‘Best advice’ from a CEO could work for you and me

When the editors of Fortune asked the CEOs of large companies to reveal the best advice they had ever been given, they received some interesting answers.

Unless you are the leader of a huge corporation, some of their words won’t be helpful, but some of what they say contains an idea that could change your point of view. For example:

Indra Nooyi is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PepsiCo.

Indra Nooyi, chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, had this to say:

“Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent. When you assume negative intent, you’re angry.” These were her father’s words. She says that when you take away anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed.

Nooyi says your emotional quotient will go up. You won’t get defensive. You will try to understand and listen because you are thinking, “Maybe they are saying something to me that I’m not hearing,”

Lawrence Edward”Larry” Page is an American computer scientist and an Internet entrepreneur who co-founded Google along with Sergey Brin. Page is the chief executive officer of Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc.

Google founder Larry Page says he had about 10 things he wanted to do when he was in graduate school at Stanford. One of them was to look at link structure on the Web, a project that eventually led to Google. His advisor picked that one out for him, saying it seemed like a very good idea.

Page’s experience reminds us that we are more effective when we focus on one area instead of spreading our attention over several.

New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave this advice: “Don’t react until you have had a chance to think. Ready, shoot, aim is not the smartest policy.”