At the Leading Women Defined Summit in California, former vice president Kamala Harris stepped onto the stage to a warm, anticipatory applause and opened with a story from her early days in public service, recalling the first time she spoke before a skeptical audience and felt her voice tremble.

She confessed that in that moment, fear had threatened to silence her, yet she chose to lean into it, learning that courage isn’t the absence of doubt but the resolve to speak up despite it. As she shared this, she swept her gaze across a sea of women—entrepreneurs, activists, educators, and artists—reminding them that every leader has faced that same hush of uncertainty before finding her strength.

She painted vivid scenes of resilience: a teacher who turned a failing classroom into a vibrant hub of creativity, a small-business owner who rebuilt her shop after a natural disaster, a community organizer who stood firm against injustice. In each anecdote, Harris highlighted the quiet moments that demand bravery—the decision to ask a tough question, to extend a hand to someone on the margins, to speak out when remaining silent feels safer. “Courage is contagious,” she said, and the room seemed to breathe in her words, each attendee nodding as if recalling her own moment of daring.