When I turned twelve, the parents in my Berkeley neighborhood started calling, inviting me to babysit their kids. I remember a conversation with my childhood friend Jacob. “It’s so unfair,” he said. “Why don’t they ever call me?” But we both knew the answer: I got the gigs because I was a girl.
I was always excited about opportunities to work. My younger siblings and I were fortunate to have everything we needed, but purchases beyond the basics were up to us. Our allowance was equal to our age in dollars each month. So, when I was twelve, I got twelve dollars a month, or three dollars a week … which, I quickly discovered, was what I could make in a single hour babysitting.
I was thrilled when the phone started ringing. At the end of a Saturday night after feeding babies mashed peas or wrangling toddlers to bed, I was exhausted but lit up. I felt responsible, accountable, and accomplished—and it felt great.
Just before the end of seventh grade, I had an idea. What if, rather than babysitting for individual families, I had kids from multiple families come to me? Wouldn’t that be more fun … and efficient? What if I hosted a day camp for neighborhood kids who needed somewhere to go once school was out for the summer? What if I hired my sister and friends and paid them to be counselors?
Instead of being paralyzed by these “what ifs,” they became my road map. And rather than waiting for permission, I forged ahead. Within weeks my new “employees” and I had come up with a name for the camp, a schedule of activities, and a flyer that we had slipped into every mailbox in our neighborhood.
When summer started, Oakridge Kids Camp opened its doors to twenty young campers. We made oobleck out of cornstarch, and puppets out of old socks; we set up elaborate scavenger hunts and took field trips to the library and the fire station. We won rave reviews, and a year later, when we found ourselves with a waiting list for our second summer, we added more sessions and counselors. Within a few years, the camp had become a neighborhood institution. When I went to college, I passed the baton to my younger sister.
To be honest, I didn’t think much of any of this at the time. It felt so natural to me—to see an opportunity and to find the people and resources to make something exist where it hadn’t before. I didn’t think about all the reasons we could have failed—and there were plenty—I just stayed focused on a clear vision of what was possible. And it worked.
Flash forward fifteen years, and I’m sitting in a classroom at Harvard Business School watching the professor write these words on the board: Entrepreneurship: the pursuit of opportunity, independent of the resources under control.
In that instant, something inside me clicked. These words described something I had felt from long before I had even heard the word entrepreneur.
I looked around at my classmates in Aldrich 007. As a girl, I was outnumbered two to one. And as someone who had never worked in a traditional for-profit business (I had opted instead for what I like to call the “for-purpose” track, since I hate the term nonprofit), I should have felt like both an outsider and an underdog. But suddenly, I saw myself more clearly—as an innovator, a risk-taker, a builder—and my self-doubting gremlins vanished. I felt emboldened and confident that I was exactly where I was meant to be.
INSTEAD OF BEING PARALYZED BY THESE "WHAT IFS," THEY BECAME MY ROAD MAP. AND RATHER THAN WAITING FOR PERMISSION, I FORGED AHEAD.
I DIDN'T THINK ABOUT ALL THE REASONS WE COULD HAVE FAILED—AND THERE WERE PLENTY—I JUST STAYED FOCUSED ON A CLEAR VISION OF WHAT WAS POSSIBLE. AND IT WORKED.
Today I’m the founder and leader of Global Citizen Year, the launchpad for bold high school graduates who are hungry to experience the world beyond our borders and use those experiences to shape their lives. Each year we select our country’s most promising young leaders as Fellows and support them living and working in communities across Africa, Asia, and Latin America during a year before college. Immersed in a new community and contributing to local projects in fields like education, health, and the environment, our Fellows break down the barrier between “us” and “them,” and between the classroom and the world. Ultimately, we envision a world where this global year becomes a hallmark of American education.
Building an organization from scratch has required more resourcefulness and grit than I could have ever imagined—but it has also been the most gratifying step of my entrepreneurial journey. I wake up every morning on fire to be doing work that never feels like work, and I go to sleep at night exhausted but fulfilled. I spend my days with talented teammates who push me to be my best and brightest self. And on the hard days—whether I’m facing a failure, frustration, or disappointment—I remind myself of Sheryl Sandberg’s perfect question: “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” When I break through the fear, the next steps become clear.
Because I was a girl, I found my power in being soft and strong, caring and bold, grounded and visionary.
And once you find your power, no one can ever take it away.