As I reflect on this past year, I think of experiences, emotions, and relationships. When I first received my Belleville CEO acceptance letter, I was extremely grateful for the opportunities ahead of me, but I was also overwhelmed with the feeling of nervousness. I was never really outgoing, talkative, or bold so I doubted that I’d be able to connect with others. Now that the CEO year is officially over, I can admit that I was wrong. Connecting with business owners, mentors, board members, guest speakers, and most of all, my fellow peers, has given me an outlook on myself and my community that I wasn’t able to see before. I learned time management, how to overcome pivots, how to communicate ideas, and the importance of networking. Along with my personal growth, I was able to see the town I grew up in, in a different perspective. Before joining Belleville CEO, I didn’t really pay much attention to the buildings I saw while just driving down the street. Now that I was able to go through the experiences of meeting at businesses and speaking to the owners, I see how every single business in the Belleville and surrounding areas play a big role in building our community. Being a part of this program helped me see the value in community due to how many people we had rooting for and advocating for our success as students. Times did get hard and stressful, but there was always someone that we could lean on if we needed it. Overall, CEO has been the most influential experience in all of my high school years. Words can not express how grateful I am to go through this chapter in my life because it helped me grow in ways that I didn’t know I needed to. I now feel prepared to enter a new chapter in my life and I can’t wait to see the growth in the future Belleville CEO classes!