Gloria Feldt spent three decades working with Gloria Steinem and walked away with life advice about conquering fear. Not stock picks. Not market timing strategies. Fear management.
The antidote, if you're wondering, was likely something about solidarity or speaking truth to power or organizing collectively. All fine principles. None of them will stop your tech calls from expiring worthless.
Feldt founded Take The Lead, an organization dedicated to women's leadership. Admirable work. Zero correlation with the S&P 500. She carried forward Steinem's legacy on emotional resilience. Your brokerage account does not care about your emotional resilience. It cares about whether you bought at the top like an idiot.
Thirty years of proximity to one of history's most influential feminists and the takeaway is a fear antidote. You know what else cures fear? Not checking your Robinhood account every four minutes. Not buying companies because someone on Twitter said they're "undervalued." Not confusing a Reddit thread with due diligence.
Retail traders love inspirational content. They read about overcoming fear, then immediately panic-sell at a 12% drawdown. They bookmark articles about legendary mentors, then ask strangers which penny stock will 10x by Friday. They want wisdom. They practice stupidity.
Steinem changed culture. Feldt carries that forward. Both did meaningful work that improved lives. Neither of them can explain why you thought puts on a semiconductor manufacturer during a supply shortage was genius.
The lesson here is not about feminism or mentorship or courage. The lesson is that you can spend thirty years learning from a icon and still end up writing inspirational LinkedIn posts instead of making money, which honestly sounds like most people's investment strategy anyway.
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
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