Mariko Silver- President, Bennington College
Advice:
One of the important things I learned in my professional life is to take every opportunity you can to learn from your mentors — even the bad ones. I have been lucky enough to have some great, brilliant, and visionary people in my life, and I’ve learned so much from them about how to think big, do great work, find opportunities, and even create opportunities where none seem to exist. But I’ve also had some pretty bad bosses. And you know what? I learned from them, too. I learned what not to do, and I learned which battles were worth fighting and which weren’t. I learned that I didn’t need everyone to like me in order to achieve my goals — I just needed to do the best work that I could do. That was a really crucial lesson for me.