Part of the reason there's an injunction to the truth, for example, is that if you're in a circumstance of extreme uncertainty, your best weapon, let's say, or your best tool or your best defense is the truth, because it keeps things simpler.
If you want to occupy the C-suite or the top one-tenth of 1% in any organization, you have to be obsessively devoted to your career at the expense of everything else. And women look at that, and they think, 'No.'
Interpretation
What this quote means
To achieve the highest positions in an organization, one must prioritize their career above all else, which may not resonate with everyone, particularly women.
This quote by Jordan Peterson highlights the intense dedication required to reach the upper echelons of organizational success, suggesting that such ambition often demands personal sacrifices. It acknowledges that this level of commitment can deter individuals, especially women, who might not align their values with the relentless pursuit of career advancement, prompting a reflection on work-life balance and societal expectations.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about career aspirations at a women's leadership conference.
More from Jordan Peterson
All quotes →I don't tell people, 'You're okay the way that you are.' That's not the right story. The right story is, 'You're way less than you could be.'
Once someone has spent enough time cultivating bad habits and biding their time, they are much diminished. Much of what they could have been has dissipated.
If you learn a martial art, you learn to be dangerous, but simultaneously, you learn to control it.
Life is tragic. You are tiny and flawed and ignorant and weak, and everything else is huge, complex, and overwhelming.
Music has an intrinsic meaning, which has always been mysterious to me.
Similar quotes
I missed so many opportunities along the way to do what I wanted to do because I didn't have the confidence to tell myself, much less anybody else, 'Yes, this is the business I wanted to be a part of'.
Everything is important- that success is in the details.
To succeed in your mission, you must have single-minded devotion to your goal
I hope the cooks who are working for me now are getting that kind of experience so they can use what they're learning now as a foundation for a great career.
When you prohibit failure, you kill innovation. If you kill innovation in fundraising, you can't raise more revenue. If you can't raise more revenue, you can't grow. And if you can't grow, you can't possibly solve large social problems.
Becoming rich isn't as much about getting rich financially as about whom you become, in character and mind, to get rich.