All of us in the CMS community have this privilege, of helping the next generation discover their purpose through mathematics. I'm grateful for the opportunities I've had to "pay it forward", through my stints as a federal government employee, scheduling consultant, unemployed novelist, and now, as an applied mathematician at one of Canada's most innovative universities.

I will share my story through these four problems, which will simultaneously be accessible to high school students and challenge the math professors in the audience. In the process of solving these questions, we'll uncover four key problem-solving strategies that enable us to impact others, through our lives as mathematicians and educators.