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From the news team at LinkedIn, I'm Jessie Hempel, and this is Hello Monday,

our show about the changing nature of work and how that work is changing us.

The biggest growth moment in my own career happened at my last job.

I brought an idea for a story to an editor. It was when I was really excited about.

He took it from me and assigned it to someone else. An older man, someone he thought would do a

better job. You might have heard me talk about this before because it was a big deal to me,

a learning moment. Everything that's happened in my career since then has been influenced by this.

At the time I was so crushed, so angry. I was in a pure support group of about a dozen people,

so I asked him for advice. The guys, they suggested that I confront the editor, that I demand

his respect. But as I listened to him, I just knew this was not going to work for me,

that the guy would just think I was hard to work with. The women in the group suggested that instead

I suck up my ego, appeal to him to please give me the story back, and try in the process if I could

make him think that it was kind of his idea all along. And that, well that worked.

Career guides are full of tips to help people get ahead at work, but most of those tips

are still written by and for white men. Different people need different strategies.

And you may be incensed by this, I often am. You may want to fight the system,

but today's guest believes you can also use this knowledge to your advantage.

Cynthia Pong is a feminist career strategist, and she's just written this book called Don't Stay

in Your Lane. It's a career guide for people of color. And this conversation we're about to have,

...