Leading with Care: How Women Around the World are Inspiring Businesses, Empowering Communities, and Creating Opportunity

Leaving Doubters Behind

In spite of Tana’s big dreams, her mother encouraged her to be practical. She told her to consider becoming a nurse or a secretary. These were two reasonable careers for a single mother in those days, but Tana refused to limit her dreams. After graduating, she landed her first real job, in admissions for a private business school, and worked tirelessly to achieve the milestones she had set. She bought her first home at twenty-three and opened her own business—a temp agency for manufacturing companies—at twenty-nine, a full year ahead of even her aggressive schedule. Through it all, a voice inside Tana told her that she had to succeed and that the way to do that was by relying on herself.

Over the years, one of the ...