..even if you miss you’ll land amongst the stars
How did I get here you ask. So many moments, people, questions, inspirations. But the base of it all starts with my family. Especially my mom and brother, my greatest cheerleaders. They are the most fundamental reason I am where I am today, the reason that it seems like I just keep wanting more, going bigger, desiring to continue to learn. They ingrained in me that the possibilities were endless and nothing could get between me and my determination to be anything I wanted to be.
” We will make it work” she always told me. Growing up in a tiny mountain town the chances of being stuck in the bubble were very high, but my mom never let me forget that I would get out and see the world. She taught me to appreciate that sweet, cozy little town where everyone is family yet in some magical way made me very aware that there was more to the world and my life would not stop here. I always knew I wouldn’t go to high school in Leadville, there just wasn’t enough money or resources to challenge me in the way I needed to be challenged. We started looking in sixth grade but I just wasn’t ready. We kept looking but she never pushed me. Then one day I sat in the car with tears in my eyes after another boring, frustrating day at school, fighting with girls about things that didn’t matter to me and feeling like I didn’t fit it. The small town just wasn’t doing it for me and I said to her, “I’m ready to go, I’m ready to switch schools”. It became a marathon to find the right fit, send the letters needed to get me enrolled and find a way to get me to and from school an hour away over a mountain pass everyday for the next five years. “We will make it work” she said when it seemed so complicated and when I was so afraid of leaving. She knew it would be better for me even though I was afraid of not making friends, not fitting in, not being able to do well in school. She committed herself to giving me a better education, more opportunities and the first of many big steps to broaden my horizons. She encouraged me to get involved in anything I was interested in and was always there to support me however I needed her. A friend asked me to come to Mexico with her and then another asked me to come to Germany. I thought there was no way, my family didn’t have the money to send me on international trips I was sure. Thanks for the invite though. Yet she came through as always”We’ll make it work, these are opportunities you cant turn down” and she found a way to make it work.
At the bottom of it all was a desire for me to see the world, to be exposed to all the differences, beauty and pains. She made me aware that it all existed right in our back yard as well. Her sensitive, nurturing and all accepting nature taught me that we are all human, that we all deserve to live happy lives with the things we need. She exposed me to the inequalities and injustices and responded to them with a love and tenderness she had for all people. She taught me the importance of living for others and opened my eyes to the many places where my education, ability to give to others and love was needed. And she never let me stop growing.
When the search for colleges started I had always wanted to come to California. The world told me it was too expensive, my school counselor told me it was too hard to get in, my friends told me it was too far away. Everyone in the world gave me a reason I should just stay in Colorado “you don’t even know what you want to go for, why go so far away where its so expensive, what if you don’t like it” I was discouraged from following my dream over and over, but never ever once by mom. “We will make it work” she said. She wanted me to go, to keep broadening my horizons, to be challenged and be some where with more opportunities, more newness and more growth than I could find in the schools all my friends would attend in Colorado. We went to college fairs, spent a week driving from San Francisco to San Diego looking at colleges and looked high and low for options. We fell in love with Santa Clara together.. it just felt right. And while so many people said we couldn’t do it she promised “We will make it work” she never wanted me to miss an opportunity because of money. There are always ways to get scholarships, aid, etc and it will be worth it she promised. She encouraged me every step of the way and supported me in a thoughtful way that gave me a trust that things would work out.
Then there is my brother. Eleven years older ,he has been a role model for me as long as I can remember. He set the tone of how the Maddex’s would live. He was dedicated, hard working, so smart, involved and so very loving to everyone he met. He went to school at a different high school and told my parents I had to do the same, there was just so much out there. Through ski racing he traveled all over the world and he too, had a passion for service. I always wanted to be just like him, and he taught me about the world from his phone calls from across the world or just from Loyola Marymount where he did his undergraduate. He majored in sociology and psychology, things I always had an interest in, started a mens service organization and felt the Jesuits had given him so many opportunities. “Look into Jesuit schools” he told me and I found Santa Clara. He, like my mom, told me I could do or be anything I wanted and the fact that he had gotten out of Leadville, survived the challenges that were happening at home and continued to give himself to others inspired me to do the same. Everything he was doing seemed so exciting and he motivated me to keep working hard, applying, and involving myself in new and different things. There was even more to this world than I had seen and through his experiences with at risk youth, working in East LA, interning as a counselor in a high school and a million other things he gave me a concern for those who were struggling way more than I was when things were so challenging. He taught me there was more out there and I could get there.
He graduated form Berkely with a Masters degree in Social Work. But he didn’t just want to be a social worker. He talked to me about burn out, his student loans he had to pay off and his desire to combine the public and private sector. He taught me that money, although frustrating, is necessary and that it is there, so we should be able to find a way to use it for good. He wanted to make a real difference and felt like if he went right into social work he would loose his passion. So he took a job in sales, something that threw us all for a loop. What was he doing, I couldn’t quite understand. But it was a job, he needed money, and a mentor had told him he should learn about the business world. Again, there is money that should be put to good, its just a matter of understanding where and how to get it. That’s what he hoped to do in his sales job.
In the meantime I was trying to choose my major. Pulled to sociology but fearful I wouldn’t be able to eat if I just did sociology. He saw so much value in it and knew I was passionate about it but at the same time encouraged me to see what else was out there. He was starting to see the value in business and believed real change could come from a combination of the two. He moved to a job at Sales Force where he would be selling the cloud data storage system to non profits and higher education, one step closer to his desire to combine the two. He talked to me about business, social enterprise and the ways I could take my passion for serving others and combine it with knowledge of business to make a true difference. I was skeptical the whole time, his point was valid but business was so boring to me. I declared an international business minor after hearing him talk about how valuable it was, but just a few months later decided it wasn’t the right fit.. We have had a million conversations about money. How much of a pain it is, how we grew up without much and how frustrating it can be to work with people who grew up with a lot, about how it creates problems but most importantly how it can be useful, it is necessary and the organization and understanding of business is beneficial for the well being of people if you can just use the money the right way.
Through his experience and the hours and hours of advice he’s given me I began to see some value in money and business still with an undertone of skepticism but a desire to learn more, to explore and be open to the ways in which it can benefit society. He got me excited about service and going outside of my bubble and then made me look at in a new way. He challenged the ideas that direct service was the only way to make a difference and that money was all bad, an idea I had developed from growing up without enough money and a sense of envy turned frustration towards the way money is unequally divided amongst people. From a young age he continued to challenge me and when I started to completely question capitalism, business and the misuse of money he reminded me that we are living in a world where money matters and we might as well make good use of it. He showed me how to think outside of the box with a shared passion for people guiding conversations about how we would change the world, how we would shoot for the moon.
My mom and brother taught me to be creative, to see outside of the bubble I was living in and always be in touch with a world beyond myself. They helped me to challenge the expectations and limits the world was putting on me on dream big, allowing me to go bigger and learn more at every stage in my life. They never let my heart or mind sit stagnant challenging me to think bigger, challenge myself and continue to give to this world in the best fashion I could.