Here’s how having a strong, independent woman as a boss prepares you for life

First jobs are always scary. They put you under a constant test of finding your voice in a place where you’re not always necessarily heard. The one thing that could make or break your first job experience and your first steps in your career is the person mentoring you.

If that person happens to be a strong, independent woman then you’ve signed up for much more than career guidance. You’ve basically signed up for life lessons you can’t get anywhere else.

1. Lady bosses show you that you can make it no matter what. You can bet that most of them have worked hard to get where they are today and along the way they’ve met unfathomable challenges. Some of the issues they faced were simply because they’re women.
2. This means that they’ve probably experienced discrimination at some point in their career and so they know and teach the importance of not letting anyone hold you back because of gender, race, ethnicity or any other factor. By simply existing as lady bosses, they prove that anyone can overcome the limits that other people set out of spite or ignorance.
3. Reaching that point, however, comes with empowerment. Lady bosses know the importance of having a strong support system either because they had it to start with or because they’ve never had it. Lady bosses empower those around them. They know it takes dedication, motivation and a strong sense of self to complete a job in any kind of work environment.
4. Strong, independent women are a magnet for success and inspiration. Just being in their proximity makes you feel like you can reach anything you set your mind to. They are a walking self-help book and they can make a success story out of you simply by appreciating their story.
5. Women who happen to be bosses learn to make a split between professionalism and personal life early on. They know that they can’t take everything they hear personally. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve probably made the mistake of being overly consumed with every piece of criticism which has come their way in the past. But they reached a point where they made peace with acknowledging that sometimes people criticize not to help someone improve, but rather to put someone down.
6. Due to occasional empty criticisms and irrelevant comments, lady bosses have a heightened sense of knowing who people are at their core and what drives them to do what they do. Being a successful woman in male-driven work environments is like a daily crash course in understanding people and differentiating between the sincere and insincere. They can smell envious and malignant people from miles away.
7. Most importantly, they know what it’s like not to have a voice because most of them have struggled with being heard at some point. You can almost always depend on an experienced, successful lady who wishes others well to stand up for you when you need it the most.
8. They are tough on you sometimes because they know it’s one way of preparing you for bigger things. They understand the hardships of building a big and fruitful career and it definitely doesn’t come with getting your way on everything. So, lady bosses know that they need to always be fair, firm only when needed, and kind every chance they get.
9. The most important lesson they teach you is that you always have a choice and no one, regardless of their position, should make you feel powerless. They teach you that you matter simply because you are you.