The path to success is not a secret. Those who have attained it are willing to share, be it helpful tactics to move your career forward or encouraging words for risk-taking. Hearing from those who have journeyed toward success is imperative to forging your own path. And getting to the next level is not an unattainable feat, so long as you look to the right people to guide you. Here, four of the top individuals in their respective fields take a moment to offer us key lessons derived from personal experiences.
Kenneth Chenault Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, American Express
How do you achieve success? How do you “run fastest?” Through my career, I have distilled some principles that have guided me:
Personal integrity: Don’t sell yourself to the highest bidder. If you don’t believe in the product or ideals of a company or organization, don’t accept the job. Dedicate yourself to a core set of values. Without them, you will never be able to find personal fulfillment [or] lead effectively.
Always try to associate with the best and brightest people. Don’t allow yourself to be intimidated by someone’s reputation for being hard and tough. Believe in yourself, and never be afraid to challenge yourself. In other words, stay away from stupid people.
Don’t overestimate the importance of networking. Whether in school or in business, your main focus always needs to be on completing the job at hand. If you’re already in your career, don’t expect a network of strangers or acquaintances to lay the path to your success.
Execution—performance–is the bottom line measure for everything we attempt to do.
To be successful, our EQ, or execution quotient, must equal our IQ. Network off of your performance.
Richard D. Parsons Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Time Warner Inc.
Represent yourself well wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, and those wheels will turn in your favor—oftentimes without you even knowing it. How I made partner [early] at Patterson Belknap is a perfect example:
What happened was, at the time, I was representing Nelson Rockefeller, [who was donating] money to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. So I went up there to meet with these prominent lawyers and museum officials [to negotiate the deal].
So I walked into the meeting room, turned around and they were all still standing there, facing the other way.
I said, “What are you guys doing?”
“We’re waiting for the governor’s lawyer.”
I said, “Well, he’s here, I’m him.” You talk about things that happen that might have a racial overtone; you’re better off laughing at it than taking offense! I got on with [the meeting].
Days after, Herb Brownell,
who had been Eisenhower’s attorney general, [ran] into Chauncey Belknap—who was the titular head of the firm. Herb says to Belknap, “You know, I met that new young partner of yours the other day… I commend you and the firm ….”Belknap [returns] to the firm and says, “We gotta make Parsons a partner”—because he [cannot] look like a fool [to] his friend Herb Brownell—”and by God, I don’t care that it’s May 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 or so free throws and game-winning shots he missed over the years. We always think about him making the winning shots. We never think about all the shots he missed. Some of us play it too safe. Here was Jordan saying, “I’m not going to sink the winning shot every single time. But if I don’t take those shots, who knows?” That’s how I look at myself. If I don’t take that shot, I won’t know.