‘As a group of powerful and amazing and capable women, it’s important for us to be lifting up and supporting other women,’ says Cass Cooper, columnist, inclusive leadership, for CRN.

Leadership, mentorship or taking on a different role can have its challenges. Anything in the professional realm can be met with pushback, setbacks, failures and learning experiences. But that doesn’t mean giving up.

At CRN parent company The Channel Company’s Women of the Channel West conference in Palm Springs, Calif., last week, dozens of women took to the stage to share their personal stories, stories of failure, redemption and everything in between.

From those stories came lessons learned that the speakers bestowed on more than 500 women attending the event.

Iona Holloway, best-selling author of “Ghost,” told her struggles of hitting rock bottom but then picking yourself up.

“Don’t leave yourself on the floor,” she said. “Life can get hard and conversations are easily avoided. Opportunities, we don’t want to take them. It can be hard to step forward and it can be hard to stand up for yourself.”

Juniper Networks’ Hope Galley shared how to lift one another up by leveraging social networking.

“How many times does somebody get a job and you say, ‘Congrats!’ Or you put a heart on LinkedIn. Don’t do that,” she said. “Put a comment like, ‘You totally kicked butt on this project that I worked with you on two years ago. It does not surprise me that you’ve moved up at the company.’”

From lifting up peers and colleagues to taking a leap of faith to understanding the ripple effect of the impact one makes, here are seven pearls of wisdom from Women of the Channel.

Celebrate Women To Help Their Professional Growth

Cass Cooper, columnist, inclusive leadership, for CRN

“The good thing is that we are really focused on our mental health. We’re focused on the ways that we can work and the things that we need from the organizations that we’re in in order to get the things that we need in, in order to move to the C-Suite. As a group of powerful and amazing and capable women, it’s important for us to be lifting up and supporting other women. Not just the women that look like us, I mean celebrating people who don’t look like us and have different experiences and seeing them and creating an environment where they can be cultivated, where they can be celebrated and enjoy the things that we find dear.”

Be A Change Agent

Cassandra Gholston, CEO of PartnerTap

“Anybody can be a change agent inside of their organization. You don’t already have to be a leader but you have to be willing to learn something new and to be willing to evangelize to your peers inside the company. You have to be willing to take a new initiative to the top.”

Leverage Social Networking To Lift People Up

Hope Galley, vice president, One Americas Organization, Juniper Networks

“How many times does somebody get a job and you say ‘Congrats!’ or you put a heart on LinkedIn. Don’t do that. Put a comment like, ‘You totally kicked butt on this project that I worked with you on two years ago. It does not surprise me that you’ve moved up at the company.’ It makes a difference because recruiters are looking at those sites, employers are looking at that and customers and partners are looking at those sites. We all need to lean in and give specific feedback, specific comments, so we can lift each other up.”

‘Understand Your Ripple Effects’

Amy Wilde, director of data and research, The Channel Company

“Understand your ripple effects. Understand that every person you meet may feel impacted by what you say, what you do, how you listen to them, how you talk to them and how you greet them. That ripple effect carries on into our families, our workplaces and our homes.”

Show Up For Yourself

Iona Holloway, best-selling author of “Ghost”

“Don’t leave yourself on the floor. Life can get hard and conversations are easily avoided. Opportunities, we don’t want to take them. It can be hard to step forward and it can be hard to stand up for yourself. Imagine your younger self, lean in. Before you leave her, let her know, ‘I am not going to leave you on the floor. I may have done it in the past. I may have left you on the floor, I may have let you down but I am not going to leave you on the floor.’”

Take A Leap

Sabine Howest, Senior Vice President, Global Digital Operations, Ingram Micro

“I was taking on a new role…and it felt like standing on the edge of a huge cliff. It was not very pretty but I just got ready to make a huge decision and jump on this journey. That’s the moment that I reflect back on now. Change is still ongoing but you are just so compelled by this idea of what’s to come.”

Remain Confident With Feedback

Jennifer Anaya, Senior Vice President, Global Marketing, Ingram Micro

“You never want to show up not knowing, you’ve got to stay confident, even if you don’t know. Start with little things. As a marketer, we’re used to launching big things but we had to really rethink that. You need to do little things, get feedback, moving forward, fix, get feedback, fix it, move forward, get feedback, fix it, move forward forward. This was a pattern that we followed and we continue to follow, and that feedback was an absolute lifeline.