you are your best thing

On becoming your own guide when no one shows you the way 🤍

Jun 30, 2025

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Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes, courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’

When I was asked to give a speech at my college awards ceremony, I stood in front of the mirror and realized: I don’t know what to wear.

Not because I didn’t own anything appropriate.

But because I had never seen anyone who looked like me give that kind of speech before.

I was a woman in a graduating Computer Science class that was 92% male.

There had been brilliant students, excellent programmers, capable peers, but no one ahead of me whose style I recognized. Whose voice felt like it could also be mine.

No one to show me how to take up space in a way that felt authentic.

It sounds like a small thing.

But it wasn’t.

Me, at a Hackathon in college with an Abominable Snowman / Yeti.

It was a moment that carried the quiet weight of firstness.

The weight of invention.

When you have no role model to mirror, you have to become the thing you’re looking for.

You build yourself from scratch.

That moment taught me something I’ve had to learn again and again: Sometimes, when no one comes to lead you, you become the leader.

Not out of ambition, but out of necessity.

You are your best thing.

There is a specific kind of grief that comes from forging a path without a guide.

You don’t just have to move, you have to draw the map as you move.

You carry both visibility and invisibility.

Everyone sees you, but no one sees with you.

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Sociologist Rosabeth Moss Kanter called this tokenism.

She found that when a group falls below about 15% representation, its members become symbols rather than individuals: over-exposed, isolated, and often carrying the burden of representation.

You’re watched more closely.

Expected to speak for many.

And often left without the informal support that others receive without even asking.

This isn’t a personal failing, it’s structural. But that does not make it less painful.

Choosing to stay

There’s a Buddhist teaching I return to often. In Mahāyāna practice, a bodhisattva is someone who, even after reaching the threshold of liberation, chooses to stay.

Not because it is easy, but because others still suffer.

The bodhisattva delays their own escape to help guide others forward.

It’s a quiet vow: if no one else is coming, I will go first.

There’s a similar idea from Paul Millerd called the pathless path. It’s what happens when the terrain is shifting so rapidly no map can keep up.

There is no trailhead, no clearly marked way.

You walk anyway, even as the ground re-arranges beneath you.

And somehow, your walking becomes the way.

If you build it

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

There’s a myth that leadership should feel empowering.

But often, it just feels like responsibility you didn’t ask for, placed gently but firmly into your hands.

You didn’t choose it. You just noticed that no one else was coming.

And so, you stepped forward.

You cobbled together your outfit. You practiced your voice.

You stood at the podium. You spoke because someone needed to, not because you felt sure.

This kind of leadership is made of small, quiet acts of courage. Done without applause, done without certainty, done anyway.

Comments are open. If you’ve got something to say or want to share what stood out to you, I’d love to hear it.

They will come

When I gave that speech, I felt alone.

I didn’t know, yet, whether or not it would matter.

But I know now.

By the time I graduated, the program had changed. What was once 8% female became 27%. Not all because of me. Of course not.

But still:

If you build it.

If you show up.

If you wear the thing that feels like truth and stand at the front of the room anyway..

They will come.

I write for free, once or twice a week, but the real joy is hearing from readers. You’re always welcome to respond or send me a message on Substack. 🤍