I spent my entire life feeling like I wasn’t enough.

When I got As as a student, I felt like a nerd and hid from the popular kids.

When I won gold as a gymnast, I felt like a target and stayed out of the spotlight.

When I got into Yale, I felt like an imposter and fell silent in class.

When I started working on Wall Street, I felt like a fraud and diminished my value.

When I started fundraising for my startup, I felt like an amateur and settled for less.

Each time I felt like I wasn’t enough, I did what I knew best: I put my head down and worked harder, like the good girl I’d been taught to be.

So when I first started my career, I nodded along, gratefully accepting the first offer without negotiating, diligently tackling additional assignments without complaint, unquestioninglystaying overtime without asking for a raise. I was so busy tryto prove that I was good enough that it never occurred to me that I deserved more.

But as time went on, I started to notice something; no matter how hard I worked or how perfect I tried to be, I was not advancing as quickly as the men around me. Being a good girl had gotten me in the door, but now that I was inside, I had to learn a whole new set of rules, and I was not even close to winning.

Looking back, I wish someone had told me that being a good girl wasn’t a prize, it was a trap. A deadly trap that came with insurmountable expectations and invisible chains of self-doubt, guilt, and most detrimental of all, shame.

It took me years to realize that I had been Good Girl Brainwashed.

After a lifetime of small paper cuts—being

overlooked, undervalued,

undermined, and assumed as inferior—I

finally had enough.

I was done staying silent.

I was done waiting for permission.

I was done being a good girl.

I chose to become a Bad Bitch.

I chose to unapologetically create life on my own terms.