A student’s personal message is conveyed on her cap during the undergraduate graduation exercises for Jackson State University’s Class of 2016. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis) Over the next few weeks, college students across the country will accept their diplomas to the applause of their family and friends. But these same seniors will also face a more daunting task: Figuring out what to do next.

This is Mentoring Moments (#24), a series of wow-you-need-to-know-these stories from successful women of multiple generations. Mentoring Moments is now a podcast. “Having lunch with just the two of us is selfish on my part. Next time we meet, I will invite women that you need to know.

As I began approaching the last few weeks of my final year in college, panic slowly started to creep in. Why? Well, I hadn’t managed to land a job yet. And, in my circle of friends—which was filled with overachievers who were scoring these seemingly dreamy gigs like there was nothing to it—my lack of employment was definitely something to be embarrassed about. Along with the panic came a lot of self-doubt.

When certain postings on job boards never go away – lingering for weeks or months – it might lead you to think that the employers who post them simply can’t find anyone to fill the position—that those gigs are unpopular, unwanted. However, the truth of the matter is that the companies that post ads for those jobs find those positions so important that they never stop fielding applications and hiring talented candidates to fill them.

As we get older we realize that it matters very much who we spend our time with. If we spend a lot of time around people who bring us down and make us feel bad about ourselves, that feeling persists even when we’re not with the mojo-crushing person. When I moved to Chicago I was nineteen. I got a waitress job first and then an office job. My friends were young office workers, waiters, bartenders, actors and singers like me.

As we approach Mother’s Day, we are inundated with content that celebrates moms. But that content doesn’t necessarily reflect the true challenges accompanied with modern-day mothering, and parenting in general. One subject that is an important one to reflect on at this time of year is maternity leave. Looking at paid leave for new parents, one just needs to look at a study done by the International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency.

Last year Lisa Skeete Tatum found herself at a crossroads in her career. A chemical engineer, who had spent more than a decade as a general partner with Cardinal Partners (a $350+ million early stage healthcare venture capital firm), she was looking to change things up. At Cardinal she focused on healthcare IT and led the firm’s investment in companies like AthenaHealh and TechRX.

The challenges entrepreneurs face rival that of giving birth without an epidural. Starting and growing a business is as difficult as pushing out a human being from one’s body and raising said human. Each is a full-time job in and of themselves but mompreneurs manage to juggle both missions simultaneously.

“Presentation literacy” isn’t an option anymore, according to TED Talks curator Chris Anderson. “It’s a core skill for the 21st century.” Anderson calls presentation and public-speaking skills a “superpower” for those who want to express their ideas. TED talks, which are viewed more than 1 billion times a year, have become the gold standard of public speaking.

I spent some time in a business last week. Some of their employees were amazing, and some were just going through the motions and performing their work at the minimum level. The interesting twist is that the business I experienced is a hospital. I quickly discovered how one person can make or break a customer experience. It makes you wonder if the issue is with the people or the environment.