careers Quotes

“Other than writing, I am completely unemployable. But really, secretly, when I’m not being smart-alecky, it’s because I want to and I’m good at it.”

“Most people don’t land their dream job right out of the gate, which means we all have to start somewhere. You’ll appreciate your amazing career so much more when you look back at your not-so-amazing jobs in the past, and hopefully realize that you learned something from all of them.”

“A very important tidbit about customer service: just apologize to people. Even if it’s not your fault, they’ve been disappointed by the company you work for and it’s your job to empathize with them. Though you may be paid minimum wage, to the customers you are the face of the entire company. It’s this kind of accountability that gets people raises, promotions, and eventually careers.”

“Yet to this day she regretted not having completed the course and received her diploma—“just to prove”—as she had told a friend, “that I once succeeded at something.” Instead, she had met and married Herb […].”

“Don’t lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don’t have a career. You have a life.”

“Of course, being a financial journalist is not the career I always wanted. No one who writes about personal finance ever meant to do it. People tell you they “fell into” personal finance. They’re lying. What they mean is they couldn’t get a job writing about anything more interesting.”

“With what work at you occupied, and for what purpose are you purchased?”

“In most cases being a good boss means hiring talented people and then getting out of their way.”

“So my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism or ageism or lookism or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: ‘Is this person in between me and what I want to do?’ If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you’re in charge, don’t hire the people who were jerky to you.”

“This is what I tell young women who ask me for career advice. People are going to try to trick you. To make you feel that you are in competition with one another. ‘You’re up for a promotion. If they go for a woman, it’ll be between you and Barbara.’ Don’t be fooled. You’re not in competition with other women. You’re in competition with everyone.”

“Guilt management can be just important as time management for mothers.”

“Every job will demand some sacrifice. The key is to avoid unnecessary sacrifice.”

“I realized that searching for a mentor has become the professional equivalent of waiting for Prince Charming. We all grew up on the fairy tale “Sleeping Beauty,” which instructs young women that if they just wait for their prince to arrive, they will be kissed and whisked away on a white horse to live happily ever after. Now young women are told that if they can just find the right mentor, they will be pushed up the ladder and whisked away to the corner office to live happily ever after. Once again, we are teaching women to be too dependent on others.”

“Careers are a jungle gym, not a ladder.”

“There is no perfect fit when you’re looking for the next big thing to do. You have to take opportunities and make an opportunity fit for you, rather than the other way around. The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have.”

“There is no perfect fit when you’re looking for the next big thing to do. You have to take opportunities and make an opportunity fit for you, rather than the other way around. The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have.”

“I’d tell men and women in their midtwenties not to settle for a job or a profession or even a career. Seek a calling.”

“I hope you find true meaning, contentment, and passion in your life. I hope you navigate the difficult times and come out with greater strength and resolve. I hope you find whatever balance you seek with your eyes wide open. And I hope that you - yes, you - have the ambition to lean in to your career and run the world. Because the world needs you to change it.”

“It’s never just business. It never will be. If it ever does become just business, that will mean that business is very bad.”

“Those three things - autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward - are, most people will agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.”

″ If I were going to be something when I grew up, an architect is what I would be.”

“Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.”

“This hotel – the Amazon – was for women only, and they were mostly girls my age with wealthy parents [...] and they were all going to posh secretarial schools like Katy Gibbs, where they had to wear hats and stockings and gloves to class, or they had just graduated from places like Katy Gibbs and were secretaries to executives and junior executives and simply hanging around in New York waiting to get married to some career man or other.”

“My name is Kathy H. I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ve been a carer now for over eleven years.”

“‘I don’t care how much money you get,’ my dad used to tell me. ‘It’s not worth it if you’re not happy.’ That’s the most valuable piece of advice he ever gave me: Do what you want in life. To this day I’ve tried to follow that philosophy.”

“I won’t just have a job; I’ll have a calling. I’ll challenge myself every day. When I get knocked down, I’ll get back up. I may not be the smartest person in the room, but I’ll strive to be the grittiest.”

“When we graduate from childhood into adulthood, we’re thrown into this confusing, Cthulhu-like miasma of life, filled with social and career problems, all with branching choices and no correct answers.”

“Not long ago, researchers who analyzed the data from four large research studies that had followed thousands of people from birth to adulthood calculated that when corrected for such variables as age and gender and weight, an inch of height is worth $789 a year in salary. That means that a person who is six feet tall but otherwise identical to someone who is five foot five will make on average $5,525 more per year.”

“Of course it was possible for her: she had no husband. ”

“She explained that many people, but especially women, feel fraudulent when they are praised for their accomplishments. Instead of feeling worthy of recognition, they feel undeserving and guilty, as if a mistake has been made. Despite being high achievers, even experts in their fields, women can’t seem to shake the sense that it is only a matter of time until they are found out for who they really are- impostors with limited skills or abilities.”

“When woman work outside the home and share breadwinning duties, couples are more likely to stay together. In fact, the risk of divorce reduces by about half when a wife earns half the income and a husband does half the housework.”

“We must raise both the ceiling and the floor.”

“Men are promoted based on potential, while women are promoted based on past accomplishments.”

“Success and likeability are positively correlated for men and negatively for women. When a man is successful, he is liked by both men and women. When a woman is successful, people of both genders like her less.”

“I recommend adopting two concurrent goals: a long-term dream and an eighteen-month plan.”

“Careers were demeaning “twentieth-century inventions,” more of a liability than an asset, and that he would do fine without one, thank you.”

“Only those who decline to scramble up the career ladder are interesting as human beings. Nothing is more boring than a man with a career.”

“You are not tied to a particular position; your loyalty is not to a career or a company. You are committed to your Life’s Task, to giving it full expression. It is up to you to find it and guide it correctly. It is not up to others to protect or help you. You are on your own.”

“Olive is always unlucky: in her career, in love, in…well, everything. Her identical twin sister Ami, on the other hand, is probably the luckiest person in the world.”

“I’ve been in the revenge business for so long, now that it’s over I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life.”

“On reaching a small secret chamber in the left wing, he leaned up against a moonbeam to recover his breath, and began to try and realize his position. Never, in a brilliant and uninterrupted career of three hundred years, had he been so grossly insulted.”