Hurricane Force Women: flying above and over the worst of challenges
This is an excerpt from Chapter 4 : Hurricane Force Women of my latest book, Pull Yourself Together. If you see yourself in this section, then you belong in my upcoming Hurricane Force Women peer group— stay tuned!
“It’s not people’s backgrounds that make them successful. It’s their psychology; it’s their mindset. It’s do they have a way of consistently focusing, obsessing about something so important to them and do they have a way to make it happen?”
— Tony Robbins
Talls
Human Exhilaration.
The thing about someone with a grand presence is that they influence you through their being. There’s actually this sensation when they leave a room where things become so quiet and empty you can feel a small pang of sadness. That energy and aliveness (just like Elvis!) has left the building.
It’s dramatic for a second.
My Aunt Lorian has that presence.
If you looked up the definition of “Life of the Party” in the dictionary, you would see “Kate’s Aunt Lorian.” She’s someone to whom everyone gravitates at any party or gathering of any group of one+ people. This woman is so vivacious, energetic, loud, and positive, she practically radiates thirst for life as she bounces from person to activity.
Her technical nickname is “Talls” because when her late husband Edward saw her at their first party and wanted to ask her for a date, he asked her friend, “Who was that tall girl who laughed a lot?”
At work Lorian is a Fortune 500 Director.
You would never know it meeting her on the weekend; she does a thorough job of “removing her suit” on Fridays. Edward always insisted she turn off her work email and cell phone on the weekend.
To boot, she never finished college.
This is a rarity. A typical qualification for Director level is at least a bachelor’s degree and an MBA, and often from a top program. Furthermore, recent data reveals that just one in ten profit and loss positions — or line jobs — at Fortune 500 companies are held by women.
Yet Lorian is humble.
She started her career with her company as a blue collar worker and never had just one “big break” into white collar work. Rather she had a slow and steady progression through the company over decades. It was not a sexy rise and she was never gunning for a top job.
It is impossible to distinguish which is more attractive: Talls’ verve as a human or her role as a powerful private sector leader.
Lost in much of our diversity discussions — especially in the framing of injustices, abuses of power, and poor leadership — are the dynamos who are raising the frequency of the room. They walk in high on life and can best any asshole. It’s not about business tactics or privilege. It’s about internal force.
I see hurricane force women as flying above and over challenges.
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Jessica Matthews
THE THING IS THAT WE’RE NOT OFTEN TOLD YOUNG PEOPLE ARE THE ONES LIKELY TO CHANGE THE WORLD
The first time I read this astounding biography I had to read it again: dual degrees from Harvard, including an MBA, listings on over ten patents and patents pending, inclusions on both Forbes 30 under 30, Inc. Magazine 30 under 30, and awarded Harvard Scientist of the Year. [This person] founded their current company at age twenty-two and was invited by President Barack Obama to the White House to represent small companies for the signing of the America Invents Act in 2012.
This is the description of Jessica O. Matthews, who in 2011 founded the company Uncharted Power, whose mission is to, “…use our renewable kinetic energy solutions to generate clean, consistent, and cost-efficient power for communities, facilities, and the Internet of Things.”
In 2008, at the age of nineteen, Jessica invented the Soccket, a soccer ball that harnesses kinetic energy (generated by the ball’s motion) to provide reliable off-grid power. The Soccket has made an impact replacing generators and kerosene lamps in villages in developing nations where infrastructure is unreliable. According to Jessica, “There are two billion people in the world without access to reliable electricity who could benefit from Uncharted’s work.” The invention has expanded solutions to vehicular, lifestyle, and pedestrian solutions — think strollers, carts, sidewalks, anything that moves or people move next to or on.
“For me that story started in Poughkeepsie, New York (the same place where Snookie from Jersey Shore is from). It’s not the most inspiring place. I’m a dual citizen of Nigeria and the US; both of my parents are from Nigeria and met in Brooklyn. They pushed me to believe in what I can do, but growing up in Poughkeepsie I didn’t get to see a lot of opportunities beyond what I knew. I did see the American Dream and also the challenges my family living in Nigeria faced.”
Jessica showed academic promise in public school without extra resources. “We didn’t have a great school system in Poughkeepsie and I didn’t go to a Phillips Exeter, but I was somehow able to get myself into Harvard.”
Jessica emphasizes often that she was not an engineering or even a science major at Harvard [2006–2010]. “Studying Psychology and Economics (not Engineering), I went into a special course ‘Idea Translation: Affecting Change Through Art and Science.’ They asked us to come up with a problem and then a unique solution combining art and science. I was thinking I’m not an artist and definitely not a scientist, save my love of Bill Nye the Science Guy. I started thinking about my experiences in Nigeria seeing the actual need for power, seeing the actual problem first-hand. There are nearly two billion people on this planet living without reliable access to electricity. They end up using either a diesel generator or a kerosene lamp.”
The class and problem intrigued her. “I said, I may not be a scientist, but I do have a meaningful bank of experiences that would be worthwhile to pursue…on top of the energy issue I found there was an incredible love [in the developing world] of soccer. I thought what if I could combine the two.”
She often gets asked how she learned the complex science needed to invent the Soccket, “How did I teach myself mechanical and electrical engineering? Google and Wikipedia…I started to sketch out ideas I remembered from basic physics class. Not even honors physics, just basic physics!”
Mentally Jessica kept her fears in check during the process, telling herself, “How could someone who is not an engineer and does not play soccer develop this? And really it was just a question of, ‘Why not?’ The cool thing of starting young and just pushing is that you have nothing to lose. At the very least you have an amazing failure to talk about in your college essay. At best you create something the world has never seen. And that’s how I kept on pushing. I also listened to a lot of Beyoncé while I was working.”
***
I hope you enjoyed this excerpt from my new book, Pull Yourself Together! Ready to take your career to the next level? Email me at kate@drivendifferent.com or connect with me on social: LinkedIn or Twitter. To read more, check out Pull Yourself Together on AMAZON.
