respond to her e-mail. “I have a star personality,” she told
me. And I had to agree with her. She’s a strong woman,
hardened by pain and difficulty, but nonetheless full of life.
When we see someone who has succeeded in spite of
tremendous odds, we are tempted to proclaim this person a
“self-made” man or woman. When we do this, though, we
ignore an important fact, one that is essential to anyone’s
success—they didn’t do it alone. As I dug deeper into the
complexity of Ginny’s story, I realized that was the case for
her too. Yes, she’s a strong woman; that’s impossible to
miss. You can’t go through what she’s endured without
being tough; no one could argue with that. But even
strength has its shortcomings. What you might miss when
you first meet Ginny Phang—and this is in no way meant to
discredit her courage—is that without the support of a few
important people, she wouldn’t have made it.
The Accidental
Apprenticeship
In the Middle Ages, a young person worked for free in
exchange for experience, room, and board. The student,
called an “apprentice,” would live sometimes in the same
house as the master, sharing meals with the craftsman’s
family. This was the way a person became a professional,