Getting to Yes, And

Shellye Archambeau: Unapologetically Ambitious

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Shellye Archambeau

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Kelly talks with Shellye Archambeau, high tech's first female African American CEO about her new book "Unapologetically Ambitious: Take Risks, Break Barriers, and Create Success on Your Own Terms."

This is such a human book and although you’ve had many successes, you share a lot of your failures along the way.

“People make life look too easy, in my opinion, you know, you hear people tell their stories and it sounds like, oh, I took it one step then two had a little hurdle, jumped to three, four, and boom right, it all worked out great. Yeah, and life's just not like that. It's hard. And I want people to know that. But just because it's hard, it doesn't mean it's not doable.”

You write in the book that you always try to be kind and present with others, where did that come from?

“Now this was something I really learned early, because I didn't get it. People weren't always kind to me and people weren't always present to me. You know, it was really clear to me early that people didn't care much about me, actually. And whether or not I mounted to anything was important to my parents, but not to the general population. And so that meant, for me, that I know how it feels.to feel treated kindly and I wasn't going to be that person. So that was something that actually started early with me.”

You talk about work life integration as a better term than work life balance.

“Yeah, I can't stand the term work life balance, Kelly. I just can't. Life is not balanced at all times. Life is a rollercoaster and to be judged on the fact that we hold it and balance is crazy. So I think it was just put in place to make us feel perpetually guilty. So instead, I look at it as lower effect integration. I'm one person. So I have my work priorities on one hand, my personal priorities on the other hand. I put the two hands together and then I prioritize so I can get done, what's important.”




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