If you have a job or are seeking one, this book is for you. While the conversation in the media or even at a dinner party might be about entrepreneurship or exploiting your ‘side hustle’ or ‘the great resignation’, the day‐to‐day reality is that most of us work for someone else, and, increasingly, in large organisations. We also work for decades, which may sound daunting (and exhausting), but as you'll see in this book, plenty of people find ways to make work rewarding, fulfilling and, dare I say, fun.
Across the globe, an increasing percentage of people work for large companies. In the UK alone, nearly half of the workers are employed by firms with 250 people or more. In the US, as of the 2014 Census data, nearly 40 per cent of workers were employed at either large companies (those with 2500 people or more),1 or very large ones (with 10 000 people or more).2 Close to another third of workers in the US were at mid‐sized companies (with 100 to 2500 employees).
As corporations and businesses continue to grow, so will opportunities within them. What you need to succeed are the six mindshifts laid out as chapters in this book. The mindshifts are outlined, then brought to life with relatable examples of people I've met along the way. All of these people are real, though some names, and occasionally some genders, have been changed — as they used to say on TV — ‘to protect the innocent’. Ways to put the mindshifts into practice are listed at the end of each chapter so you can adopt the ones that work for you.
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If my life had worked out differently, I might have been a forester — planting trees, assessing timber plots — and writing about it all in a rough‐hewn log cabin surrounded by towering redwoods, with the occasional bear ambling by.
This wasn't actually a dream of mine as a child; growing up in the US, I had no specific vision of what my career would be. I worked odd jobs to earn and save money in high school, and one of these jobs involved taking aptitude and personality tests at Stanford University's Graduate School of Education. One test indicated that I'd be well‐suited to a life in forestry or the clergy.
Neither option, I confess, interested me remotely.
I wasn't really exposed to people working within large corporations, and I never particularly thought about corporate life either. I've now spent the past 40 years working for, and leading, businesses at some of the world's most interesting, innovative companies — including more than a decade heading the Asia Pacific (APAC) region for parts of Google, as well as for Twitter and Cloudflare. Before that, I served as the first female partner in Asia at Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Over the years, I also had roles in the financial services sector, including at Visa, American Express and Charles Schwab.
I went to Brown University, where you didn't have to declare a major until your junior year, which was one reason I chose the school. After graduating with a degree in applied math and economics, I took a job in banking because it ticked two boxes on my wish list: a great training program, and the opportunity to move to New York City, which seemed like an exciting place to live.
While much of my career has been in sales and general management, these were not early interests. As a teen, I subscribed to Seventeen magazine (typical) and Psychology Today (oddball choice), thinking that maybe I'd become a psychologist. I had exactly one early experience in sales, creating an ad book with three friends in high school to fund our senior year activities. I had to go to dozens of merchants I didn't know and ask for money to advertise to the students and parents. It was my idea and I persisted with it. Looking back now, that is the real through‐line in my career — perseverance. Once I decide on something, I'm full steam ahead, driven to make it happen. Recently, my mom said that even in high school I was always tired because I was trying to cram in one more thing.
It's easy to feel like you should know exactly what you want to do in your career in order to be successful and happy, to have a specific vision and then execute it. But that hasn't been my path, or that of many of the people in this book. The fact is, you don't have to know what you want to do to rise and thrive, and even if you do know now, you may change your mind later. Today's rapid pace of change means that many of the most exciting fields and companies of the future probably don't exist now. Even if you love what you're doing, something else might arise that intrigues you (as the Internet did for me in my forties). Even though I didn't have a specific plan in mind (other than travel; I knew I wanted to travel), I did have drive, curiosity and a desire to connect and help out. These traits have helped me, and embracing them can help you, too.
People who look at my career from the outside and see me as super‐successful sometimes conclude that success must mean never failing. But this isn't true either. While I love helping build businesses, and am proud of my achievements, I've also had my share of missteps, including twice taking jobs that I quickly regretted and left in less than a year. I've been laid off; once my department was dissolved, and I had to let go of my whole team, and then leave myself.
Success doesn't require an early, clear‐cut vision, nor does it come from never having setbacks. Rather, it grows from working hard and adopting some crucial mindsets or mindshifts — attitudes you can learn, and put into practice.
Over the past 40 years, I've come to identify six essential mindshifts made by those who succeed; six powerful attitudes and actions that underpin organisational success. I have watched people thrive using these mindsets. I've also seen other very smart, talented people fail to flourish because they didn't embrace them. These are the mindsets I want to share with you in this book.
Success means something different to different people, of course. For you, it might mean achieving a certain lifestyle, or rising to a desired position or reputation within an industry. It could mean fame and fortune, influence, making a difference, helping others, or supporting a family comfortably. In my own life, success has meant having the lifestyle I want, achieving financial comfort sufficient for my family and some charitable giving, and rising to reasonably high positions, though not CEO. But I do also have a universal view of success, which includes having some sense of control over your life; feeling of agency in your career; and liking, for the most part, how you spend your time, who you spend it with, and how much you're earning. This is the view of success that this book can help you achieve.
I've also had a not‐so‐secret sideline occupation as a ‘mentor maven’, an unofficial (unpaid) career coach and supporter for hundreds of people at all stages of their working lives. Over the decades, I have listened to, and advised, people negotiating promotions and setbacks, struggling to rise and preserve time with their families, hoping to move overseas or return home, deciding whether to accept an offer or keep looking, and strategising about how to fight back when wronged.
The stories of some of these mentees are in this book, too. Helping other people develop has been the most fulfilling activity of my life, besides raising my own kids. Maybe having lacked the coordination (or popularity) required to be a cheerleader in high school left me with a desire to cheer on people in the career arena. Mentoring and advising people has brought me tremendous pride, and enabled me to gain more pleasure from working. If I didn't work, I wouldn't be able to help these people or forge these connections.
Sometimes people reach out for advice because I've long been one of the few female sales executives in the hardscrabble tech business. Others seek input because I'm older and have survived. Or because I'm more approachable than Tony Robbins or a celebrity CEO. People want to know how to find time to raise children and travel regularly for work, how to manage setbacks without letting them sap confidence and derail goals. This is another
