They're not born braver or better than anyone else. But our Women of the Year do share a few key things, and we all deserve to learn them.

Me backstage at our Carnegie Hall event last year.

One of the biggest privileges of my job, in addition to the marvelous fact that there are 457 nail polishes in a closet 50 yards from my desk, is the front-row seat it gives me to watch some of the most amazing women in the world in action. And our Women of the Year issue—the annual tribute to female "doers and darers" you can hold in your hands—is full of those trailblazers: 10 winners who have made history in 2014.

In some ways these women, and our sorority of past honorees, are vastly diverse. But I've noticed over the years that there are things they share. Things we all can learn from. Like...

Honoree Sylvia Earle rinsing off after a dive in the Sargasso Sea. At 79 she still spends three months a year—months!—out at sea.

They've gotten where they are by being into something. Actress Lupita Nyong'o grew up constantly staging plays in her living room. Sylvia Earle, the great oceanographer known as Her Deepness, would spend hours playing in the Gulf of Mexico near her family's home. Designer Sarah Burton says she was "always drawing." You hear about following your dreams, but that lofty phrase implies a fully formed life goal (win an Oscar! Save the world! Design the royal wedding dress!)—and what if you don't know what your dream is, anyway? Here's a clue: Do the thing you'd be doing if you weren't reading this page. Do it a lot. Believe that it's worthwhile. Be curious about it. Your dream will come.

And they didn't all have a long-term career ambition. "It's perilous to look ahead and be like, 'I'd like to be ambassador someday,'" Samantha Power—the, yes, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations—told me this summer. She made her own early life decisions on the basis of her gut, and what she could learn in the moment—and those choices brought her to where she is. Of course you're ambitious; embrace that. But don't keep your eyes so firmly on the long-term that you forget to love what you do in the short-.


They're not superhuman, and that's fine. I think it's easy to look at the kinds of achievers we profile as some sort of other breed of Great Woman: strong, confident, never insecure or afraid. Which would be complete B.S., because they have the same worries and nerves and vulnerabilities as every woman on this planet. Mindy Kaling once inked a script deal with a TV network, only to be told she was not attractive enough to play a character based on herself. [#image: /photos/56959a7bd9dab9ff41b2e73a]|||Malala Yousafzai accepts her award onstage. Eleven months later she won the Nobel Peace Prize!|||

It was as painful to her as it would be to you or me; she didn't brush it off with some sort of blasé cheerfulness (though she did, ultimately, keep going, which is why she is honored, and you can't find that network on your channel guide anymore). And isn't that—the ability to do extraordinary things even though you have ordinary feelings that get hurt, and ordinary butterflies in your stomach—more inspiring? As Diane Sawyer, 2001 Woman of the Year, says about her friend, 2014 Woman of the Year Robin Roberts, who faced terrifying health challenges: Courage isn't the absence of fear; "courage is fear that has said its prayers."

They're optimists. Some of our Women of the Year are outgoing and some are shy; some are outrageously funny and others quietly contemplative. But in my years of editing this magazine, I have yet to meet one who is cynical. [#image: /photos/56959a7b93ef4b09520d6715]|||Scenes from a Woman of the Year's life: Chelsea Clinton with husband Marc Mezvinsky and baby Charlotte in the hospital|||

From 2013 winner Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teen who was shot by the Taliban and yet continues to spread her message of hope, to 2014 winner Laverne Cox, who refused to let a childhood of being bullied keep her from being herself, these women believe the best about the world. And so the world gets better.

They cheer on other women. One last thing. As I watch our winners take the stage at Carnegie Hall each year, I am struck by the number of women they thank: the mothers, sisters, daughters, friends, bosses, and colleagues who form an invisible web of support around them. Think of this issue as the web around you—a new network of optimistic, determined, ordinary-yet-extraordinary women here to motivate you to greatness.

So what will you do next year?

Na'ilatu Kasimu and her fellow schoolgirls around the world are our Women of the Year Fund honorees for their determination to get an education. So inspiring.


Want to help the world this holiday season? Glamour has an excellent suggestion: the 2014 Women of the Year Fund initiative, an effort to educate the approximately 50 million girls between the ages of 12 and 18 around the world who aren't currently in school. These are girls who live in areas where it's considered taboo to get an education, girls who are forced to be child brides, girls who walk to school in fear of being kidnapped. Just $25 can help support them with after-school programs; or team up with coworkers to give $150, which can cover a year of school fees. You'll even hear back from the girls you assist. Could there be a better cause? Learn more at