Because I Was a Girl

by Melissa de la Cruz

  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.

  COFOUNDER AND CEO OF MODERN LOSS

  Photo credit: Elaina Mortali

  REBECCA SOFFER

  It was a beautiful October afternoon in 2004. Kids played in piles of crimson leaves, bodegas displayed pumpkins and bright yellow mums, and couples at outdoor cafés waded through the New Yorker over poppy seed bagels and schmear.

  I was uptown, covering a murder.

  The assignment was part of the core “Reporting and Writing” curriculum at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. I’d dreamed of going there since the sixth grade, when I’d included it on my list of life goals (right underneath Saturday Night Live principal). We had no doctors, lawyers, or engineers in my family. What we did have were writers, editors, publishers, and a lot of opinions.

  J-school immersion was no joke. While some of my friends enjoyed heavy doses of happy hours folded into their MBA programs, I was across campus, functionally overwhelmed by multiple weekly deadlines on little sleep; enduring no-holds-barred critique sessions in class; and relying on myself during the long, solitary reporting and writing hours to “work the problems,” a favorite mantra courtesy of Mrs. Jackson, my eighth-grade algebra teacher.

  Regardless, I was having a blast. After all, everybody’s got a story, and I wanted to learn them all. I’d sat inside the Society of the Citizens of Pozzallo in Carroll Gardens with a slice of Monteleone’s cheesecake on my lap, listening to septuagenarians with lifelong $100 monthly rents lament the neighborhood’s shifting demographics. I’d attended a heated community board debate on local public schools during which a man became so upset while challenging an issue that he’d actually bolted out of the room crying. I’d strapped on a Marantz the size of my torso to produce a radio report on a “Dogs Against George W. Bush” rally in Central Park, a precursor of my first job after graduation, at The Colbert Report.

  One assignment involved listening to police scanners and reporting on the first big crime mentioned. My beat was Washington Heights and Inwood, near the northernmost tip of Manhattan. And despite my hopes for a colorful bank robbery involving neither weapons nor victims but rather perpetrators à la Daniel Stern’s and Joe Pesci’s Home Alone characters, it was a murder. And murders really weren’t my thing.

  That afternoon I got off the subway at Dyckman Street, headed up the stairwell of a six-story walk-up, and knocked on the door of the victim’s neighbor. My RW1 professor always pushed us to learn as many of the little details as possible while reporting on a piece. Since the victim had lived alone, I figured the neighbors might provide some insight into the kind of person he’d been and that it would be an emotional palate cleanser after reporting on the gritty and harrowing details of the crime.

  Nobody answered, so I figured the residents were out. Then I heard a baby screaming from behind the door. At that same moment, a man rounded the top of the stairwell and headed toward me. “Hey, is this the Gonzalez1 residence?” he said, offering me a business card proclaiming his status as a freelance reporter. “I’m here for the New York Times.”

  “I think so?” I uptalked, to my shock. What the hell? I suddenly felt self-conscious. I was twenty-eight at the time, and there was no way this guy was older than thirty. We were essentially peers. Suddenly, the flimsy, cream-colored “Rebecca Rosenberg, Reporter” J-school business card I offered in return felt like impostor identification next to his fancy, thick-stock one. He said nothing while glancing at it, but believe me when I tell you his expression clearly stated, Oh, that’s adorable.

  I tried to tell myself there was no reason for me to feel insecure or to pay attention to the tiny voice inside my head. The one reminding me I was five foot one and looked about twenty years old. The one suggesting my pink lip gloss disqualified me from looking the part of Serious Reporter. The one saying, “Stick to lifestyle features, little girl. Let the men handle this one.”
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  “So you’re reporting on this piece?” he said. “By yourself?”

  And there it was. Just two words, but they spoke volumes.

  “Um, yes. It’s my crime assignment.”

  Cute, his smirk implied.

  I was at a loss for what more to say so I knocked again. Realizing I was tasked with reporting alongside a guy who would likely try to push me aside to get his own story, I felt like running to the comfort of Pulitzer Hall back on campus. But what more could I do? My story was due by five, and deadline was king at J-school. Work the problems.

  This time, the door opened. A twenty-something Hispanic woman stood there with bloodshot eyes, looking downright exhausted and holding a baby boy whose cries were clearly upsetting her.

  “¿Qué es lo que Uds. quieren?” She was pissed by the interruption.

  “Ma’am, I’m here to ask some questions about your neighbor, Victor García2,” my new adversary said, physically edging me out of the doorframe. The baby kept shrieking.

  I was stunned. This woman was in obvious distress with a colicky baby but this guy had the chutzpah to ask for a couple of quotes?

  I poked my head into the doorway. “Señorita, perdona la molestía. Veo que estás en un momento muy difícil. Te vamos a dejar en paz, a menos que te pueda ayudar en algo con el bebé,” I assured her, preparing to get out of her hair immediately, though offering some help I assumed she’d reject. The man looked surprised. It was my turn to return the smirk. That’s right, buddy. I’m fluent in Spanish.

  The woman seemed rather relieved. “Entra, entra.” I went inside, and she closed the door on Mr. New York Times. Hasta luego, amigo.

  A few seconds later, I found myself on the sofa with newly washed hands, trying to comfort the baby while his mother made herself a sorely needed café con leche—and one for me, too. She spoke about Victor as she drank it, and afterward as she folded some laundry while I kept holding the baby. She remembered how he’d borrow salt whenever he was making carne guisada, and how he loved overusing hair gel, and that he was hoping to get married in the next year. Miraculously, the baby finally drifted off to sleep in my arms, and we transferred him to a bassinet.

  A half hour later, I headed out, armed with every detail I needed. “Gracias,” I said.

  “A ti,” she said, and touched my hand. We smiled at each other.

  As I walked back to the subway, I was reminded of something my dad used to say to me. He was an entrepreneur who founded a successful ad agency when he was in his twenties. Like me, he was baby-faced, and he pulled in an older-looking friend to land his first clients. My dad was also a feminist who ascribed to the Annie Oakley credo of “anything he can do, she can do better.” During my various moments of self-doubt growing up, he’d quip “Illegitimi non carborundum,” which loosely translates to “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.” I used it as motivation whenever I had to aggressively push back at some barrier, often while listening to Led Zeppelin at high volume.

  My final five-hundred-word article on the murder wasn’t memorable. I don’t have a file of it and, having written dozens of others that fall, can’t recall most of its details. I’m also sure that intrepid freelance reporter got a great story through other means. But when the woman touched my hand after we both helped each other out, I finally got it: There are a lot of ways to fight back to avoid being ground down. And sometimes the softest ones are the most effective.

  * * *

  DURING MY VARIOUS MOMENTS OF SELF-DOUBT GROWING UP, HE'D QUIP "ILLEGITIMI NON CARBORUNDUM," WHICH LOOSELY TRANSLATES TO "DON'T LET THE BASTARDS GRIND YOU DOWN."

  THERE ARE A LOT OF WAYS TO FIGHT BACK TO AVOID BEING GROUND DOWN. AND SOMETIMES THE SOFTEST ONES ARE THE MOST EFFECTIVE.

  * * *

  I finished the class with highest honors.

  ENTREPRENEUR

  Photo credit: Annie Shak

  TINA HAY

  More and more, women are entering fields that were mainly or solely driven by men. Whether it’s becoming a Supreme Court justice or annihilating the box office competition as a super-hero, women are showing their strength in every field. Well, almost. There is one field where this is especially lacking: finance. It is still rare to meet a woman who is actively investing her money, trading stocks, or managing a portfolio. Whether young or old, rich or poor, most women are not making smart (or really any) investment decisions. Even in conversations with my highly educated friends, there are mostly blank faces when the stock market comes up. As women, we are happy to discuss the answer to “Who wore it best?” but are often absent from the “Who invested it best?” discussion.

  I was just as uninvolved and uninterested in investing and managing my money as any of the women I encountered. Even the vocabulary was daunting … P&L, APY, CAGR? More like WTF? But what I would soon learn is that most people are clueless about money, but few are willing to admit it.

  When I was growing up, my smartest financial decision was asking my parents to invest my bat mitzvah money in Coca-Cola and IBM stock. They didn’t do it, and to this day I teasingly remind them about how much my investment would have grown by now if they had listened to me (a lot!). Otherwise, I was never proactively investing or managing my money. But everything changed when I found myself sitting in a finance class while getting my MBA at Harvard Business School.

  I came from a liberal arts background and was struggling with the coursework, unlike the former bankers and consultants around me who were breezing through the material. I am a visual learner. I don’t think in numbers, and I find financial concepts intimidating and overwhelming, especially as someone new to the jargon.

  My way of learning was to use images and sketches to understand and solve problems. So I used scraps of paper, envelopes and napkins … anything I could get my hands on. I called it Napkin Finance. There were not many places or people I could turn to for help. And I was not alone. Many people struggle with numbers and basic financial concepts, but it is mostly women who have lower financial confidence and who pay the highest price. Interestingly, most women do recognize that they are less informed than men and are open to learning given the opportunity. This self-awareness and initiative is what is unique and, ultimately, empowering.

  What started out as a passion project to empower myself has now become a platform and resource for both men and women. Napkin Finance is an easily accessible tool to help people understand basic financial skills, build their own knowledge base, and make better financial decisions. It has been especially exciting to discover that diverse groups of people are now using our platform. Women and men, both young and old, are coming to us for help in making important financial decisions.

  Financial illiteracy can be very expensive. While it may start with a lack of general knowledge, a lack of confidence and access to skills ultimately means fewer women working in finance and bringing new perspectives. How many women work on Wall Street or are CEOs of the largest investment banks? How many financial advisors are women? How many hedge fund managers or private equity partners are women? How many venture capitalists are women? The low numbers are staggering. I notice this more now, working in finance and technology, as one of the few women in the room.

  Resources, a network of mentors, and capital are more accessible to men, which means businesses headed by women have a harder time getting off the ground. And because there are fewer female investors and decision makers, fewer women-led businesses get funding. Time and again, the only thing that differentiates a successful business from a failure is having enough money to weather the storm and find the product market fit. Since most venture capital money goes to men, it is so much more difficult for women to take a company through the ups and downs that are typical of most start-ups.

  My own struggles have been internal as much as external. I have had to overcome my fears and the voices that drown out my potential. I’ve had to block out the noise and find an inner strength—it’s not easy, let me tell you. But I was incredibly lucky to grow up with
parents who told me—and showed me—over and over that I could do anything I wanted. I believed them. They stood by me as a kid, when I was a bit of a tomboy and insisted that I play on the boys’ team. They supported me when I decided one day to pack a bag and travel and live abroad. They cheered me on when I started a business and consoled me when that business bombed. I look back at all the crazy ideas I’ve had in my life, and my parents were always there for me. They are the reason I believe in myself, even when I have no reason to.

  As mentioned above, a big challenge for women in business is a lack of confidence, not competence. Sitting around a table, women will be more humble and dismissive about what they have done. Men are encouraged to broadcast their accomplishments and are apt to consider themselves trailblazers. I try to take my cue from them and speak loudly and proudly.

  * * *

  I HAVE HAD TO OVERCOME MY FEARS AND THE VOICES THAT DROWN OUT MY POTENTIAL. I'VE HAD TO BLOCK OUT THE NOISE AND FIND AN INNER STRENGTH—IT'S NOT EASY, LET ME TELL YOU.

  * * *

  I draw inspiration from the incredible women I see in other industries: bestselling authors, activists, lawyers, and doctors. I look to their achievements as evidence of what is possible for women. There is no reason that more women should not be running finance or technology businesses. I am optimistic that more and more women are going to be finding their way into technology and other nontraditional industries. In the meantime, I’m enjoying the shorter lines for the ladies’ room!

  SCIENTIST

  Photo credit: John Johnston

  ANJANETTE JOHNSTON