One evening prior to 2018 election day, I discover an intriguing YouTube video from an unlikely candidate for the Governorship of the great nation of California. A couple weeks later, after a longshot email solicitation to her campaign office, I find myself chilling in the Silicon Valley home of the remarkable Amanda Renteria. We hit it off immediately, discussing Mexico’s chances in the World Cup (not great, as it turned out when they got stuck with Brazil in the first knockout round), and then onto more important matters such as the importance of giving the people a real voice in the political process.

Through hard work and determination, this child of a former immigrant farm workers in California’s central valley found her way to Stanford University, then Harvard Business School, then into a fast rising political career where she became the first Latina Chief of Staff in the history of the US Senate, then National Political Director for the Clinton Presidential Campaign, then taking a crisp 7th place in the California governor’s race against the behemoth candidates of big politics.

In her spare time, Amanda became a two-sport varsity athlete at Stanford (walking on, literally with the wrong shoes, to the defending NCAA champion women’s basketball team! Then earning a scholarship in another sport!), ran the State of California Department of Justice (they wanted her so bad they said she could telecommute to oversee her 1,000 member staff!). She also did some time at Goldman Sachs to pay off student loans, taught high school back in her hometown, and is raising a couple little children. Uh, how about you? Whatcha been up to the past couple decades since college? WOW! Yes indeed, you might call Amanda a true peak performer, o en Español: chingóna. This is a great conversation that will inspire you and awaken you to the power of dreams, resolve, fearlessness, and hard work and all that cool stuff we talk about but rarely get to experience personified.

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