Power shared is power supercharged: My reflections on being inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame

On September 24, I had the extraordinary honor of being inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.  As I reflected on the people and experiences that have shaped my understanding of leadership, I kept returning to a lesson my mother taught me as a child: that what we have becomes more powerful when we share it.

When I was growing up in Kolkata, my mother had a small ritual. Every morning, she would reach into our rice container, take out a fistful, and put it into a jute sack. Just one fistful. At the end of the month, when the sack was full, she gave it to someone who needed it more than we did.

There was no announcement, no drama, no expectation of gratitude. She simply did it quietly, day after day. As the youngest, I watched with a child’s curiosity and often copied her. It has taken me most of my life to understand what she was teaching me: you don’t have to have a lot to give something away. Small acts, repeated, can have an impact far greater than we imagine.

I sit with that lesson especially deeply at the moment, as she left us this June.

I have spent much of my life thinking about power. I’ve seen it on Wall Street, in business, in philanthropy, and in the fight for women’s equality, where power ultimately comes down to who has a voice, who has a choice, and who gets to shape our lives.

We are taught that power is finite: that if I give you some of mine, I will have less.

My life has taught me the opposite. Which is why I invest in documentaries about the most silenced voices, fund without questioning but believing in those doing the work, and double down on strengthening women’s rights movements especially during pushback from regressive regimes that promote sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls.

At the core, power shared is power supercharged.

I am standing here because so many people shared theirs with me. My advisor at Smith, Professor Taft-Morris, told me I could compete with any man on Wall Street. My chosen aunt Sally gave me a home during an internship in Washington and opened a world to me. And my dearest friend and co-conspirator, Gloria Steinem, kept pushing me into leadership and to light the torch for the next generation. Saying no to Gloria was never really a long-term strategy.

They saw possibility in me before I saw it in myself.

Perhaps that’s why I choose to mentor hundreds of young people. My children call it an inability to stop giving advice. I call it sharing power.

Sometimes sharing power is simply: You can do this. Let me help you. There’s someone you should meet.

Because power isn’t a zero-sum game. Nobody becomes smaller by helping someone else grow. Open a door, invest in an idea, hand her the microphone and watch power grow through her.

That is how power compounds.

I’ve learned this at home, too. My partner has never asked me to make my dreams smaller to fit more neatly into our lives. And our three children have taught me that loving someone means giving them the freedom to write their own story, not the one you would write for them. I’m still practicing.

Being inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, I know no one arrives at a moment like this alone. I am profoundly grateful to the Hall for giving me a permanent home in this sacred space, alongside women who have shaped America and opened the way for generations to come.

I am also carrying my mother and Gloria in my heart, the women and men who opened doors for me, my family who gave me the freedom to walk through them, and women around the world who encourage me every day to claim power and share it.

So, I don’t receive this extraordinary honor as mine alone.

I receive it as a fistful of rice, placed in my hands with a responsibility to pass it on.

So, I offer my fistful of rice to each of you.

Pass it on to someone who needs it. Someone whose voice hasn’t been heard. Someone who hasn’t been invited into the room. Someone who may not even know what you are placing in their hands or what it might make possible.

Because I didn’t know what my mother was placing in mine. I thought it was just rice. It took me a lifetime to understand that she was teaching me how to share power.

One small act. One open door. One opportunity. One fistful at a time.

Own your power. Share it with abundance. Watch it multiply.

And at a time when so much feels impossible, together, we might just turn the world on its head.