Ashlyn Meraz

I attribute my success to the mentors I've had throughout my career. My first manager at Pepsi showed me not to give up, and that even if I don't have the skills or the qualification, it doesn't mean that I can't gain it along the way. She taught me how to not count myself out, to still show up, and even if you are in a room full of people who are the smartest of them all, learn. Don't try to prove yourself in the midst of that. That helped me throughout my whole career at Pepsi. My current mentor is teaching me that it's okay to pivot, and even in your pivot, give yourself grace to learn and to become the person that you're becoming in the new season, in the new career, in the new field. It's a trusted process. I also believe my ability to persevere and have resilience has been key. Even when something didn't turn out right or a deadline was missed, I was able to not just stay there. I was able to get back up and keep pushing, keep being motivated.

The best career advice I've ever received came from my first manager at Pepsi. She taught me not to give up, and that even if I don't have the skills or the qualification, it doesn't mean that I can't gain it along the way. She taught me how to not count myself out, to still show up, and even if you are in a room full of people who are the smartest of them all, learn. Don't try to prove yourself in the midst of that. My current mentor has also given me powerful advice - that it's okay to pivot, and even in your pivot, give yourself grace to learn and to become the person that you're becoming in the new season, in the new career, in the new field. Trust the process.

I would advise young women to go in with confidence. Confidence doesn't happen overnight. Confidence happens when you give yourself the chance to go into the room where you don't feel qualified, and it's asking the questions to people, even when you feel like you might be rejected. Each time you do that, you build a level of confidence, and then you'll realize that you are on the right path. The process is a process because it's baby steps. You don't always get the full picture, right? The full picture comes - I always tell my clients, because I'm a life coach too - I always tell them it's like a puzzle piece. Puzzle pieces don't come put together, right? You have to take one piece at a time and fit it into the right part. That's literally how I look at processes when we talk about careers, or even just life in general. Trusting the small piece will fit in the right place, and then eventually you'll get the bigger picture.

The biggest challenges in my field right now are not being able to get it right the first time. This is an entirely new industry for me when I speak from the AI standpoint. So learning the systems, learning what's new out there, because AI changes every day, there's always something new. Many of the challenges are still learning while things are evolving at the same time. It's a constant process of research and getting information so that I can build the systems for my clients and learn more about how AI is going to scale service-based businesses within the next couple of years.