Entering my senior year of high school, I was elected as one of the girls’ soccer co-captains. The opportunity excited me but at the same time filled me with anxiety. I knew that many of my teammates looked up to me as one of only three club players on the team and our leading returning goal-scorer. However, I had always been very quiet on and off the field and never considered myself “leader” material. I was also hesitant to step into this role because I knew how much many of my teammates (and I) had resented our captains in the past two years. Under their leadership, hazing was common and deemed acceptable behavior. Freshmen were forced to carry equipment, were banned from sitting in the back of the bus, were last to eat at team pasta parties, and were even tricked into wearing fancy dresses to a casual event. On the field, seniors refused to pass the ball to underclassmen, including myself, even when it cost us a goal-scoring opportunity. There was no sense of camaraderie, only a culture of exclusion. As a result, the other captains and I made it our season goal to create a more inclusive environment. Our team was very young; I was the only senior who had ever played meaningful minutes on varsity, and we had several freshmen and sophomores stepping into the starting lineup. To find success on the field, everyone was going to need to feel valued and respected, no matter their age or skill level. From the start of summer training, we made a point to get to know each player on the team. Not just their name, but also their strengths as a player, their personality, and what they enjoyed outside of soccer. We hosted team pool parties and sleepovers, as well as runs and captain-led practices to build a community before preseason even started. The change was immediately noticeable. During games, players on the bench started encouraging their teammates on the field. Halftime talks involved constructive comments on our gameplay and ways to improve as a whole unit. Seniors took it upon themselves to set up drills, carry water jugs, allow freshmen to eat first and rotate seating arrangements on the bus. We had generated a culture of servant leadership. While our season ended earlier than we would have liked with a loss in the district final, I am still reminded of that game every day for one small reason: every single girl cried afterward. In years prior, seniors were the only ones to shed a tear, saddened by the end of their high school soccer careers. Yet this year freshmen and sophomores came up to hug me, crying and thanking me for the “best season.” In that moment I understood that true leadership isn’t always about achieving the goal, but impacting the people. Leaders inspire others and unify communities. They leave a place better than they found it. That is my definition of leadership, and what I strive to continue accomplishing every day.

I see myself as a climate warrior: an outspoken activist for sustainability in all aspects of life, a leader in creating policy to reduce carbon emissions, and a champion of social justice and equality as we green our economies and societies in order to preserve the health of the Earth.

Devoting my life to saving our planet began with an existential crisis. Or, at least what I thought was one at the time. In the early spring of my junior year, I was in a dark spot. I had been on and off the soccer field for the past year and a half battling a chronic Achilles condition that kept me from running and even walking properly. Despite numerous treatments, I showed no signs of improvement. Feelings of frustration, anxiety, and hopelessness mounted. I desperately wanted to feel better. Plus, I knew I was missing the critical recruitment window for college soccer and with it, a chance at one of my “dream” schools. As the weeks crept on, I lost interest in playing. I dreaded the hour and half-long car ride to practice and cried on the way home. I hated the sharp pain I felt with each cut and sprint and the psychological hurt that I couldn’t compete to the level I wanted. At school, I lost focus in class, consumed by despair over why my condition was not improving. Sometimes, I simply fell asleep to keep my mind off the pain. Then, in the middle of April, I received my wake-up call in the form of an English final project. In a video media presentation, I was tasked with answering the question: What is your ultimate dream for your future? Immediately, my childhood dream bubbled to the surface. After my first SCUBA dive at age ten, I had always wanted to become a professional diver and marine biologist. Yet I had long ago buried this vision due to ridicule from friends and family who claimed the lack of pay and job security made my dream unsuitable. However, the more I considered the details of the project, the more I realized that I must finally be truthful to myself. I wasn’t passionate about biomedical science - even though my family was very familiar and connected within the field - and I no longer wanted to attend a small college to play soccer. If I had one ultimate dream for my future, it was to spend my time doing something I loved. In my heart, I knew that meant studying coral reefs and protecting our oceans. I ended up completing my project on scuba instruction and marine conservation. In the middle of May, I decided to stop playing club soccer and allow myself to heal, both physically and mentally. I threw my college list away - a major shock to my parents - and began hunting for schools with strong marine science programs. My foot was now in the door to an environmental future. While working on my college applications that summer, I began listening to the climate podcast How to Save a Planet, reading the latest news about climate change-induced weather events, and exploring careers in conservation, advocacy, and research. Over many months, my scope widened from marine protection to climate justice as a whole. I now intend to focus on climate change policy and creating a sustainable future, whether that be through improving fisheries, greening and protecting coastal cities, decarbonizing industries, or some other climate action. As I return to the question posed to me during my junior year, I realize that I have no one ultimate dream. Dreams are fluid and malleable. More important than the dream itself are the issues that inspire it and the emotional attachment we feel toward those issues. For me, that is our planet, and everything living on it.

Outliers: The Story of Success. Or is it? Each individual, group, and organization featured in Malcolm Gladwell's book reached the top rung in their chosen field, arguably the best indicator of success. Yet it is not so much the story of success that Gladwell paints in Outliers, but rather the story of chance: of how small, uncontrollable factors compound and ultimately shape where we end up in life. Through each story, Gladwell challenges readers to look past the typical indicators of success - intelligence, personality, and ambition - and consider the external factors that play such a vital role in determining one’s outcome. By the end of the book, Gladwell demonstrates that where and when people are born, their race or ethnicity, family dynamics, community culture, generational wealth, and access to resources all contribute far more to success than sheer ambition or intelligence. Outliers compels us to reflect on our own lives and how the unique set of circumstances and opportunities we have been served set us up for where we are today. In doing so, we are then led to consider our situation in relation to that of others near and far from us. We begin to understand how opportunities are available for some but not for others, how circumstances we take for granted can have a large impact on our futures, and how, despite someone’s diligent work effort or bright mind, other factors may bar them from achieving their goals. This is what makes Outliers such a critical read. Access to opportunities - either by mere luck or privilege - mixed with just enough ambition and aptitude, are what set all of the world’s outliers apart. That is the real story behind success.