The Hardest Story to Tell

If you’re in the corporate world, chances are you’ve felt the pressure to drink. Although the in-your-face pressure might have eased, the message remains: Drinking is what professionals do.  Especially lawyers.

It comes down to the stories we tell. How many times have we heard stories about lawyers getting drunk? If I had found even one mentor who shared a different kind of drinking story, one about how and why they stopped or avoided drinking, I might have taken years off my own struggle and private panic. My own story is about how I fell into the drinking trap, how I came out of it, and what I learned both as a leader and as someone who no longer numbed her way through the hard times.

Mentorship isn’t just about helping others climb the ladder—it’s about making sure they don’t lose themselves along the way. Our stories of success are easy to tell. Our stories of struggle are harder. But those are the ones that make a difference.