BOSS MA’AM

Boss Ma’am:
Run Your World Like a Ma’am

Author: Carolyn Nice

Chapter 1:
Run Your World Like a Ma’am

I started writing Boss Ma’am in the spring of 2025. My professional life was good, and I was making money. I had my habits and rhythm, and I was enjoying my first year as a forty-year-old; I had hit my stride! By the start of that summer, however, everything changed. One of my best friends died. My 13-year-old Boston Terrier, Ruben, became sick. Ruben is…was…more than a dog. He was my baby because I was not blessed to have a child of my own. For those non-dog people, or people in general who don’t understand, his little life depended on me for food, water, shelter, doctor appointments, a place to “go potty,” and safety. I owned his little heartbeat and counted on his daily love because we needed each other.

If you still don’t understand, I’ll tell you this: when my husband was on five deployments, Ruben was my lifeline. He was my emotional rock. He kept me on schedule because he relied on me. When I was unreliable, he would remind me to show up and feed him, walk him, and love him; sometimes with an assertive bark, but most of the time with a soft stare. Like most older dogs, he started to have seizures. It was heartbreaking to watch my tough dog fall over and hit his head or fall downstairs uncontrollably. He couldn’t walk more than a few steps without seizing. He withstood being sent from place to place to live during our deployments and lived in seven different states while my husband and I served in the Army. We made the very hard choice to put him down. I’ll never forget the doctor looking at me to declare, “Ruben’s heart has stopped beating.” After minutes of telling him, “You’re okay, you’re a good boy,” I couldn’t help but cry out to him, “I’m sorry! What have I done?” My baby was gone.

Nine days later, the government canceled a multi-billion-dollar contract that my small business was a service provider for. My partners and I had no choice but to dissolve our partnership. Then, I was let go from my job. I didn’t cry over losing my partnership or job. It hurt way worse to lose Ruben. I no longer heard the pitter-patter of his paws walking around our home. I found my mornings were empty tasks, lacking the demands of feeding him or going for a walk. My evening was much the same. My daily schedule went away; no Ruben to take care of, no business partnership to nurture, and no job to report to. Too many changes were happening at once.

I was supposed to go to Germany for a thirty-five-day Army Reserve tour, but in light of my work disappearing, and my orders were taking too long to go through, I adjusted and found an active duty position on Fort Bragg in North Carolina, just south of Raleigh. My husband and I lived up the road from Fort Bragg on a beautiful lake. The kind that has swans, ducks, turtles, and foot-long carp swimming around. Our backyard was frequently visited by rabbits, squirrels, deer, and a variety of birds. Our home was a physical heaven on earth, yet my soul was in hell. Why did all of this have to happen at once?

I decidedly told myself I had already been through the worst of the worst a few years earlier, and I would get through this, too, and that I would never allow myself to hit rock bottom again. The problem with that logic was that I wasn’t mentally prepared to feel heavy pain again from the last time I tried to self-destruct. I was a fool.

A trifecta of three major life events hit me at once: death, the end of a business partnership, and losing my job. This is a part of life. It’s the holding pattern. In the corporate office, (I’m a reservist, so I still need a full-time job) when it’s time for a decision between leaders, I often think to myself, but also advise others, it’s time for tactical patience. A pause. A waiting period for thoughts, people, and situations to settle. Let things naturally fall into place. Just as this happens in the office, it also happens in our personal lives. I often have a harder time adjusting to change in my personal life versus the office because…it’s personal. Every time we get military orders from one state to another, it’s a significant emotional event. It’s stressful. I learned over time that I could manage change better at work than in my personal life.

My military career did not get off to a strong start. The stories I tell aren’t by a superior military academy cadet or Army Ranger, but by a very average human being. So, if you want to be inspired by superstars, I’m not one of them. I can only offer my average person’s perspective as someone who has experienced some great things through grit. I decided to go for an Army ROTC scholarship at Saint Bonaventure University. My two older brothers were already going to school there. As the oldest girl and one of eight kids, I knew college tuition was solely on me. I wasn’t the most athletic person, but I had the tenacity to keep trying in an effort to make myself better.

I was always called bossy, even bitchy, at home, so I told myself, Well, those are female leadership skills, right? Little did I know what I would actually learn about being a woman in leadership. 9/11 happened during my senior year of high school and deciding to join wasn’t a problem for me. I wanted to leave and travel the world, even if it meant going to war. I was awarded a three-year scholarship, fully paid by the Army, and declared Journalism/Mass Communication as my major. I was seventeen when I went to college and I had no idea who I was as a person, let alone what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was pretty good at writing and did well in my English classes, so that’s how my bachelor’s degree was decided, and not for the love of journalism.

My ROTC time wasn’t great. I was not the best at land navigation, tactics, and especially physical fitness. This was the start of eating issues and major body image problems. On top of not being super athletic, I was called “fat” by Army standards. Every time I had to get weighed in front of everyone, my weight was called out. I soon realized I weighed as much as most of the guys who were my height. I was supposed to be at least thirty pounds lighter.

I was impatient and often became angry or arrogant when placed in circumstances where I lacked knowledge. I continued to participate in the program because I needed purpose and discipline; I knew without it, I would become the person who went to college, partied too much, and eventually failed out. I failed a class during my junior year and lost my scholarship that semester because of an elective course all students had to take. Not a course for my major, but a mandatory one. Of course, it was mainly a science-based class. I had to go to summer school, pass the class, and then ship out to Washington state for “the big” ROTC cadet leadership test.

ROTC cadets go to an active duty military base between their junior and senior year to show what we learned between freshman and junior year. We had to prove we were ready to be officers and lead soldiers. I failed it. A second Lieutenant, who was maybe two years older than me and freshly commissioned, failed me on my physical fitness test because I did not “break the plane” (have my chest go low enough to the ground) during the push-up event. So, because of my push-up form, my trajectory changed.

Let me describe the drama that followed. I cried every day. I screamed, yelled, and begged to stay to take another test. I was separated from the cadets who continued to undergo tests and was eventually sent home. My anxiety was through the roof. I thought I was going to be an officer, and suddenly I was in limbo. The following fall, I was shunned by my fellow cadets and some of the cadre because I embarrassed my school and program. I decided to go back the following summer and try again. I was constantly on the defensive with my peers, and instead of just quietly taking it, which I did on most days, some days I found the strength to stand up for myself.

I chopped my hair off. I don’t know why I did that. I suppose I just needed a physical change because inside I was a nervous, unhappy wreck and wanted the outside to reflect it. At the end of each cadet’s senior year, during graduation, the Army Lieutenant Colonel (the lead cadre) announces the names of the students in the class who will be commissioned into the United States Army. I was not one of them, and I remained in my seat humiliated.

The following summer, I passed everything, with average scores, of course, and was commissioned. I was recognized when I attended follow-on training as being a person who failed out of camp. I couldn’t trust those people not to gossip about me. I had to learn to hold my head high and ignore them. It was a mental game on top of the physical challenges during training and technical tests.

This powerful mind of mine has helped me, an average person, through many challenging and frightening situations. When I think back on my career, I’m amazed at how many physical things I accomplished simply because I told myself, “You have to do it.” I had a tactic I called “shutting my brain off” so I wouldn’t overthink the task. I would watch the soldier in front of me, say, climbing a high obstacle. I’d take a deep breath, shut off my brain, and then I’d go (sometimes I had to watch a few people go to build up my nerve because I am afraid of heights). How I accomplished the task wasn’t always graceful or athletic looking, but I did it. I turned off fear. I silenced my internal disbelief.

After training, I was sent to my first assignment, deployed to Iraq for fifteen months, and returned for follow-on schooling. Directly after the Captain’s Career Course, I was awarded a command.

Journal Prompts:

Where in my life, professional or personal, do I suffer from “imposter syndrome”?

What boundaries do I currently have established or if I don’t think you have boundaries, where do I think you should begin to establish them? Consider both professional and personal lives.

Consider the rest of your day or your next workday. Ask yourself, “How will I lead with clarity, dignity, and grit today?”