Shonda Rhimes Shares the Powerful Career Advice All Women Need to Hear
author, getting the pass proved to be a headache. "We never do this," Shonda claimed she was told more than once when asking for another pass. Ultimately, Rhimes called a "high-ranking executive" to see if they could help settle things, but the unnamed exec reportedly asked her, "Don't you have enough?" She called her lawyer that day to begin her exodus.
Rhimes knew her value and worth, so she chose the unknown over settling, something she hopes young women can use in their own lives. "Feel very comfortable in where you're going to say no and where you are going to say yes," Rhimes told E! News. "But also where you're going to break ground and do something new." That ferocious and inspiring belief in herself and her abilities is something that had been instilled in Rhimes from a young age, growing up as the youngest of six in Chicago.
"The woman in my life who has had the biggest impact on me has been my mother," Rhimes explained. "I have a very strong, smart, impactful, commanding mother who really believed in us, along with my father. My parents are really people who felt like we could do anything." And it seems like Rhimes' penchant for a passionate monologue from a parent in any of her shows comes from the support she and her siblings received from college professor"They had six kids, four of whom were girls and it never occurred to them once that as girls we weren't going to be as successful, as strong, as smart as the boys in our family or out there in the world," Rhimes reflected.