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One of the most-read articles I’ve written was about mean girls, so I think I struck a chord. That makes me sad because I know so many of us encounter mean girls in our personal and professional lives at every age and stage of our lives.

I find that success brings the haters out the woodworks. Some people you thought were your friends turn out not to be. People are fickle. Nothing in life is certain. I’ve learned the hard way to be very careful who I trust and let my intuition guide the way. I had seen red flags with each of these people that I chose to ignore and it hurt me in the end.

Your high-quality friends are the ones who celebrate with you, rather than let their envy get the best of them. They support you no matter what – good and bad. They are like family.

People are judging and hating on you right now. Some people will like you and then change their mind about you or never like you at all (for no reason) and there’s nothing you can do about it. No amount of people-pleasing or convincing will help. If someone doesn’t like you, there’s no point in trying to convince them to. Why bother – you don’t need that! Just live YOUR life and be unapologetically YOU.

No matter how old you are or what you do, someone will stab you in the back at some point in your life.

I have been betrayed both personally and professionally, and sometimes I’ve seen it coming and other times, it completely caught me off guard. I usually have a strong intuition, but sometimes it kicks in too late, as I am a very trusting and open person.

Unfortunately there are just some people in this world who think that lying, hurting others, causing drama spreading gossip is necessary to get ahead or entertaining. These are dangerous people who you should try and avoid at all costs.

Each of us (I hope) tries to be a good person every day. You show people you are a good person by taking actions consistent with what you define as being a good person.

If I’ve learned anything over the past year, it’s that nothing in life is certain. Plans and life can go awry for reasons out of your control, people change and you just have to go with it and make the best of it.

My life was completely different a year ago. I was in an in-house marketer. I had a lot of friends. I thought I had finally found “the one,” and we had recently moved in together. I had the best dog in the world. I was settled and content (or so I thought). I never imagined I would be where I am today.

But things happen, people change, business needs change, people and pets pass away, a pandemic can happen- nothing is certain. Just look at the world in which we live right now. I had to go with the flow. I had to stop knocking on doors that weren’t meant for me. I had to hit the reset button on my life. I had to lean on others for support. And most of all, I had to harness the power of my intuition to lead me to a better life.

In this installment of the Women Who Wow series, get to know Nita Sanger.

Nita is the Chief Executive Officer of Idea Innovate Consulting, a boutique strategy consulting firm transforming businesses for growth in professional, financial and legal services. In addition, Nita is a Managing Director at Corporate Legal Innovation Consultants (CLIC), a consulting company focused on the legal industry and the Chief Operating Officer at In the House, a community for innovative general counsel.

Nita is a C-suite expert with more than 20 years of strategy and operations experience, transforming and scaling businesses for growth at global large and mid-sized corporates, and start-ups. In her previous roles, she assisted businesses to redesign their processes, reduce costs, optimize M&A /post-merger integrations, and drive talent and change management.

Michele Bonds is a New York-based Principal at Heidrick & Struggles and a member of the global Legal, Risk, Compliance & Government Affairs practice. Michele’s primary focus is on law firm infrastructure/business professionals, and law firm culture and acceleration advisory work. She has over 20 years of financial services and legal industry experience.

Prior to joining Heidrick & Struggles, Michele was longstanding Chief of Staff to the Senior Chairman of Sullivan & Cromwell. She worked with firm leaders in navigating clients through numerous complex events including the financial crisis.

Michele received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University in political science and her Masters of Business Administration at Babson College. I worked with Michele at S&C and always admired her work ethic, poise and creativity.

Learn more about her in this profile.

The next Woman Who Wows is Dr. Catherine Sanderson, a professor of life sciences at Amherst College.

Professor Sanderson has published more than 25 journal articles and book chapters in addition to four college textbooks, middle school and high school health textbooks, and trade books on parenting as well as how mindset influences happiness, health and even how long we live (The Positive Shift). In 2012, she was named one of the country’s top 300 professors by the Princeton Review.

I met Professor Sanderson at the 2018 Legal Marketing Association Annual Conference where she served as keynote speaker. I was so moved by her talk about why happiness is significant, what truly makes us happy and practical ways that each of us can incorporate happiness into our everyday lives.

Learn more about her below. In addition, Professor Sanderson will be our featured speaker at the next Women Who Wow virtual event, this Thursday, May 21 at 5pm ET. Register here.