Let me tell you how a little pink house prepared me for my first workplace termination and set me on a path of resilience, grit and fearlessness. About 2.5 hours south of Atlanta is a little town of Wrens, Georgia, about 2,000 people. My grandmother lived in Wrens, Georgia, in a pink house nested off a dirt road, right off of East 88 highway. It had a massive yard, the kind of yard that was made for little five-year-old girls who liked to make mud pies or run chicken races with their cousins to see who could run the fastest, the chickens or the cousins.
(Laughter)
That was summer at grandmother's house, and if I think about it, I can remember and feel that Georgia sun on my face. I can remember when I was just tall enough to jump off the bed to use the pot next door to the bed, because the pink house didn't get indoor plumbing until 1968. Those are the memories that serve as my foundation. That's what helped me to become the woman that I am today.
In the midst of those challenges, I can hear my grandmother's voice laced with a little bit of sternness when she said, "Valerie, it's your time to go get the eggs out the chicken coop," or sometimes even select the chicken for that day for dinner. I learned then that I would, I should and I could.
Now all of our memories are clearly not laced with warmth, because I can also remember when my family struggled. When my mother struggled. And I think about that pink house. That pink house was not only my classroom, but it was my mother's refuge. My mother was my sort of first view into leadership. And when I think about her and all the other women who went through challenges and how they used those challenges, sort of to catapult them into becoming the women that they were to be.
Lesson number one. Several years ago, I had to learn what it meant to accept loss, but not defeat. I was riding high on my career. I was a reproductive endocrinologist and fertility specialist who was clearly smoothly transitioning to an academic administrative research career. I became the chair of the department. I founded the center for Women's Health Research at Meharry Medical College, which was the first center of its kind, and then I became the dean of the School of Medicine. And at that time, I was the youngest dean of a medical school in the country.
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Then it all came tumbling down. When the new president of the school asked me to step down. He asked me to step down. I was devastated. I was embarrassed, I was ashamed. I was fearful. Fear was what I felt most of all. Would I ever be able to get another job like this? What about this sense of loss, humiliation? What would my family and my friends think about me? Would they have a negative view of me as I went through?
I had to reach back to that pink house, and I had to recall how my mother had gone through a similar crossroads in her life when she had to gather her four little daughters in the middle of the night to leave an abusive husband. Lost, but not defeated.
What did she do? First of all, she was accountable. She actually said, "What of my actions potentially could have contributed to the situation that I find myself in?" Then she took action because she was responsible, and she knew that she had to leave in order to protect her girls. I had to do the same thing.
To paraphrase one of my favorite authors, Paulo Coelho, he says that before a dream is realized, the soul of the world tests everything that you have learned. And it does this such that when you are in pursuit of your dreams, you are also mastering the lessons learned in pursuit of that dream.
I was being tested in the pursuit of my dreams, and the lessons that I had learned from my mother had prepared me for my circumstances, and I could move on and move forward in my career. Lost but not defeated.
Now this leads me to leadership lesson number two. Never fear, be fearless. Now, all of us know that fear is an unpleasant emotion, right? It is often, though, a healthy one because it will cause you to take action, just like my mother did when she had to leave that abusive relationship. Because it is an emotion and it is a biological response, sometimes we think that the act of being fearless means that we are not afraid.
You can still be afraid, and so you may not be able to cancel that fear out completely, but you can put it to sleep. You can learn how to lean into your fear. And I think the best way to do that is to do something over and over and over again, successfully. I believe it's a superpower.
It's the superpower my mother had. She could multitask, she could go to work, she could cook and clean, she could go to work, she could run errands, she could come back to work. And then she still had empathy. She failed, she succeeded. Not always, guys, to joy, but to completion. And I recognized that I had to do the same thing.
So when I put myself back out there, I had to interview, I had to be evaluated over and over again, I was tested over and over again, I heard “no,” I gave the word “no,” until I got to "yes," until I got to the role that allowed me to align my passion with my purpose.
Turning your fear into being fearless allows you to accept the challenges that you have, laced with risk, leading you to a place that will be right for you.
Now this brings me to my third lesson. Giving back and paying it forward. As the president and CEO of Morehouse School of Medicine, I get to sit at so many different tables, tables where I'm actually able to use my voice and talk about the things that are near and dear to me, like diversifying the health care workforce or working toward the elimination of health disparities, or ensuring that we have culturally competent providers that are going to provide that highest quality of care. And yes, I learned from my mother how to give back in the traditional ways, community service, charity. But I also believe it's important for women to tell their story.
I've told my story about watching my mother navigate through an abusive relationship. I was a child, that had an imprint on me. I've told my story about the professional journeys and the challenges I've had to get to the point where I am today. We must do that for each other because women must be heard, but they also must listen.
This is what gives us hope that we are not alone, and that there is a light at the end of those dark tunnels. And of course, as a medical professional specializing in women's health, I give back by staying on the forefront of reproductive rights.
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Who has the right to tell me what's right for my body? For my body --
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for myself, for my mental well-being, for my family. Women's reproductive rights and women's health rights should have equal parity to any other choice I make about my health. And I really don't need anyone to tell me what's right for me. I need you to help me make the right choices with me, but not for me.
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And I should have the ultimate say. Now, I am fortunate that my job is to pay it forward. This means that I also must stand and raise my voice when decisions like the recent Supreme Court decision on affirmative action came out. It will impact the ability of people to have choice and to further their education.
Many of the women in this room, we know that we have benefited from affirmative action, I clearly did. Whether it was in college or the workplace, and if we are honest, many of us would not be where we are today if it wasn't for affirmative action. So we should really be first in line talking about affirmative action, particularly in higher ed and in the medical profession, because we know that race and gender concordance impacts health outcomes. So how is it that we can have a military exemption for the good of the country, but not a medical exemption for the good of the country?
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Particularly if we are interested in eliminating disparities and achieving health equity for all. So I challenge you as leaders, I challenge you as women to raise your voices. We need more diversity in the future, not less.
I go back to that pink house because that pink house is where I learned to be vigilant. It's where I learned and understood that I had choice. It's where I learned and understood that I could be committed to my dreams, my aspirations. It's where I learned how to be fearless. It's where I learned to take that fear and turn it into a weapon of success that has allowed me to lead.
That little pink house is where I gained courage. And I was surrounded by my sisters, my mother, my grandmother, my great grandmother, all pushing me forward. Great leaders are not produced through the number of titles or degrees that they have, but through life experiences, through the distance traveled, the tables they sit, the conversations they have, and what ensues in those conversations.
I learned from my time in that pink house that for some of us, it starts early on. For others, though, the title may just be woman. Remember, fearlessness, grit and resilience. And that you are enough.
Thank you very much.
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