In Chapter 1 of 16 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit founder and executive Courtney Spence answers "When Are You at Your Best?" She notes how she performs best around those she loves and those who she can be herself around. This results in more open and trusted settings that allow Spence to thrive. Spence is founder and executive director of Students of the World, a non-profit that partners with passionate college students to create new media to highlight global issues and the organizations working to address them. Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.
Transcript:
Erik Michielsen: When are you at your best?
Courtney Spence: Probably at my best when I am working with people I really love, that I can be really honest with. I’m a pretty emotional person and I take everything personally which is both good and both bad, but that means that particularly in a work environment if I am not – I don’t feel like I’m with people that I can be honest with, and when I’m upset, be upset with, or be -- I’m angry or when I’m happy, I feel comfortable, I trust them enough to be who I am. When I’ve been in environments where I did not have that, it was very hard for me to even be a shade of my best. But I would say, you know, for me, personally, in the last, you know, year and a half, really, I have assembled a really great team of people that I’m working with and it’s just so liberating to be able to really be true to who you are both at home and in your workplace.