A few days before International Women’s Day, a colleague asked a timely ice-breaker question in one of our weekly standups.

“Who’s a woman that inspires you?”

I loved the question but didn’t have an immediate answer. One single woman didn’t jump out. I said the first name that came to mind (Joan Didion), but started to reflect. Who did I feel inspired by? Who had helped me, through their example, become a version of myself that I liked better?

The answer is nuanced. I called out Joan Didion at the time, because I’d been re-reading her essays and marveled at the detail and depth she explored subjects—whether it was California’s dams and water supply, or a woman’s self-respect.

But inspiration isn’t really about looking at someone from afar, admiring their qualities, and hoping to cultivate them. For me, it’s about meeting someone in a more relatable field, and seeing how they navigate different circumstances through their choices and their being. It’s about examples that force you to question things on a deeper level.

I wanted to find more examples of real-world women who had shaped me in different ways. And this was the complexity of the question: it’s hard to find a single one. There are many women who have influenced me and my worldview, in ways big and small.

The first examples that came to mind were from work—especially at Coinbase, where I spent most of my waking hours over the last four years. Beyond any other place I’ve worked at, I was surrounded by women I admired. They were some of the most precise, articulate, strong colleagues I’ve met—from the C-suite to peers I worked with daily. They were focused, interested in what they were doing and masters at it, and interesting as human beings overall.

A career bootcamp like Coinbase is both a challenging and rewarding experience. Challenging, because you will have to stretch yourself to your max every day. Rewarding, because you will grow stronger with the experience. I learned how to communicate more clearly and succinctly, how to prioritize faster, how to tackle complex projects in a more agile way, and how to think creatively under pressure.

A few of them particularly stand out. They are the ones I worked most closely with, who I got to know on a deeper level, and who happen to be exceptional women. What I learned from them applies just as easily to life as it does to the workplace.

• From Sarah, I learned about the importance of staying focused on what was most important, of defining “good” and articulating a clear and impactful end-goal, and staying focused on it. She inspired me to continuously ask, in work and in life, what end goal I was working towards, and if what I was working on at that moment was serving that goal.

• Aneri, a product leader I worked with closely, inspired me in the way she thought and executed with clarity, creativity, and speed. She asked the right questions to cut to the heart of an issue, iterate and pivot quickly, and become an expert at it. I had just as many conversations with her about good social content and engagement metrics, as I did about product strategy. Her ability to dive deep, experiment, and absorb quickly endowed her with a remarkable arsenal of insight when she had to think creatively on the spot (and in general)—a trait that I marveled at and still seek to cultivate.

• From Ceren, I learned the power of persistence and not taking no for an answer. I’ve seen her open impossible doors, combining this power with kindness.

I’m grateful I got to work with them, who helped me sharpen my skills and were delightful people to learn from.

But inspiration also goes beyond cultivating the skills that make you sharper at work, and in life. It’s about the ability to think about what kind of life you want to lead, and who you want to be, in the first place. And there was one woman who stands out in particular, who inspired me for over a decade through her example, whose writing has guided me through some of the toughest times in my life.

She was a PR executive who also found her way to tech, and then crypto. I’ve had few, but enough, interactions with her to know that she is warm, empathetic, and perceptive of others around her.

I had a touching conversation with her, more than a decade ago. I was an Assistant Account Executive in my first PR job, and she was a VP or above. I occasionally exchanged emails with her, but didn’t work all that closely. One day, from one of my emails, she realized something was off. She called me directly.

She had absolutely no reason to check on an Assistant Account Executive who barely worked with her—I’m certain her day was filled with much more important things. But she prioritized a connection, of offering solace and perspective to someone who she recognized was struggling at the time. Just this phone call itself stayed with me and shaped me in thinking about the leader I wanted to become.

And she was right that I was struggling at that moment. I was going through the break-up of my first long-term relationship, and beyond that, facing the urgent timeline of finding a new apartment within a week that fit my budget, and then the financial pressure of keeping that apartment.

She advised me to re-write that story from the most positive perspective—both in terms of what I had learned from and lived through that relationship, and in terms of where I was going after it.

That was the second powerful lesson that stayed with me from her—our power to shape our stories, reframe experiences, and to not go by just what was directly handed over to us, or that we lived without questioning.

After this conversation, both she and I changed jobs. I continued to follow her writing, marveling at her ability to navigate a successful tech career and to produce all the writing that she did. Her diamond-hard sense of self discerned with a scientist’s scrutiny what is good for her, how she set herself up to be the best version of herself, and how she made space for what she needed.

Her writing forced me, as an introvert and chronic people-pleaser, to examine my behavior to draw healthy boundaries, to create space for what I need to be healthy and effective, to take responsibility, and to honor my commitments.

We crossed paths again, more than a decade after that conversation. We were both working in crypto, and happened to be added to the same Slack group over a common project. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw her name.

We spoke on the phone shortly after. After catching up, my parting question to her was still awestruck and a bit starry-eyed, something along the lines of “how do you do it all? How are you so [magnetic / inspiring / creative]?”

“I go out of my way to create a life that I love,” she said. This answer has also stayed with me ever since, almost two years ago.

On the surface, some might interpret this response as hedonistic. But creating a life that you actually love and thrive in is the opposite of hedonism. Over the past few years, as I’ve become more conscious of my own choices and taken more responsibility for developing myself, I’ve come to understand just how much work it takes.

Her response is a constant reminder to stay with this active effort. And when I asked how, I always found a piece of her writing to illuminate the path.

Creating a life that you love isn’t giving into pleasure or indulging your insecurities. It’s about taking responsibility and honoring your commitments, to yourself and others. And just as importantly, it’s about making the right commitments.

It’s about understanding your boundaries and pulling yourself away from things that make you feel spent and resentful.

It’s about making an effort to understand and develop your talents and interests, feeling the satisfaction of cultivating something over many years and months. It’s about rearranging your life to dedicate time to things that make you feel alive. It’s about preventing the feeling that you wasted away the things you really cared about, at the expense of sheer pleasure or busyness that could have been avoided.

It is actively thinking about what you are doing and why, to avoid the regret that you frittered away your time and energy on things that didn’t matter all that much.

It’s about taking the time to sit with things, digest, and develop your own perspective and intuition, instead of always looking outward.

And ultimately, it’s about doing what’s necessary so you can go to sleep content with yourself at night.

Her example and her writing are continuous reminders to make the micro-choices that work for me, day in and day out: working out, writing and cooking at home even when I’m unmotivated. I now know that transformation and satisfaction are only to be found in this effort, applied consistently. And I think that is what true inspiration is: not about who you admire from afar for X reason, but who pushes you to think about the direction of your life, who pushes you to change, grow, and become more of who you can be. And who remind you to stay active in this effort, even on the days where nothing is going on.

The women who shaped me—at work, through their writing, through their example—taught me some very simple but crucial things.

Focus on what matters. Discard what doesn’t. Keep the end goal in sight.

You can’t make everyone around you happy. You have to identify and stick with what’s right for you.

Most importantly, build a life you love—not through indulgence, but through effort, discipline, and clarity.