If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, don't ask what seat! Just get on. — Sheryl Sandberg

If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, don't ask what seat! Just get on.

Author: Sheryl Sandberg

Insight: There's a particular kind of paralysis that hits when opportunity actually shows up. We spend so much time waiting for our shot that when it arrives, we immediately start negotiating the terms—wondering if we deserve the role, if the timing is perfect, if we should wait for something better. Meanwhile, the rocket is boarding. The real insight here isn't about blind ambition. It's that at certain pivotal moments, the specific details matter far less than momentum itself. You learn more by being inside the rocket than by standing outside analyzing the seating chart. Some of life's best education comes not from perfect conditions but from saying yes to something slightly beyond what you're completely ready for, then figuring it out as you go. The seat you get, the salary, the title—these things often matter less than simply being in motion with people moving somewhere. That said, this doesn't mean ignoring red flags about toxic situations or exploitative deals. But if you're hesitating because you're worried you're not the "right" fit, or because you want to negotiate every detail first, you might be letting fear disguise itself as prudence. Sometimes the only way to find out if you can do something is to actually do it.

Source: Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, p. 74, 2013

Stop negotiating, start moving

There's a particular kind of paralysis that hits when opportunity actually shows up. We spend so much time waiting for our shot that when it arrives, we immediately start negotiating the terms—wondering if we deserve the role, if the timing is perfect, if we should wait for something better. Meanwhile, the rocket is boarding.

The real insight here isn't about blind ambition. It's that at certain pivotal moments, the specific details matter far less than momentum itself. You learn more by being inside the rocket than by standing outside analyzing the seating chart. Some of life's best education comes not from perfect conditions but from saying yes to something slightly beyond what you're completely ready for, then figuring it out as you go. The seat you get, the salary, the title—these things often matter less than simply being in motion with people moving somewhere.

That said, this doesn't mean ignoring red flags about toxic situations or exploitative deals. But if you're hesitating because you're worried you're not the "right" fit, or because you want to negotiate every detail first, you might be letting fear disguise itself as prudence. Sometimes the only way to find out if you can do something is to actually do it.

If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, don't ask what seat! Just get on. — Sheryl Sandberg

Stop negotiating, start moving

Comments

Sheryl Sandberg

Graph

Related