My career as a lawyer took unpredictable twists and turns. I have served as a legal aid lawyer, a civil rights litigator, a state senator, and the general counsel for a school board and then for the University of North Carolina. My path taught me many lessons:

1. Planning is overrated. If you plan your career, you will miss unpredictable opportunities, and you can't avoid the unforeseen hurdles. I couldn't have planned to become the lobbyist for Legal Aid. Unpredictably, I thrived in that role, completely changing the path of my career, leading me to become a voting rights lawyer, and then to run for the North Carolina Senate. As a career counselor once told me, keep making decisions that move you in a good direction and you will end up in a good place.

2. Pray someone gives you a task that is over your head. As a young trial lawyer, I represented black voters challenging how the North Carolina legislature was elected, a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court. In my second term in the North Carolina Senate, I chaired the Education Appropriations Subcommittee. Both were tasks I felt grossly underprepared to do well. Both gave me the opportunity to stretch professionally, to rise to the occasion.

3. If you want to cause real systemic change, be better prepared, more foxy, and more persistent.

4. You can't be who you aren't. I'm not very charismatic. I speak in outlines and I wasn't great in front of a jury. But I was good at arguing to judges; I learned how to, methodically, effectively crossexamine a witness; and I developed my own way of relating honestly to voters and constituents. There is an old Jewish saying that, when you die, God will not ask you why you were not as good as Moses; God will ask you why you weren't the best you. Figure out what your strengths are, develop them, and play to them.

5. Listen to hear. While I was serving in the Senate, the other senators all had life experiences and values that informed their views. I frequently disagreed with them, but there was almost always a kernel of truth there. I was always better off when I really heard that kernel of truth.

6. Reaching consensus is sometimes more important than winning. This is especially true when your client is going to continue to have a relationship with the opponent.

7. Race still matters. When I walked into the North Carolina legislature in 1981, the institution was virtually all white, and I knew that that could not be democracy. In 2008, we elected a black president, but every black boy that started kindergarten that year has less chance of graduating from high school, and more chance of ending up in prison, than anyone else.

8. Balancing your life is really hard. I quit two jobs because they were inconsistent with my being a mother—nonetheless, when my daughter left for college, I worried that she had not had quite enough mothering. On the other hand, the important things that I have done professionally took huge amounts of work, and I would not have accomplished them if I had not been willing to be unbalanced, at least for a while. I have always wanted everything— family, adventure, friends, spirituality, and meaningful work. My conclusion is that you can have it all—you just can't have it all, all of the time.

9. There are a lot of bright spots. I am now the CEO of a philanthropic foundation. I have traveled to every part of North Carolina, and everywhere there are problems—poverty, unregulated growth, and an environment and an economy that are both unsustainable. But everywhere there are engaged, determined, caring people—working for little money— frequently at personal sacrifice—to make their community, their river, their school a better place. Everywhere I have been, there have been bright spots. Having been in positions to have supported them has been a true gift.