Carol Abate

My success comes from a healthy support system. A lot of people can do things independently, but a good support system whether it's a healthy team at work almost like a work family, or your family and friends in your personal life, someone you can talk to, balance life, get that work-life balance. Whether it's family, friends, good co-workers, your spouse, your kids, just having a good healthy environment really goes a long way.

One of the best career advices I've ever received is Jack of all trades, master of none. It's good to be diverse, but you're never going to truly be a master, and that's the beauty within itself, because every day is a new learning point. So if you assume you always know something, that's where you're limiting yourself.

I would really say just to take that chance and put yourself out there. There's a lot of times even to this day where I'm the only woman on my team or I've been overlooked because maybe I'm a woman and I'm also young. So they assume I won't know. But I think for women it's just to be confident in what you know and be okay with being vulnerable in things you don't know. It's okay not to be the only person in the room that maybe doesn't know something, but to also be confident enough to speak up that you do know things.

A lot of opportunity is actually the networking. There's always opportunity in networking in the sense that you never know when you're going to need a favor from somebody. Challenges I would say is sometimes people we just have to remind ourselves as individuals how to delineate our personal and political beliefs versus what you're to do on a job. As hard as it is I don't think you ever have to truly remove your values but you also have to remember at the end of the day this is the job that makes you money.

One of the biggest values for me is just having integrity and vulnerability. Being honest about pretenses because everyone has something going on in their life. Being honest is a really big thing. Everyone has families or sometimes we can't get to certain items and that's okay. And that also bridges into communication. If you let people know ahead of time or you let someone know honestly that you need help instead of being prideful or just admitting that you just honestly don't know or need to be briefed I think that really goes a long way. Whether you're working on something individually one-on-one or in a group setting all three go hand-in-hand and foster a healthy relationship even in your day-to-day life.