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New Year's is here, and with it brings the possibility of change.

As one behavioral scientist put it, first starts are really powerful.

So as you head into 2023, LifeKit is a great resource to help you plan your life and tackle changes, both big and small.

Listen to the LifeKit podcast from NPR.

Hey everyone and welcome to how I built this resilience edition from NPR.

On these episodes, we're hearing from entrepreneurs and other business leaders about how they've been building resilience into their businesses during this very challenging time.

And today, we're going to hear from Emily Powell. She's the owner and president of Powell's Books.

Powell's is based in Portland, Oregon, and it's one of the largest family owned independent booksellers in the world.

Emily is the third generation owner of Powell's Books, and she knew early on that she wanted to take over the business her grandfather started in 1971.

My grandfather used to drive a really beat up Chevy pickup truck, and I thought it was the coolest thing to go riding in his pickup truck.

It was the first company car. It had the Powell's logo on the side, and I would say the age of three or five.

When I grow up, I want to drive the bookie truck. That was my grand aspiration to drive his pickup truck.

So yeah, I had a pretty good sense from an early age. When you grow up in a place that's as magical as Powell's, it was big early and fast.

I don't know anyone who would have turned that down, I think, as an opportunity. It's pretty wonderful.

I also read something that you said that you don't think that Powell's would have survived or thrived anywhere else except for Portland.

Why? Why do you think so?

Well, a couple of reasons. My father was always really involved in the city community and our politics and the street car that runs through downtown Portland.

He was a port commissioner.

So we talked a lot around the dinner table about what makes a city work, what makes a city vital and vibrant. And Portland's done a lot of things right since the 70s.

They've been very deliberate about how they planned the city and how it might look in the year 2000 or in this case 2020.

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