Pass It On
Breaking the cycle of competition among women to build a legacy worth passing on.
Pass It On
By Candace Nicole Thompson | 1-18-2026
Shapewear to smooth what we haven’t had time to tone? Check.
Under-eye patches for preparing—and some for erasing? Check.
Wine? Double check.
Finally home… and back to work, because we sleep when we die. We work harder because we must. We have something to prove, and we’ll kill to prove it. But what is “it,” and to whom are we proving it?
Do we prove it to men who do the same work and get paid more than us? Nah—too cliché.
Do we prove it to show we’ve outgrown mommy and daddy issues? Maybe.
People look at us and say, “Vanity, oh vanity.” But we don’t moisturize, memorize, and then monetize for no reason. And yes, our push-up bras serve just as much purpose as our degrees. So why do all this? To “live the dream”?
Competition. That’s why.
Competition between women is as brutal as a lion fight. With egos larger than the rooms we enter, we one-up each other in conversations about accomplishments, like a pickup game of basketball. We don’t dress for success—we dress for the other women who share our success, just in case they’re dressed better than us. Somehow, the world just isn’t big enough for us and our wardrobes.
But imagine a world where we used the same energy we expend fighting for women’s rights and equal rights—and joined forces to move forward together. There would be nothing that could stop us as a woman-led world, or even as a community.
Instead, we fight each other with words and gatekeep our secrets to success so we can sit on our own temporary thrones. Along with our areas of expertise, we’ve mastered the game of competition. Too bad many of us haven’t learned yet that there is no competition—and there is no game.
Do you have a next in line?
Do you have a plan for the day you can no longer rule your version of the world?
What have you taught them?
What are you withholding?
Or do they need to “pay their dues” and figure it out on their own—because you did?
There is no game to win or give—only a purpose to live. In this estrogen-based ecosystem, we fight to survive against one another, when we must evolve peacefully so we can thrive with one another. The respect we deserve—and even the partnerships we want—suffer because we are labeled “catty,” “jealous,” or “overemotional.”
But here’s the catch.
There is a game—and it’s being played on us.
Every day, through social media, commercials, and magazine covers, we are told what we should look like, what we should wear, how to wear our straight, curly, or kinky hair in order to be pretty, wanted, and accepted. This toxicity wasn’t born in women alone—it was manufactured in a world of vanity we’ve been breathing in since we were little girls.
Now that you are a woman—a professional woman—it’s time to remove the blinders. Look around. No one is coming for the position you built, so let your nervous system relax. You are not in danger, though many of us live in constant fear of not being enough.
And while no one may be coming after you metaphorically, someone will come after you literally—because you won’t be here forever.
Start thinking about what you will leave behind in the world you worked so hard to create. Teach a young girl not to play the world’s game, but to make her own rules and boundaries—to protect herself from the poison of pride.
Leave a legacy so powerful that you live forever through the lessons you were generous enough to pass on.
Forever,
Candace Nicole Thompson
