Make Tomorrow Yours

Here we are, on the eve of the 2024 presidential election. No matter who wins, we’re waking up to a new chapter—a new regime with a leader who is neither a direct incumbent nor a fresh face. This isn’t a continuation of the last four years but rather an adjustment into the next. And, like it or not, each candidate brings their own history and agenda.

No matter where your affiliations lie, come tomorrow, we’re all left with two choices:

1. Jump on board and navigate these new waters.

2. Decry the outcome and dig in where you stand.

Yet beyond party lines—whether it’s the left’s focus on women’s rights or the right’s rallying cries—there’s something bigger at play, something that transcends political identities: the power we have as women when we recognize the strength we hold in our choices, our influence, and our pocketbooks. This election is a reminder that, regardless of the outcome, we have the ability to shape the world in ways more impactful than any single result.

Let’s rewind for a moment, back to the 2016 election and its shocking results. I was thirty years old and in a corporate training with executives way out of my league at CORT, a Berkshire Hathaway company. I’d only known my now-husband for two months at the time, but I was fully immersed in building my career. I felt slightly terrified that week—anxious about being close to D.C. as emotions ran high on all sides. When I walked into the training room the morning after the election, the air was thick with shock, pain, and fear. Our facilitator, sensing the weight in the room, created a safe space to process emotions without diving into political debate. People shared raw concerns, and though I heard their words, I didn’t yet fully grasp their depth. My life experience hadn’t yet crossed into the realities of theirs.

Now, looking back in 2024, after the path my own life has taken, it’s finally clear. Since 2016, my life has grown—I’ve built a family, and we now have three children under four. The concerns my colleagues shared then, which once seemed distant, are now close to home. This is the lens I hold today, seeing things differently than I did eight years ago.

Then came the 2020 election, set against the backdrop of a global pandemic. My husband and I were newly married and expecting our first child. Alongside our joy of having twins 18 months later, we were also witnesses to world-shaking events: political riots, the storming of the Capitol, and those chaotic, heart-wrenching images of the Afghanistan withdrawal. If you had told us in 2016 that all of this would unfold within a few years, we’d have called it impossible. And yet, here we are in 2024, so numbed by the barrage of crises that we’re left clinging to the simplest of human rights—not just for women, but for all of us. We’re facing a system, not just a party, that has failed to serve the American people, bending instead to corporate and executive interests while we continue to fight for dignity, humanity, and choice.

So, no, I don’t believe either party will "fix" things—they’re simply taking turns in the same seat of power. But tomorrow, we get to decide who we become in this new era and where we direct our control. We don’t have to passively accept the system as it is.

That naive thirty-year-old from 2016? She won’t be waking up tomorrow. Instead, a woman with hard-earned experience, perspective, and purpose steps into this next chapter. I’m choosing to channel everything I’ve learned to build a world I can justify leaving for my children. Because if I, a woman who once doubted her voice, can harness this power now, what’s stopping the rest of us?

It’s time we embrace what we have—the influence, the power, and the choices in how we spend, consume, and shape our world. I’m stepping into this new chapter committed to finding where my resources can make the greatest impact. And as I uncover the paths worth taking, I won’t be gatekeeping—whatever I learn along the way, I’ll be sharing. Yet let’s be cautious: if we don’t act now, they may find ways to edge our voices and pocketbooks away from us too. We have the power to shape a future worth believing in, and I invite you to walk this path with me.

With gratitude and purpose,
Monica Olano