23 successful executives share the best advice they ever received

Berkshire Hathaway board of directors member Thomas Murphy told him:

"Never forget Warren, you can tell a guy to go to hell tomorrow — you don't give up the right. So just keep your mouth shut today, and see if you feel the same way tomorrow."

From a 2010 interview with Yahoo!

"My friend Andre said to me, 'You know, Marissa, you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself to pick the right choice, and I've gotta be honest: That's not what I see here. I see a bunch of good choices, and there's the one that you pick and make great.' I think that's one of the best pieces of advice I've ever gotten."

From a 2011 interview with the Social Times

"My mother always taught me never to look back in regret but to move on to the next thing. The amount of time people waste dwelling on failures rather than putting that energy into another project, always amazes me. I have fun running ALL the Virgin businesses — so a setback is never a bad experience, just a learning curve."

From an interview with The Good Entrepreneur

Gene Ross, the man who recruited Lundgren at Bullock, told him:

"You're not going to do this forever. There's a finite amount of time you're going to be doing this. Do this really, really well. And if you do this really, really well, everybody will see that, and they'll move you onto the next thing. And you do that well, and then you'll move."

From a 2009 interview with The New York Times

His boss at Goldman during the 1980s told him:

"First, it's good to solicit your people's opinions before you give them yours. And second, your people will be very influenced by how you carry yourself under stress."

From a 2009 interview with CNNMoney

Mickey Drexler, CEO of Gap at the time, told Chiquet:

"I'm going to give you some important advice. You're a terrific merchant. But you've gotta learn to listen!"

From a 2008 blog post at Harvard Business Review

"Find a way to say yes to things. Say yes to invitations to a new country, say yes to meet new friends, say yes to learn something new. Yes is how you get your first job, and your next job, and your spouse, and even your kids."

From Katie Couric's book "The Best Advice I Ever Got," excerpted by The Daily Beast

"When I started my company, many people said I shouldn't launch it as a retail concept because it was too big a risk. They told me to launch as a wholesaler to test the waters — because that was the traditional way.

"But Glen Senk, [then] CEO of Urban Outfitters and a mentor of mine ... told me to follow my instincts and take the risk. I wanted to create a new way of looking at retail."

From a 2009 interview with CNN Money

Several weeks into his first job as a salesperson for Radio Disney — where he was "failing miserably," Kerpen's mentor Peggy Iafrate said:

"How well are you listening to what your prospects have to say? How many questions are you asking them to better understand them? How are you showing them that you care about them more than you care about selling them?

"Remember this one thing: Shut up and listen."

From a 2014 LinkedIn post

"Whenever I'd complain or was upset about something in my own life, my mother had the same advice: 'Darling, just change the channel. You are in control of the clicker. Don't replay the bad, scary movie.'

"We don't have to wait until we move or change jobs to change our lives. Nor do we have to wait for large-scale, upstream change. We can initiate change right now. There are endless starting points."

From a 2014 LinkedIn post

When Airbnb was going through Paul Graham's Y Combinator program, the legendary programmer and startup mentor told Chesky:

"Build something 100 people love, not something 1 million people kind of like."

From a 2013 interview with Pando Daily

"I've gotten a lot of great advice from Warren [Buffett]. I'd say one of the most interesting is how he keeps things simple.

"You look at his calendar, it's pretty simple. You talk to him about a case where he thinks a business is attractive, and he knows a few basic numbers and facts about it. And [if] it gets less complicated, he feels like then it's something he'll choose to invest in. He picks the things that he's got a model of, a model that really is predictive and that's going to continue to work over a long-term period. And so his ability to boil things down, to just work on the things that really count, to think through the basics — it's so amazing that he can do that. It's a special form of genius."

From a 2009 interview with CNBC

When Sandberg was thinking she wouldn't accept an offer to be Google's general manager, Eric Schmidt told her, "Stop being an idiot; all that matters is growth."

Source: All Things D

Steve Ross, the former CEO of Time Warner, told him:

"Just remember, it's a small business and a long life. You're going to see all these people again."

From the 2008 HACR Roundtable

"The best advice I ever received came from my parents, who encouraged me to work hard and pursue my early love of math. This was great advice for two reasons.

"First, it led me to do something I really loved. In my experience, in work and in life, there are lots of smart, talented people out there. But talent alone is never enough. One of the things that distinguishes those who truly make a difference is passion and hard work. There is truth in the expression that hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. And the passion that drives hard work comes from doing something you really love.

"The second reason this was great advice is that it steered me toward a career in engineering at a time when few women were pursuing work in science, technology, engineering or math – fields that, collectively, we now call STEM."

From a 2014 LinkedIn post

"I remember asking my father, 'Why do we need four newspapers?' He said to me, 'Unless you read different points of view, your mind will eventually close, and you'll become a prisoner to a certain point of view that you'll never question.'"

From a 2009 interview with CNN Money

Burdick received this message from various successful people he has met:

"Surround yourself with good people. And part of that is surrounding yourself with people who think differently than you. Surrounding yourself with people who have different experiences than you. In business, it's all about the team."

From the 2008 HACR Roundtable

"Just do it. There's no benefit to saying, 'I'm just doing this because it will get me to this new place,' or 'I'm just going to go into this analyst program because it will prep me for X.'

"If you're passionate about something, go for it, because people are great at what they love and when they're the happiest."

From a 2011 interview with The Huffington Post

"I reflected back to a conversation I had with my dear friend Gay Hendricks, who was a trusted advisor and one of my coaches at eBay. Some years before, when I was thinking about leaving eBay, he offered some sage advice: 'Your 50s are a decade of creativity or stagnation — so be searching for what you are intended to do.'

"Gay certainly was a case study of that advice. He was running an organization that helped people have better lives, had written dozens of books with his wife and even appeared on Oprah. Now at 69 years old, he has started writing detective novels and is producing his first movie. Amazing."

From a 2014 LinkedIn post

"Don't take too much advice. Most people who have a lot of advice to give — with a few exceptions — generalize whatever they did. ...

"Every company carves its own path, and [founders] are under pressure to make their startups look like the last successful company everyone remembers."

From a panel discussion at SXSW 2012

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