would say Harriet Tubman was in that category. Golda Meir, I have tremendous respect for. She was a housewife, a mother. She believed in establishing the state of Israel. She was so committed to that idea she sacrificed everything. She made the pilgrimage to the US to do fundraising with very little but her chutzpah and her courage.
I would want to ask them, how did you move beyond your fear because all three were extremely aware of the consequences of their actions. Yet, they persisted. How did they overcome? How did they replace fear with courage?
X: Tell me about your early influences.
KBE: My parents were boxing way over their weight. They were both not college-educated but they had a vision and a dream, and they lived big. They didn’t allow their circumstances to box them in. They looked out at what was possible. They really taught me to think that way. I grew up thinking there were absolutely no limitations on my life. That is a blessing and also a curse.
My dad died when I was 15. Once he knew he was dying, and he knew I knew he was dying, he spoke very candidly, “You know, you’re a mixed race female.” It was time for him to prepare me for a time when he wasn’t going to be there as my advocate. He shared with me that “you are going to face barriers, people who think differently than your mom and I do about your limitations. Ignore them. Who cares what they think? Don’t let their thinking become your thinking.”
It is a guiding factor so I don’t even think about limitations. I think about how I can do things—even when I’m talking to people that I manage. Often people will settle into a place where they think, if I only had that, I could do this. My question is, well tell me what you can do. Let’s focus on that.
X: Where do you think your drive comes from?
KBE: I believe this really is a driver of my entrepreneurial pursuits as well. I believe at the root of an entrepreneur is service. I grew up in a family that was about service to the community. Everyone I knew in my ecosystem was doing things for others, making the lives of others better. [People] think I’m innovating for innovation’s sake. I’m not. I’m a problem solver. I deliver and create companies to improve a situation, to resolve a problem. At the root of that is a deep sense of service.
Entrepreneurs have various drivers, but I think the ones that really deliver something profound and impact us most have a deep sense of service.
X: What did you want to be when you were a kid?
KBE: Three things that I remember that kind of stuck and were with me for a few years: I wanted to be a doctor, a lawyer, or a vocalist—that helps the profile of a shower opera singer. And I just didn’t have the skill set for any of those choices. I cannot sing though I love live music. Lawyer, that comes from the sense of service. As a lawyer I wanted to work for legal aid, and help people out of jams and make sure that the everyday man and woman could get quality legal representation. On the medical side, … a good life is a healthy life. So what could I do to contribute to that? I guess I’m most aligned with the medical profession at the end of the day, at least ancillary to being a doctor. I work with doctors.
