This mural is located in the entrance hall to the BUild Lab at Boston University. This was the only snapshot I could find even though I swear I posted this view a million times during my time there. My photography was sloppy and I cut off the right side of the mural and the artist’s autograph and for that I wish I could give them the credit they are due. This mural greeted me every time I trekked into a center filled with amazing staff, amazing students and amazing innovators through rain, sleet and snow. This place feels like home to me and inspires me. It instilled in me a love for innovation and will forever symbolize a life pivot for me. These are the places that made me.
Dear Boston,
You are a hub of innovation. I’m not sure I even really knew what innovation was before I arrived in my first entrepreneurship class but I quickly fell in love. Most of my life I never really felt like I found my place. I always felt different from my peers. The feeling of “home” isn’t something I would have associated with anywhere but my true home until I went to Boston. I signed up for an innovation conference early on a Saturday morning. Anyone who knows me, knows that I don’t get up on a Saturday morning for much of anything. I am not a morning person in the strongest sense of the word and I guard tightly my Saturday morning to sleep in. There is a very short list of things that rank higher than sleeping in on a Saturday. So if I volunteered to wake up before 7am then it must have been something I found very important.
I didn’t know anyone else going so I walked into the large auditorium by myself and found myself in an end seat near the back. When the emcees and speakers started speaking, I thought to myself these people speak my language. If you pay close attention, you’ll hear the way entrepreneurs speak differently and use some very specific words when they talk. They see themselves differently. They see the world differently. They believe in the power of change differently than most people. The more stories that were shared, the more this feeling in my heart grew. This feeling of immense belonging. You see that day in that room I looked around and I saw hundreds of people just like me in a world where I never find people like me. Thirty-three years of searching and here they all were…all in the same room.
Entrepreneurs are the most interesting people in the world. I love all of them. They have the most inspiring stories. They are unique. They don’t listen to voices of doubt. Do they hear the nay-sayers? Yes. Do they feel a flicker of doubt in their heads? Yes. But the difference is entrepreneurs don’t listen to them. They change the world anyways. They will inspire you. Invigorate you. They will make you think you can change the world. Many people think the phrase crazy idea has a negative connotation when an entrepreneur hears it…they hear possibility. When you mock them…they hear a challenge. When they meet an obstacle…they see potential.
Many people think the phrase crazy idea has a negative connotation when an entrepreneur hears it…they hear possibility. When you mock them…they hear a challenge. When they meet an obstacle…they see potential.
Boston, you brought me intellectual conversations with friends on our walks home after class or a night out. I can’t count the number of times I’ve spent talking on the street corner or sitting on a bench on Commonwealth Avenue discussing our business concepts, how to dream bigger, pondering what to do with our lives riddled with encouragement from friends…as sunsets became the dark of the night. Hours were spent on those streets dreaming and growing and becoming the people we were meant to be. We would spend hours in the street as we weren’t ready to part, ready to end the innovation and the problem-solving and exchanging of ideas. That’s what I love about this city. We are always walking and riding and waiting together. It’s how relationships are built. Late night walks and talks and bonding. It offers effortless interaction, something lost in our day. Phones are tucked away, eyes are set ahead and mental stimulation commences. I promise we have solved the world’s problems on these streets. This city is full of motivated, ambitious people. They are full of passion and intensity but also love and a sense of purpose. It makes me feel right at home. For I am a dreamer and a thinker and passionate beyond measure. I fit here.
The first semester I went to grad school I would lie about my grades to my peers. I didn’t want anyone to not like me because I was a girl and I was smart. No one likes smart girls where I’m from. Boston is one of the most intellectual places in the US, it’s a hub for innovation and home to many of the greatest institutions in the country. I’m definitely not the smartest person here but I am celebrated for the areas that I excel in academically. For the first time in my life people thought it was cool that I’m really good at quantitative courses like accounting and finance and stat and econ. For a long time I wished I was good at the things girls are good at like interior design and arts and crafts. I wished I loved to cook and was super into fashion and make up. I felt like I wasn’t good at the “right” things. Turns out I was at the wrong table.
Boston, you gave me the freedom to pursue the things I loved. You gave me the support system through my university’s innovation lab to start making my dreams a reality. You allowed me to step into who I am. You made me feel seen. I embraced something I loved with my whole heart and I didn’t feel the need to be small. I didn’t feel like I didn’t belong because I’m a girl. I felt excited for the opportunity to work alongside other entrepreneur’s that are doing really, incredibly cool things. They inspire me and make me a better person. I spent hours on the streets of Boston, riding the T, asking the hardest questions and gaining the best perspectives with classmates and friends and people who inspire me. Together we are changing the world. One affirmation doll, children’s book that teaches sustainability, financial literacy education tool, PTSD treatment center, dating app, computer science tool, fishing conservation sticker at a time.
Dear Boston…you and I…we are made of the same thing,
Molly