in 20 years. Over those 20 years she built a career in Government IT and becoming the CIO for Edgecombe County. Then in August 2021 she did something for the first time. She prioritized what was best for her and took a career sabbatical to pause, reflect, and decide what her new chapter will look like. This episode, Tabetha shares her reflections, what she has learned as she re-examines her life story, and the steps she is taking to make focus on herself and what she really wants. Enjoy!

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• 5:08 - Taking a career sabbatical
• 19:04 - How she thinks about her tribe
• 26:23 - How she picked Computer & Information Science as her college degree
• 30:41 - Prioritizing proximity to family as a new mother and college graduate instead of working in her field of work
• 37:28 - Acknowledging that prioritizing her daughters was a crutch to put off her ambition out of fear and guilt
• 49:43 - Becoming Department Head in a new county as the first woman of color to run the department. How she created trust and built a high-functioning department
• 1:02:53 - The one thing Tabetha wants you to take away from the call