Michelle McMahon

I have this constant mindset that tomorrow I might not be here, so I just go do it, go figure it out, go solve it - just keep pushing and driving. But I also know enough now about when to give myself grace and rest. I think that's a hard thing for a lot of people to do, both men and women, because we have this guilt complex that we have to keep going and pushing. That's all fine and dandy, but I know how to balance now. In my 20s, I definitely didn't. I think I needed that struggle to make me realize what was really important, and if I didn't struggle in that way, I wouldn't have been where I'm at now.

It's not necessarily what my mentors said, it's how they treated me. Being in this space, especially as a woman surrounded by so many strong male engineers who have so much to offer, and being a new person, it can be intimidating because you don't want to be the dumbest person in the room. You're always trying to learn and you have 15,000 questions. I had a few mentors that allowed that space for me, and I think that made the biggest difference in my career. It showed me that I don't have to be shy to ask those questions - there's probably somebody else in the room who has the same one I did. They allowed me the space to learn, and they didn't make me feel dumb doing it. That's the biggest difference compared to some other people in leadership positions who aren't as flexible with that. There were a few that just let me learn as I was still delivering, and it's a nice environment to be in. It's rare, in my opinion.

I'd say I had some pretty big life changes happen in the last year and a half, and I tell anybody, don't wait for those big, dramatic shifts in your life to happen for you to get shaken to realize you could do whatever you want. You just have to work for it, you have to try, you have to put in that effort, so don't be afraid to go after it. I hate to sound so cliche, but just don't wait till it's too late. I always had that in my mind, that I'm too old to go back to school, or I'm too old to try something new, and you gotta shake that out of your head. I absolutely love the work I'm doing with the Volunteer Master Garden program, and I think if people had some more visibility to programs like that, or things that they just have a genuine interest in that don't necessarily directly correlate to their corporate job, they'd realize it makes them better at what they're doing in their corporate life. I never realized that until now, and if I got a chance to talk to a group of young women in their 20s, I would tell them to go explore that. Don't be afraid to do it.

When I was in electrification for a few years, it got really tough because it's such a volatile environment. You don't know where it's going directionally, and you're really holding on to the hope that the three large OEMs - the GM, Chrysler, Fords - are going to move into the same industry a little bit more so you could continue moving. There were a lot of ups and downs, just in the cyclical market of it all and the nature of it all. Not knowing if you're going to have a job tomorrow, watching a lot of your colleagues get let go, and they're phenomenal engineers and employees - it was really, really tough to bear while you were still employed. You had a lot of guilt too, even though it had nothing to do with you. There was a lot of confusion and frustration, and you still had to work hard, you still had to prove yourself. That was a big element of challenge for me. Being in the space and industry that you're in sometimes can get a little tough. The third piece, and probably the most important to me, was trying to balance all of this while dealing with infertility. I've had so many appointments and visits, and all the nonsense that you think could be done in one appointment visit stretched out over almost a decade now. It's been 8 years long of me trying to figure this out, and I've been lucky enough to have really good people, both bosses and coworkers, that helped. But it wasn't always the case, and it's not the case for a lot of people. I think that was probably my biggest challenge, honestly - that personal challenge.