For most of my life, I felt like a project that needed fixing. Teachers, past employers, even family members, always seemed to start conversations with "You just need to work on..." or "The problem with you is...". I was a collection of weaknesses, a list of faults. I had dreams, of course. I loved to draw, to organize things, to listen to people’s problems. But those things felt small and useless compared to the mountain of my perceived failings. My confidence was eroded to dust. I believed my story was one of perpetual failure.

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Joining The Graceman Collective felt like my last resort, and I walked in expecting another critique, another plan to fix what was broken in me. The first conversation changed everything. They asked me a question I hadn't heard in years: "What are you good at? What do you love to do?"

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I hesitantly spoke about my art, my knack for planning, my ability to make people feel heard. And instead of brushing it aside, their faces lit up. This was the first time I experienced the 'Grace based approach' in action. They didn't see my weaknesses; they saw my individual strengths. To them, my love for drawing wasn't a hobby; it was a potential career in graphic design. My organizational skills weren't just a quirk; they were the foundation for project management. My empathy wasn't a distraction; it was the core of a future in support work.

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TGC didn't give me new skills; they polished the ones I already had but had been told were worthless. They fostered the right environment for me to see myself differently. They created a platform for me to use my talents, giving me small projects at first, then larger ones, each one building my confidence layer by layer. I was the one doing the work, but they were the ones who finally gave me the right tools and the belief to use them. They helped me bring about my own changes, not by fixing my flaws, but by building a future on the strengths that had been there all along, just waiting to be seen.