Lindsay Avner

Albert Camus said, “There are some people who prefer to look their destiny straight in the eye.” Lindsay Avner is, without a doubt, one of those people. At a healthy 23, she volunteered to get a double mastectomy because virtually every woman in her life, her mother, grandmother, great grandmother, aunts and cousins, suffered from or died of breast cancer.

Avner took control of her own destiny after a blood test revealed she had a genetic predisposition to the disease. She didn’t want to live in fear. She wanted to meet her future husband and say, “we got this out of the way so our family won’t go through what I did growing up.”

With her new nonprofit organization, Avner is helping raise money and awareness for the disease she knows she won’t suffer from but other women will. The mantra is “Be Brilliant. Be Bold. Be Bright Pink.” They are things Avner has mastered and with this community, she tries to empower other women to also look their own destiny and the disease straight in the eye.

Update: Thank you all for such an amazing response to this post! Comments are no longer being accepted. Be sure to check out the CNN.com Live Video interview

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