The Best Advice I Ever Got (8 page)

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Twenty-fourth President of Liberia

No Job Is Small

In instilling the value of menial work in me and my siblings while we were very young, our mother always said, “Only sin cannot be removed through washing with water and soap.” This became a part of our culture, making it easy for me as a wife and mother in mid-career to take on the job as waiter and cleaner in the Rennebohn Drug Store near the campus of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Jimmy Carter

Thirty-ninth President of the United States and Founder of the Carter Center

Always Do Your Best

One of the most formative moments in my life was when I first met Navy Admiral Hyman Rickover. Admiral Rickover was a remarkable man who had a profound effect on my life—perhaps more than anyone except my parents.

In 1949, because of the admiral’s prodding, the Navy made a commitment to developing a nuclear-propulsion plant for ships, and then contracted with two major companies to build prototype atomic-powered submarines. I had applied for the nuclear-submarine program, and Admiral Rickover was interviewing me for the job.

We sat in a large room by ourselves for more than two hours, and he let me choose any subject I wished to discuss. Very carefully, I chose those about which I knew most at the time—current events, seamanship, music, literature, naval tactics, electronics, gunnery—and he began to ask me a series of questions. In each instance, he soon proved that I knew relatively little about the subject I had chosen.

He always looked right into my eyes, and he never smiled. I was saturated with cold sweat. Finally, he asked me a question, and I thought I could redeem myself.

He said, “How did you stand in your class at the Naval Academy?”

Since I had completed my sophomore year at Georgia Tech before entering Annapolis as a plebe, I had done very well, and my chest swelled with pride as I answered, “Sir, I stood fifty-ninth in a class of eight hundred and twenty!”

I sat back to wait for the congratulations, which never came. Instead, the admiral asked, “Did you do your best?”

I started to say, “Yes, sir,” but I remembered who this was, and recalled several of the many times at the academy when I could have learned more about our allies, our enemies, weapons, strategy, and so forth. I was just human. I finally gulped and said, “No, sir, I didn’t always do my best.”

He looked at me for a long time, and then turned his chair around to end the interview. He asked one final question, which I have never been able to forget—or to answer. He said, “Why not?” I sat there for a while, shaken, and then slowly left the room.

But I did get the job.

As I got to know Admiral Rickover, I came to admire how unbelievably hardworking and competent he was. He demanded total dedication from his subordinates. We feared and respected him and strove to please him. I do not in that period remember his ever saying a complimentary word to me. The absence of a comment was his compliment; he never hesitated to criticize severely if a job wasn’t done as well as he believed it could be done. He expected the maximum from us, but he always contributed more.

My job was the best and most promising in the Navy, and the work was challenging and worthwhile. The salary was good, and the retirement benefits were liberal and assured. But the contact with Admiral Rickover alone made it worthwhile.

Larry King

Emmy Award-Winning Television and Radio Host

Learn How to Listen

I never learned anything when I was talking. The best learning lesson I can give you on accomplishment is to listen. Learn how to listen. You don’t learn anything when you are talking. Think about it.

Muhtar Kent

Chairman and CEO of the Coca-Cola Company

In Good Times and in Bad

Relationships work only when you’re there for people in tough times as well as the good. Let me give you a real case in point.

In 1989, at the age of thirty-six, I was appointed president of Coca-Cola’s East Central European division. It was my responsibility to orchestrate Coca-Cola’s entry into the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The region included twenty-three countries where 350 million people had lived literally behind a wall for as much as seventy years. Basic democratic concepts like human rights, free speech, free enterprise, and land ownership were all novelties.

Coca-Cola had zero existing infrastructure in the region. No bottling plants. No distribution systems. The challenge for us was to set up more than twenty plants and a modern distribution system in mere months, across twenty-three nations.

Albania at that time was one of the most politically and economically isolated nations in the world. Its economy was in shambles and its people were in great need. We saw potential there and were determined to open a bottling facility in the country. My team and I knew that we needed to find the right people to help us. One day, an acquaintance pointed a doctor out to me, saying, “You should meet this man.”

I found the doctor in his office. The room had no heating, and his patients sat on wooden fruit boxes. Over the next few months, I developed a relationship with him and would send him copies of Western newspapers and periodicals. One year later, during the first free elections, this doctor—Sali Berisha—became the first elected president of Albania. Coca-Cola became the country’s first foreign investment, and in 1993 we opened the first modern Coca-Cola plant in the region.

Today, Coca-Cola directly and indirectly employs more than two thousand people in Albania; the country is thriving, and we are the undisputed market leader. It just goes to show the wisdom behind that time-tested adage that encourages us all to work together in good times and in bad. When you stand behind someone or something, no matter how daunting the task or how hard the circumstances, the result can be truly amazing.

Ryan Seacrest

Radio Personality, Television Host, and Producer

The Hardest-Working Guy in Showbiz

There’s a mantra I’ve lived by throughout my entire career that I think is one of the keys to my success:
Say yes
. Accept the job, agree to that meeting, catch up over a cup of coffee, lend a helping hand. You never know what the future will bring, so always make the best use of the present. I often get teased for having so many jobs and such a busy schedule, but, truthfully, seizing each of these opportunities has led to many others. And remember, you can always say no later—or so I’ve heard.

Robin Roberts

Emmy Award-Winning Television Broadcaster, Journalist, and Co-Host of
Good Morning America

Determination Makes the Difference

When I was young, I was totally focused on being an athlete. It taught me invaluable life lessons. During my freshman year at Southeastern Louisiana University, my basketball coach, Linda Puckett, devised a challenging drill. She instructed my teammates and me to stay in a crouched position as we slid around the perimeter of the court. Despite the burn in our thighs and our trembling calf muscles, we weren’t supposed to stand up until we reached the end point. I was in the middle of the pack as we did the drill. When we were finished, Coach Puckett got right in my face and said, “Hon, you are going places in life.” Turns out I was the only one who remained crouched in that uncomfortable position for the entire time. It took discipline, determination, and stamina—traits that come in handy in life. Be patient and persistent. Life is not so much what you accomplish as what you overcome.

Steven Spielberg

Academy Award-Winning Director and Producer

Listen and Learn

From a very young age, my parents taught me the most important lesson of my whole life: They taught me how to listen. They taught me how to listen to everybody before I made up my own mind. When you listen, you learn. You absorb like a sponge—and your life becomes so much better than when you are just trying to be listened to all the time.