Career Quotes
Most popular career quotes
Three things—autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward—are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.
The only way to get what you're worth is to stand out, to exert emotional labor, to be seen as indispensable, and to produce interactions that organizations and people care deeply about.
Be remarkable. Be generous. Create art. Make judgment calls. Connect people and ideas . . . and we have no choice but to reward you.
The law of linchpin leverage: The more value you create in your job, the fewer clock minutes of labor you actually spend creating that value. In other words, most of the time, you're not being brilliant. Most of the time, you do stuff that ordinary people could do.
What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.
Three rules for a career: (1) Don't sell anything you wouldn't buy yourself; (2) Don't work for anyone you don't respect and admire; and (3) Work only with people you enjoy.
Extreme specialization is the way to succeed. Most people are way better off specializing than trying to understand the world.
I have never succeeded very much in anything in which I was not very interested. If you can't somehow find yourself very interested in something, I don't think you'll succeed very much, even if you're fairly smart.
The person who knows how will always have a job. But the person who knows why will be his boss.
The mark of a true professional is giving more than you get.
Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.
A man who enjoys responsibility usually gets it. A man who merely likes exercising authority usually loses it.
It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference.
People judge you by your performance, so focus on the outcome. Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.
You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.... Don't settle.
Managing your career is like investing—the degree of difficulty does not count. So you can save yourself money and pain by getting on the right train.
In looking for someone to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. But the most important is integrity, because if they don't have that, the other two qualities, intelligence and energy, are going to kill you.
There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job that you love. You will jump out of bed in the morning. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don't like because you think that it will look good on your résumé. Isn't that a little like saving up sex for your old age?
Whatever you are, be a good one.
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
Get fired. If you're not pushing hard enough to get fired, you're not pushing hard enough.
If initiative is the ability to do the right thing, then efficiency is the ability to do the thing right.
Always behave like a duck—keep calm and unruffled on the surface, but paddle like the devil underneath.
Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.
Always be smarter than the people who hire you.
By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.
The person who says "I'm not political" is in great danger.... Only the fittest will survive, and the fittest will be the ones who understand their office's politics.
People don't choose their careers; they are engulfed by them.
The high prize of life, the crowning fortune of a man, is to be born with a bias to some pursuit which finds him in employment and happiness—whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or songs.
Careers, like rockets, don't always take off on time. The trick is to always keep the engine running.
Your job is not your job; your job is to find a better job.
Don't let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn't go with it.
If the career you have chosen has some unexpected inconvenience, console yourself by reflecting that no career is without them.
If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.
If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.
Never continue in a job you don't enjoy. If you're happy in what you're doing, you'll like yourself, you'll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
When you bring concerns to your boss, frame them from the perspective of "What makes the most sense for the organization and why?" rather than "I want X."
In some cases you'll get better results by asking for a short-term experiment rather than a permanent change.
A slightly sneakier way of tipping off your manager about a problem with a coworker is to ask for advice about dealing with that problem.
Successful women's tendency to critique themselves instead of others opens them to different behavioral habits than men, who are more likely to accept recognition and deflect blame.
Ambition might more usefully be defined as the desire to maximize your talents in the service of work you find worthwhile and rewarding.
Women are most likely to be evaluated based on their contributions, while men are most likely to be evaluated based on their potential—nebulous criteria that can result in a less qualified man getting the job.
Having a clear, concise statement ready to deliver at any moment—one that says what you do now but emphasizes what you want to do in the future and why you're qualified to do it—gives you a huge advantage in terms of visibility and positioning. It sets you apart from the pack and enables you to make the case for yourself at the highest level when the chance presents itself. In my experience, great careers are often built on chance encounters. So it always pays to be prepared.
Instead of viewing money and position as the sole or even chief markers of success, women also tend to place a high value on the quality of their lives at work and the impact of their contributions. Enjoying co-workers and clients, having some degree of control over their time, and believing that their work makes a positive difference in the world are key motivators for many successful women.
The trick to maximizing your talents and opportunities is not becoming a less thoughtful and giving person, but rather being purposeful and intentional about your choices while also addressing the behaviors that keep you stuck.
Ellen realized she had a problem with Habit 1, Reluctance to Claim Your Achievements, and Habit 2, Expecting Others to Spontaneously Notice and Reward Your Contributions.
When I think about someone who is ambitious, I think about someone who does three things: They take credit for their own work and ideas; they step up when opportunities arise; and they proactively create opportunities for themselves.
True success comes when you use your talents and your genuine kindness to do work that is aligned with your values and passions.
The key to making nice your superpower is to own your niceness and use it intentionally by connecting it to the things you care about.
When you are creating opportunities, it's essential to find the key stakeholders and bring them along with you. Make them a part of the process. By making it clear that you are looking to collaborate instead of compete, you'll earn their trust and their respect.
By taking on more than was asked of me, I had proven my diligence and effectiveness. I had looked up and seen what my boss really needed and then stepped up.
The longer someone's C.V., the less he or she will be remembered.
If you're busy at work odds are you will eventually be replaced by a robot.
