99 Problems

So looking back, when you were a younger person yourself and rising through the ranks, were there certain moments where you sort of, you know, went through those valleys, where you weren't so sure, you weren't feeling challenged enough, did you have a mentor or advisor who shared a tip that was just the right pearl of wisdom at the right time that really changed your trajectory? Lisa: Yeah, there have been, I mean, many of them. This is the thing about the network, right? If you start building that right out of college or even before college graduation, you have more people to tap when you run into those obstacles. So there were many people on my journey that helped encourage me. I'd like to give you example after example, I'll suffice it to say don't limit it to one person, make sure you have access to lots of different people, because you will have in one case a boss problem, and then another case you will have a "well, I can't get funding for this project" problem, and in another case you'll have a "well, I've got this legal impediment that's preventing me from achieving what I want to achieve" and another case you'll have a "there's not enough support or resource for me to go do this project." And so there's all kinds of issues that you're going to face, make sure you have a network that's broad enough that you can tap people that have had those experiences and then managed to get around them. Building that community when you're early is probably the biggest advice that I give to the young people, the young leaders in particular. It's certainly staying with it, don't give up, but a lot of this you won't give up if you have a community of people that support you along the way. Women tend to not do that as much as men, and so it's something I really emphasize with young women in my career. I think women feel like if they're relying too much on other people that it makes them look weak, and men have the exact opposite view. I mean they are tapping into as many people as they can because they believe that when they're done, it makes them look strong. We need to have that mindset as well.