One of my life's biggest breakthroughs came as a result of problems.

Due to a misinterpretation of a legal document, I was denied trust income and employment at my family’s real estate business, making me the outlier—the only one out of a dozen individuals—excluded from financial support. The consequence? I threw myself into journalism.

Years later, the breakthrough arrived. The skills I had accumulated through work enabled me to get a position within the family trust and eventually to organize a family mediation, ultimately ensuring that females received a fair share of the business's planned liquidation.

All those years of chopping wood and carrying water resulted in a skillset and grit that I am glad I have today.

Fast forward more than a decade, every six months, I list my problems (though I've never reached 99, like in Hugo's song) because I recognize them as potential opportunities....

A narrated essay from The Pressures of Privilege.
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