Moxie, scheduled
In 2023, Built In named me one of its Moxie Award winners. The award defines moxie as courage, determination, energy, and know-how. My version is less cinematic: you put the scary thing on the calendar, and then you show up.
When MPOWER nominated me, the write-up listed things I'm proud of. The one I think about most is the least glamorous.
Early in 2022, students in countries that had never heard of us kept asking a fair question: "Is this a scam?" We were a lender from Washington offering loans to people we had never met, and no ad was going to fix that. So I opened a webinar link and answered their questions live, on camera, with no idea what anyone would ask. Then I did it again the next week. I hosted more than 90% of the first 25+ sessions, and together with our reviews program they helped grow the bottom of the funnel 4× from 2021 to 2022.
Nobody hands you permission for that kind of thing. You schedule it, you send the invite, and the calendar holds you to it.
Making room for other people's nerve
The part of the nomination I'd underline is the one about other people. Moxie spreads when a team gets real chances to be brave: a stretch project, a live session to host, a room to present in before they feel ready. In India, the digital team I built reached 42% women in a market where few women traditionally applied. Along the way I've mentored more than eight women through grad school applications, new jobs, and career switches.
It also takes permission to miss. I asked my team to stop polishing and start testing, because the experiment that fails on Tuesday teaches more than the perfect plan that ships in March.
Off the clock
The same habit explains my weekends. Long solo hikes, 20 to 30 miles in a day, are mostly a way of proving to myself that the fear is smaller than the trail. The photo above is from one of those hikes.