Finding your why: The family history that inspires Natosha Reid Rice

If you're working in a field that you cherish, when did you first sense: This is what I need to be doing?

So often, the spark catches when we're just six or seven years old. Even in early childhood, we know. We just do. I keep hearing from athletes, teachers and inventors whose passion stories begin with diving catches on the family sofa -- or the desire to create a chalkboard lesson in the middle of play dates.

Then, something powerful happens as we get older. Those early inspirations help define our adult convictions. They are the unbreakable cores of our identity, sustaining us when bad luck hits. We catch our breath; we build a new plan, and we press on, tapping into a secret source of strength that no one can steal.

Earlier this year, I was in Atlanta, visiting leaders at Habitat for Humanity. It was a fascinating visit, not just because of this conversation with Habitat's CEO -- but also because of the chance to meet Natosha Reid Rice. During our time together, she shared one of the most powerful "Why?" stories that I've ever encountered.

Today, Reid Rice is Habitat's global diversity, equity and inclusion officer. She's a Harvard Law graduate. She's a practicing minister, with a gift for inspiring, challenging and welcoming people. She gets things done.

And if you want to understand her sense of purpose, it helps to travel all the way back to 1968, a few months before Reid Rice was even born.

"My parents met in Atlanta," she recalled. "My father was a Black student at Morehouse; my mother was a white exchange student from Minnesota. While my mother was pregnant, my parents went on a date at the Rialto Theatre. A white man held them at gunpoint because he didn't approve of their union. And he definitely didn't approve of the baby in her belly."

This particular "Why?" story doesn't begin with childhood joy. Instead, Reid Rice's earliest memories include repeated brushes with people too mean, too angry -- or too frightened -- to accept her and her parents. "I remember very vividly going to Woolworth's at age six with my mom, and people just staring," she says.

"I told my mom: 'Why don't you just say you're my babysitter?" Reid Rice recalls. That wasn't true. "But I was trying to find a way to keep people from staring at us, with all that disdain."

Then, as Reid Rice came into adulthood, she found stronger answers. As a Harvard undergraduate, she focused on racial and gender justice. In law school, she considered becoming a civil-rights litigator, before identifying affordable housing as "the next frontier of the civil rights movement."

Why housing? During our conversation, Reid Rice warmed up to that question right away.

"My family's homestead is in Snellville, Georgia," she told me. "My father's grandmother sold eggs and butter. She ended up buying 75 acres. Visiting there, as a little girl, was the place I found comfort and peace. We'd play outside and feed the chickens in the day. And then at night we'd sit on my great-grandmother's porch in the dark. It was there that everyone told their stories. As a child, I just couldn't get enough."

Interactions with nearby white families were a bit of everything; sometimes tense, sometimes warm. "I've been doing the work of equity since high school," Reid Rice says. Even today, "I bring Big Mama's porch, and all the rest of that into the conversation.

"Work in this space can be complicated and even dangerous," Reid Rice acknowledges. "People flee from the conversation. But if we do lean in, the treasures are boundless. We can create a world that's more beautiful, more productive, more profitable -- and more fun to be in."