Work Smarts: What CEOs Say You Need To Know to Get Ahead

Chapter 12

Five Tips for Life

As you can well imagine, going around interviewing people about their careers eventually means the tables get turned on you. Several CEOs would, when there was a pause in the conversation, inevitably turn around and ask, “So what about you, Betty? What do you think?”

The truth is, it’s difficult to sum up in a few short sentences. Some of what I’d heard from the interviews really resonated with me, particularly when Sallie Krawcheck and Susan Lyne described women holding themselves back or not speaking up when men had no problems doing so. Other topics made me feel I needed to work harder to improve myself, such as focusing more on what the other side needs in a negotiation. What I was glad to see was that nobody is perfect and in fact, many of the successful people have failed dramatically in their lives and been fired; some fired more than once. The fact that they were able to talk honestly about their failures only made me appreciate their confidence.

Jamie Dimon, for instance, recalled the day he got fired.

“I went home and I sat my three little girls down,” he said. “They were probably at the time ten, eight, and six. I said, ‘Girls, I’ve got to tell you something. I resigned, but that really means I no longer have my job. I was fired but I want you to know I’m completely okay.’ And my little one said ‘Daddy, do we have to go sleep on the streets?’ I said ‘No, sweetie, we’re here, we’re fine, we’re fortunate everything’s going to be exactly the ...