如果有人了解我的“永不站立”的咒语，那就是纳斯达克总裁兼首席执行官阿德娜·弗里德曼（Adena Friedman）。作为跆拳道的黑带，阿德娜（Adena）知道如何发挥打击，打击并重新恢复到更加准备应对下一个挑战。

她令人印象深刻的职业和个人兴趣说明了这一坚韧。除了成为一名成功的女商人，敬业的母亲和黑带外，阿德娜还在18岁时获得了飞行员的执照，并流利了俄语和法语。我真的很喜欢与阿德娜（Adena）聊天，并想通过与她的谈话传递一些我最喜欢的建议：

When you doubt yourself in your career, consult your support system.
Adena has had an admirable career, but like many of us, there have been times in her professional journey when she’s faced obstacles: namely, being overwhelmed with responsibility and being fearful that she wasn’t ready to take on a new challenge. “I had a couple moments in my career where I took kind of a leap step forward, and the company really made a bet on me,” Adena explained. “You definitely have moments of self-doubt, like, ‘Really? Am I ready?’ First of all, don't express this at the office. But take them home, and find…someone who can just look at your career and look at you and knows you well, who can just give you independent advice. Inevitably they're very likely to say, ‘If your boss thinks you're ready, then you're ready. You're underestimating yourself.’”

任何职业生涯中最重要的方面之一是有时会学会不舒服。在我自己的职业生涯中，那是我走出舒适区的时代，我学到了最多的学历，并且在工作中变得更加强大。我们通常是我们自己最糟糕的批评家，但是当事情变得艰难时，应该依靠我们的朋友，家人和导师。

专注于客户需求，而不是竞争的轨迹。
One of my favorite points from my conversation with Adena was about avoiding disruption. Adena and I share the philosophy that success is about being customer-driven, not just competitor-driven. “Even when you're number one in your market, if you're competitor driven, you are limiting your opportunity, because all you're doing is saying, ‘I need to be better than the guys next to me,’” Adena explained. “If you're client-driven, you're driving yourself to be the best that you can be. And your clients frankly are never totally satisfied. So you should never assume that what you do is perfect.” Companies can’t carve out a unique place for themselves in the market or convince customers of their value proposition by only being one step ahead of their competition. Instead, companies need to constantly listen to their customers and design solutions with those people in mind. It’s my job at PayPal to ensure this is the way we’re thinking about our future. I want our legacy to be about driving real change in the industry and how people pay for things, instead of just outperforming competitors’ metrics.

In your career, always run to an opportunity—not away from a problem.
Adena spent 17 years at Nasdaq before becoming CFO of The Carlyle Group. She ultimately returned to Nasdaq a few years later, and says she brought a more wide-ranging view of the industry back with her. But she also shared that leaving Nasdaq for that period of time was one of the hardest decisions of her career. Adena said, “You should always run to an opportunity. Don't go somewhere new because you don't like where you are. Of course, if you don't like where you are, you should find a new opportunity. But make sure it's an opportunity that you really are excited about.” I can relate to Adena’s advice. Earlier in my career, I had been at AT&T for 18 years in a great job that I loved. But when I had an opportunity to do something completely different and take on my first CEO role, it was a risk I was thrilled to take. I’m a better leader today because of it.