What's the best piece of career advice you received?

Part 1: Don't let being right stand in the way of understanding what's most important to your stakeholder.

Part 2: "Take your talents to South Beach." 

Meaning, if your stakeholder is C-level, and they say out loud that they don't want or need you, GET OUT! Do as LeBron did when he announced his first departure from the Cavs. Chances are, they'll only figure it out after you're gone, and they'll sooner than later want someone like you to come back.

As a product marketer, the best piece of career advice I received was "to be kind, not nice."

Let me give some context to this. For me personally, and for many PMMs I know, a strength of ours is empathy. And empathy is a critical and extremely valuable skill to have as a PMM when building strong cross-functional relationships, collaborating with other teams, and ensuring voice of the customer and the needs of your buyers are integrated in everything you do.

However, sometimes being a very empathetic person can mean that you're afraid of hurting someone's feelings when providing critical feedback or you see an area the business could be doing better but you don't want to step on someone else's toes because it's not in your scope. I've certainly faced these situations, and when you're earlier on in your PMM career, you don't feel as confident expressing your opinions and giving others who don't report to you feedback. However, a great manager of mine, changed my perception completely on this and so did the book "5 Dysfunctions of a Team."

Always remember you were hired for a reason, and that reason is because the business believes your experiences and perspectives are valuable. If you see an opportunity where something or someone could improve, call it out, even if that person is leadership level or someone on another team. Always be respectful and kind, but don't sugarcoat, be less clear, or stay silent because you're afraid of what they might think. Giving feedback and helping people get better is being kind.