Indra Nooyi, former CEO of PepsiCo, offered some excellent career advice during an interview published July 1 as part of the Hoover Institution’s “Only In America” ​​documentary series.

These are the six best tips he gave:

1. Look for opportunities

Nooyi emigrated from India to the United States in 1978 to attend the Yale School of Management. Studying and living in the United States was the springboard he needed to obtain employment at Boston Consulting Group, Motorola and, ultimately, PepsiCo.

“An immigrant could arrive with nothing in his pocket and become CEO of an iconic red, white and blue American company,” Nooyi said, reflecting on his unlikely career path.

“I would never have been a CEO in any other country in the world, including India,” she added, defending the United States as a meritocracy where the best and brightest can get ahead.

2. Find mentors

Vital to Nooyi’s success was having recruiting guides that accelerated her learning and helped her chart a career path.

Nooyi said she is “a product of great mentorship” and “always grateful to each of those people who gave me so much of their time and energy.”

“My mentors believed in me even more than I believed in myself,” she said. “They gave me impossible tasks, just to show the world that I was worth being a mentor. They encouraged me in times when I thought I could never be one.”

3. Work hard

Nooyi said she has had to hustle and grind her entire life, even as a foreign student at Yale.

She and her classmates “worked hard” with the mentality that they were not in college to party or take weekend trips, but “to study, work hard, and keep going.”

“So we went to school in the morning, worked all night, and I was a receptionist in my dorm from midnight to 5 a.m. Then people realized it was a tiring experience for us and they respected us for that.”

4. Focus on the job you have, not the job you want

Nooyi said she did not join PepsiCo with the intention of becoming CEO. Her approach was “I’m going to get this job,” to the point that when her bosses wanted to promote her, she would ask them if they were sure and tell them she was happy in her current position.

Having an explicit goal like becoming a CEO in 10 years can mean “you become obsessed with it,” he said. His advice is to “do the job you’re doing very, very well and everything else will take care of itself.”

5. Budget to take risks

Nooyi said he “took calculated risks knowing that sometimes I could lose my job.”

That was possible because she and her husband “lived simply,” so “even if I had lost my job, we could have lived on one salary,” she said.

“So we were both very comfortable that the risks he was taking were calculated and worth fighting for, and that’s what we did throughout our career.”

6. Stay humble

Nooyi said her family played an “important role” in keeping her grounded.

She remembered her mother always telling her, “I don’t care if you’re a big shot, leave your crown in the garage because you don’t need to bring your crown home. You’re the mother, you’re the wife, you’re the daughter, you’re the daughter-in-law. Don’t forget those roles.”

Nooyi said her mother’s message, that she was not above helping around the house and taking care of her family, “anchored” her and kept her humble.