Sheryl Sandberg Quotes on Success, Leadership, and Perseverance

Sheryl Kara Sandberg was born on August 28, 1969, in Washington, D.C., United States. She is an American business executive, billionaire, and philanthropist. Sandberg is the chief operating officer of Meta Platforms and the founder of LeanIn.Org. In June 2012, she was elected to Facebook’s board of directors, becoming the first woman to serve on its board.

Download the first chapter of The Storytelling Series: Beginners’ Guide for Small Businesses & Content Creators by Obehi Ewanfoh.

1. Taking initiative pays off.
2. It is hard to visualize someone as a leader if she is always waiting to be told what to do.
3. If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on.
4. Done is better than perfect.
5. I realized that searching for a mentor has become the professional equivalent of waiting for Prince Charming.
6. We all grew up on the fairy tale “Sleeping Beauty,” which instructs young women that if they just wait for their prince to arrive, they will be kissed and whisked away on a white horse to live happily ever after.
7. Now young women are told that if they can just find the right mentor, they will be pushed up the ladder and whisked away to the corner office to live happily ever after.
8. Once again, we are teaching women to be too dependent on others.
9. What would you do if you weren’t afraid?
10. We cannot change what we are not aware of, and once we are aware, we cannot help but change.
11. There is no perfect fit when you’re looking for the next big thing to do.
12. You have to take opportunities and make an opportunity fit for you, rather than the other way around.
13. The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have.
14. Women need to shift from thinking “I’m not ready to do that” to thinking “I want to do that- and I’ll learn by doing it.”
15. The upside of painful knowledge is so much greater than the downside of blissful ignorance.
16. Success and likeability are positively correlated for men and negatively for women.
17. When a man is successful, he is liked by both men and women.
18. When a woman is successful, people of both genders like her less.
19. I have never met a woman, or man, who stated emphatically, ‘Yes, I have it all.’
20. Because no matter what any of us has–and how grateful we are for what we have–no one has it all.
21. Feeling confident — or pretending that you feel confident — is necessary to reach for opportunities.
22. It’s a cliche, but opportunities are rarely offered; they’re seized.
23. Life is never perfect. We all live some form of Option B.
24. We compromise our career goals to make room for partners and children who may not even exist yet.
25. Motivation comes from working on things we care about.
26. It also comes from working with people we care about.
27. The more women help one another, the more we help ourselves. Acting like a coalition truly does produce results.
28. Let me fall if I must fall. The one I become will catch me.

Download the first chapter of The Storytelling Series: Beginners’ Guide for Small Businesses & Content Creators by Obehi Ewanfoh.