When Everyone Said It Was Too Late

I was 36, standing in the admissions office at Mount Holyoke College with no high school diploma.

Most people would have walked away. The traditional path had closed years earlier. But I’d learned something about myself by then: I don’t accept “too late” or “not possible.”

The Frances Perkins Scholars director saw something in me that conventional metrics would miss, so she guided me to earn my GED, then welcomed me into America’s first women’s college on a full scholarship.

Four years later, I graduated Magna Cum Laude with Honors.

During my time at MHC, I heard and learned to love a guiding credo of Mary Lyon, Mount Holyoke’s founder: “Go where no one else has gone, do what no one else has done.” She said this in 1837 when she created the first institution of higher learning designed for women. When everyone said it was impossible, she did it anyway.

Her words perfectly captured what I’d already lived, what I already was doing.

Why am I sharing this?

Because it’s exactly what I see with my clients. High-performing leaders who’ve been told by everyone – doctors, specialists, experts – that their chronic symptoms are “just part of aging” or “something to manage.”

Just like I refused to accept that my educational ship had sailed, they refuse to accept diminished energy and health as their new normal.

I’ve carried Mary Lyon’s words with me for years. They just… fit. Most people don’t want to go where it’s uncomfortable or uncertain. I do. That’s why my clients find me when everyone else has said “sorry, nothing more we can do.”

I find what everyone else misses.