Bonnie Hammer Quotes

I spent 26 years in the business without ever knowing what I was doing a month from now.

I've never planned my career, really. It just comes along, and I do whatever comes next!

I'm interested in long careers where you take detours.

I've had a lot of careers in my life. When I think about it, I think every piece of that - from being a nurse, a farmer, dealing with real estate - has added to a skill set that I would have been able to use throughout my political career.

You take the job, you learn from it, and you move on.

I didn't really chart things out, career-wise.

Denzel Washington, Sidney Poitier, Robert Redford, Tom Cruise: those guys have well-planned careers. I'm just on a journey. Wherever I run across a job, I say, 'Okay, I'll do that.'

When I look back on my career - if that's what it is - it looks a bit like a crazy quilt, and I think it's just really because, when one job has finished, I've never really been in a position where I had three or four options.

My career was quite unusual, so my main advice to someone interested in a career similar to my own is to remain open to change and new opportunities. I like to tell students that the jobs I took after my Ph.D. were not in existence only a few years before.

I always believe that, as you start out, while you should have a big dream - a big goal - but it's also important to move step by step. So, you know, frankly, if you ask me, when I started as a management trainee in 1984, I don't know that I really thought that I would become the CEO.

I'm not from a political family and didn't grow up dreaming of being George Washington. I started working in 8th grade and have held every odd job possible - working in a gravel pit, weighing big wheelers, ticket sales, data base management - but I knew if I worked hard and got experience, I could apply that experience to my next endeavor.

I started at Pillsbury as a manager in one of their analysis functions, then worked my way up the corporate ladder to become vice president. Moving to Burger King was an important moment in my career.

My career keeps shifting; I keep doing the next thing and it keeps growing.

I want to have a career that evolves as I go on.

I definitely want to manage. I just don't think it's the time right now.

One of the great difficulties as you rise up through an organisation is that your prior competencies are exploded and broken apart by the territory you've been promoted into: the field of human identity.

Have a goal. Know where you want to end up. Knowing where you want to end up is a lot easier than figuring out how to start and how to get there. You will figure out how to get there. Do not chart your career. Trust me; you do not want to chart your career.

I try to be very aware of opportunities as they arise. But I don't sit around staring at my navel and thinking about my brand development.

I am 74 now. Looking back, I have a sense of not really being in control of my career. I just went where it took me.

I've never been one of those actors who plays chess with his career and goes, 'I'm going to wait now and see what project comes up that can move me to this or that level.' I take stuff as it comes, and it just so happens that it hasn't dried up yet, touch wood.

I have a very clear idea of what kind of career I want and the choices I need to make to get there.

I describe my career path as a zigzag, not a ladder.

On a career level, I always advise people to look ahead and be open to changes in direction. That job that seems so good now can easily turn into a nightmare if you do not see the possible corners it can land you in.

After having seen the job done on that first show of mine, I realized that I felt like I wanted to work again for a short while. Two, three years, then stop.

I think you have to recognise where you are as a player. I knew I had to go out to learn - to sit around at Liverpool wasn't going to do me any good.