Lauren Victor

I attribute my success to every strong woman that allowed me to sit in and witness their greatness. These aren't women that are necessarily like, oh, Lauren, I'm going to put you under my wing. No, these are women who simply allowed me to be in the same room with them and see how they worked. One of them being my mother, a very inspirational woman who put herself through two degrees at an HBCU with a young me, all by herself. Watching her work three jobs while obtaining those two degrees, and now she's on to her second doctorate, and the lady never stops going to school. I would also attribute that to my grandmother, graduating summa cum laude at [a later age], raising a million kids and then still going back to service herself. These are the women around me that push me every day to be a better version of myself. Not pressure, but these are the women around me that push me every day to be a better version of myself, for sure.

The best career advice I've ever received is: Don't assume, and always speak up for yourself. This was given to me by one of my most recent mentors at Cisco, Kimberly Driscoll. As an early-in-career individual, someone who was doing a lot of work that could easily go unnoticed - you're punching the clock, you're the first one to come in, you're the last one to leave, but no one knows - you can never assume that someone's going to see your breadth of work and be like, oh yeah, I want her. That should be your flag in your hand, not your microphone. Your voice, and what you can do with that work, that is what you want to publicize. That's what you need to get out in front of people, and then you can show them your evidence. Look at how I've been working, so that it's a no-brainer to them that you should be in that room, in that space. I was definitely going through a moment where I felt like, man, I'm just doing so much, and in a previous role, it felt like everyone could see me. I was noticeable. And she was like, well, yeah, because that was what was expected of you, or that was so unexpected of you. But you're in this role, this is what's expected, right? So how do you voice that? Not only are you doing what's expected, but you want more. You want to go above and beyond. People are not going to assume just because they see how hard you work. You've got to speak up for yourself. And that was life-changing for me.

Be yourself! Be yourself. You're here because you're supposed to be. Period. I think that, you know, you get offered a job, and you think, oh my god, it's because, you know, I had the best resume, or, you know, I spent the most hours researching this role, and then you get there - these people saw something in you, kiddo. You're here for a reason. And the sooner you accept that, it's the sooner you'll be able to get to work the way you really want to.

I would say perception is the biggest challenge in the RTD and specialty items industry right now, especially in today's economy. RTDs and specialty items seem frivolous - there's so many better things to be worried about. But I would argue that there's not enough joy. There's just not enough of it. If we are people in specialty items, specialty brands, if we can reframe our story to really speak to how we got here, which is people simply - the kids yearn for fun now, like, that's just what it is. We're tired of being drained, and oh my god, I can't look at another social media post, I can't look at another news outlet, like, this is all so overwhelming, right? I like to say that, you know, if you walk into a store and you see us, you're like, wow, that's the break I need. It's cheap, it's easy, it's delicious, and it's exactly what I need to kind of shut my mind off for a second. So I think perception, in a healthy way, is the biggest challenge as an industry right now. In my field of senior executive assistants and executive assistants in general, I would say one of the biggest challenges is straddling the line between ambiguity and knowing what that process is that would fix something, but you have so many more rounds of approval, you've got to really prove that this would fix this loop or this dead end. So I would say one of the biggest challenges is our voice as senior admins and assistants in general - really being able to find your voice, being confident in it, being sure you're not wrong, but being malleable in a way. We're not really movable, but we can be amiable to whoever we need to be, and I think that is a challenge, but once you've got it, you've got it. You can pull any room.

Service is the most important value to me - to be of service. Never saying, you know, that's not my job, or that I'm not going to do that. If you can, you do it, and you do it with grace and gratitude. Leading with kindness and empathy are very important to me, especially in this fast-paced world where everyone's running fast and everything's on the line, so you can't really read context. I always say and share with my team, assume positive intent, always. It cuts through the BS 90% of the time. If you assume that whomever you're talking to is leading with kindness and empathy, especially in our work environment, it mitigates a lot, and that's also the HR in me. I would also say integrity - doing the right thing when no one's looking. It's super important to me. That also comes from me just being a constant background character - I'm emerging from that, let me stop, I'm emerging from that - but having been a background character, I think integrity is something that can get you very far, especially in the areas of being an assistant or someone who's being very close to leadership, chiefs of staff. Having that trust bubble around you before they even engage with you is so important.