Ursula Burns was raised by her mother in the 1960s' 70.she was black, poor, and female. Life would be hard.
![]() |
| Ursula Burns |
Her mother scrimped and saved and worked extra jobs just to provide for Ursula and her siblings, but more importantly she constantly reminded them that where they were right now didn’t have to define them for the rest of their lives. They always had a choice. They could do the best with what they had.
Ursula worked her ass off. She stayed on top of her studies and got into engineering school at the Brooklyn Polytechnic School, which was, not surprisingly, made up almost entirely of white affluent men. She soon realized she had a lot of catching up to do, both academically and socially. She was an outsider in every sense of the word.
But somehow, she graduated from engineering school and worked her way up to become the CEO of Xerox, managing to turn the once-flailing company back to profitability. She also served as the head of the STEM Education Coalition under President Obama, and has been on the boards of some of the world’s largest companies, including Exxon Mobil, Uber, and VEON, the world’s 10th largest telecom company.
Inspired by her mother’s encouragement, Burns developed early in life what psychologists call a “growth mindset,” which is essentially just the belief that one has a certain degree of personal influence over their life.
Contrast this with a “fixed mindset,” which is the belief that you have little to no control over your life.
The truth is, there are things in life you can control and things you can’t.
No one else can heal your emotional wounds but you. No one else can fix your toxic relationship with money but you. No one else can lose that weight for you. No one else can make that person fall in love with you.

Comments
Post a Comment