Sallie Krawcheck quotes: wise words from the Ellevest CEO.
“Your career is not going to go the way you planned. It is impossible at the age of 23 to pick the right industry, the right company, and you can visualize what you’re going to be doing in your 40s, 50s and 60s, but chances are that it’s going to be something quite different. So remain open to opportunities and change.”
“I wish I had known that that process of figuring out what you’re good at, what you want to do, and where you want to have an impact is not a one-time exercise, but an ongoing one. Instead, I bought into success being an endpoint rather than a constant process.”
“There are a lot of things in business that are completely out of your control, but hard work isn’t one of them.”
“There is absolutely nothing that beats hard work.”
“Hard work most often leads to success, but it’s not every day, and it’s not every week. It will pay off at different times over the course of your career.”
“Put together a plan, that’s all. Because what you’re doing by doing that is increasing your chances of achieving your big goals in life. So just take that first step, and I think what you’ll see is you’ll begin to get some clarity. I can’t buy the house, have the kids, start a business, retire well, build the emergency fund, take the trip around. Can’t do it all. So, you start to make those trade-offs and see what you can really do.”
“You know those days at the office when you used to come in and not really do much? You don’t get days like that as an entrepreneur. If you don’t do the work you need to, nothing happens that needs to. It’s that simple.”
“If your idea is truly innovative, you’re going to hear from the naysayers. After all, if it really were such a good idea, someone would have already done it, right?”
“As an entrepreneur, it’s easy to feel ownership over every aspect of your business because you’re putting your reputation, your money and other people’s money on the line. Oh, and you’re sleeping, breathing and eating your passion project—that, too. But if you try to do it all yourself, you’re almost certain to fail.”
“Knowing your customer inside and out is mission-critical, and it takes time. It’s impossible to hit on the insights that will ultimately decide your company’s fate without putting them to the test, literally, even if that takes longer than you’d have liked.”
“Whenever you start a new business, the sheer number of variables at hand makes failure a constant possibility.”
“If you don’t share information among your startup’s team, then it’ll be just about a coincidence if product, marketing, and engineering are ever aligned. Those odds are too low to succeed.”
“In terms of challenges, I think finding the right people to maximize the chances the business will succeed is the hardest thing. You can crunch the numbers any way you want, but at the end of the day, you really need good employees and investors, and they aren’t always easy to find.”
“You may find it more relaxing to work with people just like you, but entrepreneurship is about finding new approaches to problems, and discomfort can be an important part of that process.”
“If you are going to fire this person or hire that person, do it all in a concentrated period. The Band-Aid gets ripped off, and everybody goes back to work.”
“Assume the best intent in others around you. You will often be right, and even when you’re not, people can rise to your view of them. Not always, but enough that I believe it’s worth it.”
“If you haven’t had a major fail in your career (face-plant level), you aren’t trying hard enough.”
“If you’re not making some notable mistakes along the way, you’re certainly not taking enough business and career chances.”
“If it comes down to your ethics versus a job, choose ethics. You can always find another job.”
“Stop hoping for a promotion that’s not coming. Instead, start a business at which you want to work.”
“Follow the money at all costs, and you might wind up regretting it.”
“Technology is going to play an increasingly, increasingly, increasingly important role in every industry. And it’s good.”
“Networking has been cited as the number one unwritten rule of success in business. Who you know really impacts what you know.”
“A computer can have so much more in its brain that a human can.”
“If you aren’t committed to diversity of thought, you have no business launching a startup.”
“Greater diversity drives better business results.”
“As we work together and pool our resources, there’s room for everyone to be successful.”
“As an entrepreneur, I’ve learned how crucial it is to be able to call a spade a spade and avoid falling in love with a particular strategy or product. Instead, you need to let the customer tell you what she needs—and to change her as she changes.”
“Leadership is a lot of hard work. I hoped, when I was younger, that I would just be a natural leader or that it was something that was innate, but it is really a learned skill.”
“I had very good bosses, very good companies for which I worked. I worked in industries where the results really mattered; it wasn’t the perception of results, it was just the facts.”
“I make it a priority to keep in touch with people with whom I’ve worked in the past. And I’m fortunate, because I’ve worked with some terrific folks.”
“I love to talk. I love to share. I love to vent. But I prefer action.”
“I’m a Weeble. Remember Weebles? The toy whose tagline was, ‘Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down?’ I’m resilient. Oh, and I work really hard.”
“I’m a journalism and poli-sci major. I look back on this and say, ‘How did I get so lucky?’ And of course it goes back to I had terrific parents who really invested in our education. But it could have been so different. I could have been born in a slum in India. I could have been born to parents who didn’t invest the time in me. And so I’ll tell you the truth, once I saw problem/opportunity, I’m the one to do it! I mean, name another senior woman on Wall Street. Okay, fine you can’t. I’ve got this unique perspective, I have this unique background.”
“I’m about impact. One can make impact if they run a big business with a lot of zeroes. I’ve done that. One can also make an impact when you’re a research analyst, where it’s you and your associate. I’ve done that.”
“I read research like other people read sports magazines or fashion magazines.”
“I’ve taken a few public hits in my career, and I never hid the pain of it from my children. Nor did I hide the regrouping and rethinking that occurred after each one. After all, that process allowed me to re-emerge and go on to build a more impactful and more engaging career path than the one I had been knocked off of.”
“What I saw a thousand times during the downturn was, ‘We’d like to give her that opportunity, but we need to go with the sure thing—we can’t afford diversity right now.’ Nothing bad happens when women are in positions of power.”
“In the old world of business, there was often just one seat at the leadership table for women, two at best. That meant that only so many women could advance. But in a world where women recognize the power that they own—and where technology can upend the traditional rules of engagement—one woman winning doesn’t mean another loses.”
“People say to me, ‘Has being a woman helped or hindered your career?’ And the answer is yes.”
“I prefer the word ‘engagement.’ Instead of empowerment, it’s enabling women to engage in business.”
“I love what’s going on these days with these powerful women who are really working to make a difference.”
“One of my passions is women in business and helping women to get ahead in business.”
“I’m really putting my life towards helping women to invest, and there’s a circular reference here because if women can invest and give themselves the opportunity to earn higher returns, they can start those businesses. They can go to work with a little more confidence to ask for that promotion, to ask for the new assignment, etc.”
“Women tend to live longer than men do. Women tend to have, unfortunately, their salaries peaked sooner than men’s do. Both of these things are extraordinarily important in putting together financial and investing plans for women.”
“We all know money is power. And women won’t be equal with men until we are financially equal with men. Getting more money into the hands of women is good for women, but it’s also good for their families, for the economy, and for society.”
“Most financial questions don’t have one right answer; just an answer that’s right for you.”
“We shouldn’t think anyone needs a PhD in advanced investing in order to begin to invest.”
“Albert Einstein is reported to have said compounding is the eighth wonder of the world. Obviously, a dollar invested in your 20s is worth so much more than a dollar invested in your 60s.”
“Whatever your income level is, save as much as you can—up to 20%, but more if you can—and invest it. Put that into an IRA; put that into a brokerage account.”
“Investing isn’t a game to be won. At the end of the day, it’s a way to achieve your big goals, like buying that home, starting that business, and retiring on your own terms.”
“I have a very simple point of view, which is, I’m going to be alive for some amount of time; I don’t know how long that’s going to be. Then I’m going to be dead for a really, really long time. Right? You need to squeeze everything you can out of this time when you’re alive.”
