I write this on my last flight back to San Francisco for the foreseeable future. Friends and family have mentioned feeling whiplash from all the moves. I must admit, counting six cities of residence as “home” in five years has given me so much but taken a bit out of me as well. Excitement supersedes fatigue, though, kind of like when it’s been so long since you’ve slept the adrenaline pulls you through like a particularly strong cold brew. I’ve sampled many a hipster iced coffee throughout the Bay, and I’m sure Austin won’t fall short in this regard.

To an outsider, my life might look like a random adventure. I feel, however, that each of these stops has been a necessary layover as I move toward a final destination. This destination is less a physical place than an environment to which I hope to contribute in some small way: a broader community where women have value and the tools to assert it in a world often stacked against them.

I am extremely lucky to have been led by three incredible ladybosses thus far in my career who’ve helped me recognize and internalize this value. Sara taught me that women should never compromise on the way they’re treated in any business context, and that deals are less important than integrity. Sharon taught me the power of calm strength (though I can’t say I’ve mastered it yet myself) and that the loudest voice, advocating for women and elsewhere, is not always the most effective. Calisa taught me that the best way a woman can lead a team and effect social change is through consummate knowledge of and commitment to her craft, and that vulnerability is not weakness but in fact the opposite.

I am even luckier to have been guided by the greatest ladyboss of all for 26 years. My mother has shown me that intelligence trumps beauty, hard work yields real results, regardless of gender, and that women’s great gift to the world is their general tendency to put others’ needs before their own. Most importantly, Mom taught me to never underestimate the power of others underestimating us as blonde women, and to see that not as beams reinforcing the ceiling but as jet fuel to shatter it.

These are the lessons I plan to carry with me as my new ladyboss Wendy Davis and I build the framework for Deeds Not Words, a platform for young women activists to realize their potential and more easily take agency over the policies and environmental forces that oppress them.

If there’s one thing I’ve realized at each turn in the weird, winding path that is my life, it’s that one does not need to be a politician to change the structures that govern us. I lobbied at the state capitol for Senate Bill 1014 — mandating a more even provision of educational opportunities for teen mothers across California — alongside other badass Spark members and helped move it off suspension. I raised funds for SWEAT — an org that is working to decriminalize sex work in South Africa — and raised awareness of the importance of this legislative shift at the Cape Town High Court, the audience most capable of propelling it. I represented Johnson & Johnson’s global health initiatives for women and girls alongside other powerful Fentonistas at the United Nations General Assembly, helping to drive a conversation where other private sector companies might take up their example and public sector entities might absorb their influence in the policy arena.

I hope that Deeds Not Words helps other girls realize that they can achieve great things with the right help, as I have. Our power is greater than we give credit for and action is usually easier than we think, limited only by access to the right knowledge or opportunities. Wendy and I hope to bridge this gap. Bridges are better than walls, after all, and the simplest yet largest action in all American citizens’ power to better all global citizens’ lives is now on our doorstep: voting for Hillary Rodham Clinton as the next President and first ladyboss of the United States of America.