I’d stepped away from something familiar into territory with new colleagues, new landscape, new tempo. Because I believed, with everything, in founding a new program.

What’s astonishing to me is that people continue to ask me the same questions: Aren’t you afraid to be so young and be chair of a program? Aren’t you afraid of the responsibility? Aren’t you afraid to be shifting careers? Aren’t you afraid?

And the answer is yes: yes, I’m afraid. I’m afraid every day just like I’m afraid that the products I design with clients are not going to succeed, or that I’ll get run over on the streets of Manhattan. Even when you choose the thing that inspires you, the thing you believe in, work with colleagues you learn from, do good work, there’s going to be a level of fear involved. People will have opinions and negative reactions. But that fear means it’s worth it. …

People, both women and men, should be so fiercely passionate about good ideas that self-promotion is a natural extension. Otherwise, why is it worth doing in the first place? It’s when confidence and self-promotion are obfuscated from passion that the claims become flimsy and empty. Confidence can bridge the gap between desire and outcome as long as the integrity for what we believe and the authenticity of what we create remain in place. We have the ability to both do good work and to recognize it — the choice is ours to make. Confidence is good’s natural extension.”