What Do You Need? Quotes

“Remember, people ebb and flow, but your reputation will follow you wherever you land.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“No one wants to be surprised or shot down, especially in a group setting. So the person who needs an answer, if they are smart, will have already led individual members towards their side. Conversations are happening behind the scenes so that by the time the big meeting takes place, the person pitching the idea already has buy in.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“Organisations are scrambling, and they assume DEI (Diversity, equity and inclusion) won't bring in revenue, so they give it the smallest budget. Then they allocate what little DEI money they do have to programs and events concerning hiring rather than retention, professional development, education, or training. That might help bring in new entry-level employees of color, but if you don't dedicate resources to retention and development, how are you going to help advance these workers to executive positions? If you don't invest in progress, no one is going to suddenly work miracles.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“If you take nothing else from this book, I hope you'll remember this: fulfilling your professional needs will lead to a fulfilling professional life. Your career takes up a lot of space - most of us will work 40 hours a week, or more, for decades. That is a serious undertaking, and it has serious implications for our happiness and satisfaction. But sometimes we get so caught up in the weeds that we forget that we chose our specific career because we had an interest in or talent for the work.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“Being specific with your needs and understanding why you need them is critical to fulfillment. When you've lost your way, when it feels like the journey you planned is no longer the journey you're on. "What do you need?" can be your North Star. Even one small step in a deliberate direction can reorient you back on your path.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“Acknowledge your mistake, apologise, own it and move on. Simply say, "I should have known better, that was not my intention, I'm sorry”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“In its simplest terms, allyship is about mentorship or sponsorship across race lines. It's about creating opportunities for colleagues of color that can help them advance in their careers. Think promotions, attendance at conferences, nominations for awards or speaker-positions, inclusion on high profile committees, teaching your young colleagues of color the soft skills and rules of the game that they might not have learned otherwise. Ask what they need, share what you can offer, and see what makes the most sense. Don't assume you know what they need, and don't ask for kudos for your behaviour. Contribute to the change and know that the benefits of your efforts will come back to you.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“If you are a part of a conversation in which your colleagues of color are being othered, it's incumbent upon you to speak up. Be the person to say, "This is not right" or "It's time that you learn her name", or "She actually doesn't look anything like the other woman you are confusing with her, except for the fact that they are both Asian".”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“I know an invitation might seem like a minor act, but sometimes the little things seem so little that they get overlooked entirely.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“What do you need?" is always a more productive question than "How can I help?". It helps you learn about a person or a group, and it doesn't put the burden on them to instruct you on how to be an ally.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“I think we are doing ourselves a disservice when we say, "Everyone should be an ally!" because by giving the impression that it's so easy that everyone can do it, we diminish the role and the power allyship has. I'd rather have fewer people declare their intention to be an ally if those who did actually did the work required and did it right.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“Keep in mind, you want to leave on good terms with as many people as possible. Industries are small. It might be tempting to try to burn it all own in your wake, especially if you feel mistreated, but don't take the bait. Looking out for yourself means parting ways with as much dignity as possible because it will behoove down the line.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“If you are going to get ahead, you'll have to rely on your ability to know if you belong, build and activate relationships, signal value, do the work, and take risks. The game is always being played - your job is to work it to your advantage.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“Women of color are called on to fix the racial disparities in their companies, and it's a huge and exhausting undertaking, especially because it's ultimately not the people of color who still create the change. The workers in the majority groups, and leaders in power - those are the people who will foster change. Everyone else can support the effort, but it's the power players who will be calling the shots.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“Burnout can result in a person being unresonably short with colleagues, missing deadlines, and doing work that isn't up to their usual standards. It ccan cause you to be unmotivated and unfocused, or dissatisfied
and uncaring when you do have an office success. But burnout can also manifest physically: it can lead to insomnia or, conversely, extreme fatigue.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“There will always be new business opportunities. If you say no to one deal, another will come along. But you can't replace a friend. Sure you will make new ones, but the people who have known you outside the office, maybe since before your career even started, those relationships can't just be replaced.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“I can't stress enough: when doing business with friends, the agreement needs to be ironclad. The terms need to be crystal clear. THe more you leave open to interpretation, the more one party will make assumptions based on friendship rather than business. Sometimes we avoid these conversations because we don't want our friends to think we don't believe in them, but it's always better to discuss contingency plans before you need them.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“Relationships are tricky and always changing. Successfully clibing the prefessional ladder is just one more variable that can make them that much more complicated. Knowing how to hold the boundaries between your personal life and your professional life isn't just about getting ahead, it's about maintaining some joy while you do so. It 's about keeping your relationsips intact on both sides of the line. Conquering your career can feel like a lonely business, so you'll need your people by your side - at home and at work”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“In fact, when you're doing business with friends you should be even more deliberate about discussing startegy and outlining clear goals and business practices. I didn't want to risk the relationship by having these hard conversations or seeming unsupportive, so in the end I said yes... and our friendship was still affected.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“The chance to lead a project or speak at an important panel or submit yourself for a promotion - these things don't come around every day”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“First, review everything you do before you hand it in. I cannot tell you how often I receive work with misspellings or careless errors because someone rushed to hand it in. Most of the time these mistakes could have been easily fixed with a once-over before hitting send or submit. Don't forgo this step because you know you'll need to revise the work anyway. Whatever you hand in should, in your estimation be as good as final.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“If you aren't consistently executing your work at a high level, the rest of it doesn't matter. And this is especially true for minority, who are often the first on the chopping block when companies make cuts - last hired, first fired as the expression goes.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“Statistics says, woemn are significantly less inclined to take professional risks as they get more workplace experience under their belt. As you get older, you need to be even more calculating, you would have built a reputation and there is more visiblity if youtake a chance that doesn't pay off. So, start today. No one ever got noticed by playing it safe.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“The world will always be full of entitled individuals. We will never get ahead by focusing on pleasing others at the expense of promotion ourselves. That doesn't mean you should shove people aside or treat anyone poorly in pursuit of your own ambitions but you can't sacrifice your success because someone else might be disappointed.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“Clearly, I believe in making the big bets and taking chances. They almost always pay off. Even if the immediate outcome is a bust, you usually learn something valuable that will ultimately serve your career. Maybe you'll discover what not to do, or how to manage a crisis, or how to persevere after a failure. It's important to keep in mind that with every new chance you take, there's an increased possiblity of pissing someone off.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“This is why I say you need to have the passion if you're going to take the risk. Because when there are hard times and there will be hard times and you're scared and worried and wondering if you should have taken such a risky leap, you'll stick it out as long as you're doing something that fuels you. Enterpreneurship is glorified constantly - who doesn't want to go on vacation whenever she wants and get her nails done during the workday and make her own schedule? Bt I primise you, 90 % of the enterprenurship life is not glamorous, it is repetitive and gruelling and maybe a little bit boring - not the kind of thing that makes for good social content. If you're gonna do it, you have to really want it.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“Back when I started ColorComm, I was living in a small DC apartment with slow dial up Internet, so I spent two hours before work and two hours after work using the free Wi-Fi at the hotel across the street. It was a lot of long days, too little sleep, morning workouts and evening drinks missed in favor of doing more work - but it was worth it to me because I knew my dream was to one day leave my firm and run ColorComm full-time. I was willing to put in the exra hours. But if reading this makes you cringe with dread, or if you just don't want to spend that much time working, that's okay! It is not necessary to work from dawn to dusk every single day in order to have a successful career. But that reaction also means you probably shouldn't plan to make your side hustle your full time job anytime soon, because you may not be passionate enough or hungry enough to make it happen.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“There is a reason why the waiting game won't serve your career. The truth is, not everyone at your company will have your best interests at heart, and not everyone will want you to get ahead. This could be for any number of reasons - they may see you as competition, they may mentor someone at your level who they want to help excel, they may simply not like you. Who knows their motivations, and frankly, who cares?”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“What I know now is, that hte rules of who you can speak to or what accolades you can go after are not rules you need to live by.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“The truth is, taking a risk - and by risk I mean making a calculated, thought out decision to try something new or different, I'm not talking about throwing caution to the wind and doing something stupid on a whim - is about taking the pieces of yourself you value most and asking, "How can I grow this a little more, in a new way?" That might mean, as it did for me, going after an award so you are recognized in a secific industry and thus get more opportunity.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success