as opposed to November, we’re [doing it now].” That was the deal. I was a partner.
Ruth Simmons President, Brown University
What do you call on in times of stress? What do you call on for the courage you need? A great many people have the requisite education. But it’s those personal qualities—the fundamental and spiritual aspects of your character—that really make the difference in what you can achieve.
Often, women and minorities think they have to imitate to be successful. They think they have to do what their white peers are doing or they have to be invisible and quiet and that will get them someplace. If there’s anything that marks my career, it is that I never believed that, and I never cared about that. At the same time, I’m not a person who’s afraid to take on a challenge and to do something useful and different.
As a child, if you asked me at any given moment, “What do you want? What do you need?” I knew. The answers are ever changing, but I have never in my life not known exactly what I wanted.
[Today] I ask my students all the time, “What do you need? What do you want?” They stammer and look uncertain. They can’t answer.
In this life, you need to know who you are and what you need. The answers to that can’t be found in the clamor of a too-fast, too-busy life. They lie in the heart and in the home of human connection.
The reason I’m here is because I believed what people told me, and they told me it was doable. They said, “It doesn’t matter that you grew up a sharecropper’s daughter. What matters is what you [have to] offer.” And I’m not referring to one’s credentials.
Robin Roberts Co-anchor, Good Morning America
My motto has always been “Think big, dream big, but focus small.” Sometimes you can get overwhelmed when you have a massive vision [but] I know the day-to-day things ultimately will get me to my ultimate goals.
There are so many misconceptions about success. The biggest is that it solves all your problems and makes you somehow better than others. Another is that it’s unattainable, that it takes too much hard work, that it’s for other people.
In reality, getting ahead is as simple as getting started. So many times, we just don’t get started. Once, when I was in a rut, I did some work with Tony Robbins, the motivational speaker, and it really helped me. It was very basic: Take action. So many of us want to be successful, but we won’t take action, we don’t pick up the phone and make a call, we won’t do whatever it takes to get to the next level. It’s easier to stay comfortable, so we won’t take risks.
If you want to be successful, a willingness to take risks is mandatory. To get ahead, you have to be willing to put yourself on the line.
Michael Jordan [once] did a commercial where he talked about the thousand