What the F*^k are you doing?
When a mentor really changes your life, and they didn’t even know it.
So, this woman changed my life. She probably doesn’t know it, and she probably does it all the time without realizing it.
Many years ago, I was in a terrible position. My boss was in love with me. It wasn’t cute. It wasn’t funny. And it wasn’t Hollywood, where I was eventually wooed by his persistence and we desperately fell in love. It was exhausting, stressful and emotionally and physically draining. I was younger, insecure, and feeling very, very vulnerable.
It was an awful game that he forced me to partake in, which I called “Reel me in, reel me out.” Reel me in: have amazing, collaborative sessions where we’d dissect our business and then create, build, and plan our strategies to get our teams to the next step in their successes. Reel me out: when I wouldn’t respond to his flirtations, or if I gently admonished him for his inappropriate BBMs or chats, he would block my progress in my role. He would present my ideas and my work to senior leadership without giving me attribution or credit. He wouldn’t even have me in the room.
He wasn’t an evil man, and in this case someone that I would say was not entirely aware of his behaviour, but sadly, this is something that professional women face all too…
