Women in Technology: Hollywood (WiTH), sponsored generously by Amazon Web Services (AWS), honored me with the Mentor & Champion Award at this year’s annual Southern California Women’s Conference —an award that recognizes leaders who uplift others, build community, and embody a spirit of mentorship.
Winning this award is very meaningful. Not only because it acknowledges decades of work devoted to mentoring, coaching, and championing others, but because it arrived in the aftermath of the most devastating year of my life.
A Year Defined by Loss—and Community
On January 3rd, I married the love of my life after having been together for over a decade. (I know, he’s not a fast moving guy!) Four days later, while on our honeymoon, we received the emergency notifications on our phones. Within 24 hours first my office and then our home had burned to the ground in the Palisades Fire.
Everything was gone—my business equipment, podcast studio, books, car, keepsakes, family heirlooms, handmade Mother’s Day cards, every record of a lifetime of work, and every sentimental item that defined who I was.
We returned to Los Angeles with only the backpacks we carried into the jungle for our wedding.
Losing everything strips you down to your essence. It tests you. It forces you to discover what remains when the tangible world and your things disappear.
But what emerged for us was community.
The Power of Mentorship Revealed
For 45 years, (yes, I started working in my teens,) I have mentored others—especially those who feel like outsiders, the unconventional, the creative, the awkward, the bold thinkers who don’t fit into neat boxes. I saw them because I was one of them. I gave freely, without expecting anything back.
But standing in the ashes of my life, I discovered something I didn’t know before:
Mentorship builds a reservoir of collective energy that ricochets back to lift you when you can’t lift yourself.
Family, friends, colleagues, clients, and even acquaintances sprang into action.
People raided our Amazon wish lists. Care packages arrived with toothpaste, underwear, hairbrushes, basics you don’t think about until they are gone. A GoFundMe was set up without my asking. Messages of support poured in.
Forty-five years of giving came back to me in three weeks.
What I learned is that giving is not a cycle of hoping that what you have done for others will come back to you at some point. Giving is not a one-directional act, but an infinity loop. You give, you ask, you receive, and that loop keeps moving.
Transformation in the “Messy Middle”
I often tell my clients that the hardest part of transformation is the middle—the place where everything that once defined you has dissolved, but the new version of you hasn’t yet emerged.
That is where I am—as I move toward what I call Beate Version 3.0. My client Aimee, the Corporate Mom Coach, first coined that term.
There are days I still feel the shock. Days when resilience feels heavy. Days when the loss catches up. But I also know, with certainty, that according to the law of polarity, the magnitude of the devastation means the opposite side—the creation, the rebirth—must be equally powerful.
And I am determined to find it.
A Shared Honor
Receiving the WiTH Mentor & Champion Award—presented in front of my husband, my 95-year-old mother-in-law, and a community of extraordinary women—is not just a personal honor.
It’s a reminder that we rise by lifting others, and that every bold move you take today becomes the story that helps someone else tomorrow.
I accept this award on behalf of every woman who will one day need a hand, a voice, or a champion behind her. May we all remember that even strong women need support and that asking for help is a courageous act.
Thank you to WiTH, AWS, and to every person who showed up for me in my darkest moments. You know who you are. I am grateful beyond words.
Let’s grow!
Beate
