Celina Caesar-Chavannes digs deep into her immigrant childhood, her life as a young black woman entrepreneur and as a politician, revealing all the ways she wrestled with how to be her authentic self--and showing us how to be heard, loud and clear. The author, already a breaker of boundaries as a black woman in business, got into politics because she wanted to make a bigger difference in the world. But when she became the first black person elected to represent the federal riding of Whitby, Ontario, she hadn't really thought about the fact that Ottawa hadn't been designed for a person like her. Determined not to be silenced by the constant micro-aggressions and racist assumptions of political life, Celina soon found herself both making waves and breaking down, confronting at night, alone in her Ottawa apartment, all the painful beauty of her immigrant childhood and her troubled early adult life. She felt the cost of speaking out, but also felt the exhilaration and empowerment, too. This is both her memoir and a leadership book, a funny, self-aware, poignant, confessional and fierce look at how failing badly and screwing things up completely are truly more powerful lessons in how to conduct a life than extraordinary success.