The Best Advice I Ever Got (28 page)

Indra Nooyi

CEO of PepsiCo

Opportunity Will Find You

There really is nothing like a concrete “life plan” to weigh you down. Because if you always have one eye on some future goal, you stop paying attention to the job at hand, miss opportunities that might arise, and stay fixedly on one path even when a better, newer course might have opened up.

When I was growing up in Chennai, India, I had no idea that I would one day be the head of PepsiCo. I majored in chemistry at university. My heroes were people like Paul Berg, who shared a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on DNA. I wasn’t looking to go into big business. I had no dreams of being a CEO. I just did every job I had to the best of my ability, and the opportunities found me.

Being able to change course is more important today than ever. The world is in flux—technologically, socially, and economically—but it’s also increasingly interconnected. This means that we have many more opportunities before us than preceding generations ever had. You can work anywhere in the world, and choose an infinite number of roles and careers. In this rapidly changing environment, not knowing where your path will take you is no cause for panic. In fact, it gives you a competitive edge. It leaves you open to change, adaptation, and opportunities.
It’s a wonderful, enviable position to be in
.

In some ways, we are all like the great explorers from history. Faced with an ocean of opportunities and uncertainties, people like Christopher Columbus set out without a proper map but with great determination to make their mark on the world. Columbus thought that he would find India. Okay, so he found America instead—and opened up incredible opportunities for all of us. If you remain open to new opportunities and intellectual growth, you will
always
be on the right path, even if you don’t reach the destination you expected.

Jane Lynch

Emmy Award-Winning Actress and Comedian

Life Is a Series of Happy Accidents

Relax. Really. Just relax. Don’t sweat it. For a long time, I was so anxious and fearful that the parade would pass me by. I was sure that someone or something outside myself had all the answers. I was driven by an anxiety-filled ambition. I wanted to be a working actor so badly. Today, I am a working actor, and I guarantee you it’s not because I suffered or worried over it. As I look back, the road my life has taken has been a series of happy accidents, and I was either smart or stupid enough to take advantage of them. I thought I had to have a plan, a strategy. Turns out I just had to be ready and willing to take chances, to look at what was right in front of me, and to put my whole heart into everything I pursued. Anxiety and fear did not help or fuel anything. Sometimes you just have to learn to get out of your own way. I know there are a lot of folks out there who are hoping for some words of wisdom or keys to the kingdom or that I might let them in on the Big Secret. So I will defer to Carol Brady, who in her infinite wisdom once said, “Find out what you do best and do your best with it.”

Marissa Mayer

Vice-President of Consumer Products at Google

When There Isn’t a Right Choice …

I graduated from Stanford University in 1999, with a master’s degree in computer science. It was the height of the Internet bubble, and I had fourteen job offers lined up. Yes, it was that long ago. I usually like having choices, but this was ridiculous! I couldn’t make up my mind.

One evening, my friend André, an economist, helped me weigh all fourteen options. Being a computer scientist, I love logic and data, so I created a big matrix: one row for each job, with columns for salary, location, quality of life, career trajectory, and likely happiness, all rated on a scale from one to ten. André and I drew up charts, graphs, and equations, and it was all so incredibly focused and detailed and analytical that by midnight I just totally lost it and collapsed into tears.

André would have none of it. He just stopped and said, “You know, Marissa, you’re putting so much pressure on yourself to make the right choice. You’re approaching this as if there’s one right answer. And I have to be honest, that’s just not what I’m seeing here.” He gestured toward the matrices and charts strewn across the floor. “I think you have a bunch of good options, and then there’s the one that you’ll pick and make great.”

I went to bed and slept on it. When I woke up the next morning, I just knew that I had to work for this twelve-person start-up with a goofy name: Google. I wanted to join Google because I felt that the smartest people were working there, because in many ways I felt utterly unprepared for it, and for a whole host of other reasons that I could barely articulate. In the end, I couldn’t have made a better choice.

André’s insight that night taught me an important lesson: misperceiving that there is one correct choice is a common mistake. Coming to understand that there are usually a few good choices—and then there’s the one you pick, commit to, and make great—is the best way to make flexible, optimal, good decisions in life.

Eric Schmidt

Executive Chairman of Google

Say Yes

Find a way to say yes to things. Say yes to invitations to a new country, say yes to meet new friends, say yes to learn something new. Yes is how you get your first job, and your next job, and your spouse, and even your kids. Even if it’s a bit edgy, a bit out of your comfort zone, saying yes means that you will do something new, meet someone new, and make a difference. Yes lets you stand out in a crowd, be the optimist, see the glass full, be the one everyone comes to. Yes is what keeps us all young.

Maya Angelou

Poet, Educator, Historian, and Bestselling Author

Make Your Own Path

My paternal grandmother, Mrs. Annie Henderson, gave me advice that I have used for sixty-five years. She said, “If the world puts you on a road you do not like, if you look ahead and do not want that destination which is being offered and you look behind and you do not want to return to your place of departure, step off the road. Build yourself a brand-new path.”

Ruth J. Simmons

President of Brown University

A Cold Bucket of Water

Aaron Lemonick and I were worlds apart in many respects. He was a physicist and I am a humanist. He was white and I am black. He was Jewish and I am Baptist. But through these differences we forged the closest of friendships. He played a decisive role in my life and helped me make one of the biggest leaps of my career.

Aaron Lemonick was the dean of the faculty at Princeton when he persuaded me to become his associate dean. Our partnership was a close one from the very first moment. That isn’t to say that we always agreed; our experiences were different enough that our perspectives on issues sometimes collided. In spite of that, I had enormous respect for him because of his honesty, his warmth, and his courage. I’d had a very successful career at Princeton when, ten years into my tenure there, I was approached about the presidency of Smith College, an all-women’s college in Northampton, Massachusetts. Although I was at first reluctant to be considered, I eventually agreed to an interview, knowing that in the end I might well decline an offer.

There were many reasons for my uncertainty and skepticism. From what I knew of the demanding nature of presidencies, I was not at all sure that the position fit my personality. As vice-provost, I rather liked the freedom that I enjoyed to identify problems and advocate for solutions without having to be responsible to a wide range of constituents. Furthermore, still identifying as an outsider in the academy, I was skeptical about whether I could credibly embody an institution as its president. Despite these concerns, I was offered the Smith presidency.

I sought guidance from friends and colleagues as to whether I should accept the position. For the most part, those at Princeton argued against my doing so. They offered a variety of reasons: the work in which I was involved at Princeton was at a critical point; Smith, while a major liberal-arts college, was “only” a women’s college; there would be many other offers and I should wait for one that was ideal for me, etc. A few, however, suggested that this was a wonderful opportunity and that I would be able to adapt to the Smith environment and, in time, grow more comfortable in a leadership role.

Fortunately, Aaron Lemonick took me out to lunch to discuss the Smith offer. Although I no longer worked for him at the time, he remained my most trusted adviser and my greatest advocate. That day in the Annex Restaurant on Nassau Street, across from the Princeton campus, we sat and talked about Smith and my future. At the end of a lengthy exchange, he asked, “Ruth, what could possibly prevent you from accepting the Smith presidency?” In response, I echoed much of what others had told me: it might be the wrong time, I had unfinished work at Princeton; I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be a president anyway, and so on. Aaron listened patiently before saying, “Ruth, Princeton has been here for two hundred and fifty years. If you leave, you will hardly be missed at all.”

His comment, like a cold bucket of water thrown into my face, revealed clearly how absurd it was to use the importance of my work at Princeton as a reason to turn down an offer to be the president of a leading college. If I was to turn it down, I needed to confront the real reasons for my reluctance. I asked Aaron what he thought of the admonition that other offers would come along at a more opportune time. He told me unblinkingly that no such guarantee existed. Finally, he allayed my concerns about whether I was ready, pointing out that I would no doubt make mistakes but that he had every confidence that I had the temperament and the intelligence to succeed.

Aaron’s advice broke the logjam and exposed my fear of being tested as Smith’s president. Throughout my years in the academy, I had worked to overcome feelings of inadequacy—feelings that many of my generation who began their education in segregated schools shared. To find myself leading a so-called élite college was a great leap from how my education had begun in a small colored school in Grapeland, Texas.

Aaron’s advice enabled me to focus on what leading Smith could mean for me and, more important, what it could mean for others like me. The risk was unmistakably plain, but the possibility of crossing such a barrier, I recognized, would have great personal meaning and satisfaction. I thought about my parents, the limited opportunities that had been open to them in the South, and the satisfaction they would have had to see me become president of Smith. I thought about the students whom I always encouraged to overcome self-doubt and barriers to achievement and wondered how I could fail to do what I asked of them. The path seemed clearer.

I accepted the Smith presidency and spent six satisfying years there before becoming the president of Brown University. Aaron was present at each of my presidential inaugurations, smiling proudly and no doubt feeling a measure of satisfaction that he had managed to bring me to my senses.