Ginni Rometty

I called my husband.

And Mark said to me, now I've been married.

In fact, this year I've known my husband 50 years.

I kind of told him all the reasons why I wasn't ready for the job.

And he said one thing to me.

He said, do you think a man would have answered the question that way?

And he said, look, I'm really not on a gender point.

He said, but I've watched this movie over and over with you.

Every time you get a new job, you tell me about all the things you can't do.

And then six months later, you're ready for the next job.

And I see this over and over.

He said, you have got to reframe risk in your mind.

And somehow it would crystallize for me, which was almost the alternate title of this book I wrote, which was that growth and comfort will never coexist.

And it is this idea that if you're going to grow, you will be uncomfortable.

And for me, that was the greatest, probably career learning that changed the trajectory of my career.

And that I could start to say, oh, every time I feel nervous, I'm uneasy.

This is spectacular because now I am learning and I will come through another end and this will feel good.

And it would make me start to search risk.

And of course, this would get bigger and bigger and bigger over time and love risk.

and and start to embrace it a lot and and know then this is a positive thing and so that is how I learned to overcome it and I learned to search it out actually and in fact if I was in a job too long and started to not feel that risk and that itch and that nervousness or that dry mouth or that feeling I'd be like okay this isn't good anymore I've got to move on something's wrong