Having someone to turn to during tough moments at work can make a big difference. Lauren Brisbo shares her Perspective.
“You ok?”
It was a text from my mentor. I struggled to read it between the tears streaming down my face. I was on my first big work trip—an event I’d been anticipating with equal parts excitement and dread. A male colleague had just made an off-hand comment that shook me to the core.
As a young Asian-American woman navigating a predominantly white field, his remark validated all the voices in my head saying I didn’t belong.
That night my mentor took me out to Vietnamese food. Over a bowl of phở we unpacked the experience—interspersed with bursts of laughter and levity. She listened and asked questions that helped me re-frame the situation and loosen its grip on my self-worth.