TIAA CEO shares top piece of career advice that helped her get ahead [Video]

Thasunda Brown Duckett has an urgent piece of career advice for anyone who doesn’t love their job: Don’t run from the challenge. Embrace it.

“Be OK with hard,” Duckett, president and CEO of insurance giant TIAA, recently told LinkedIn’s “This Is Working” podcast. “Especially now, where there are so many opportunities for you to click and apply and stay on the market all the time.”

Duckett’s advice may seem counterintuitive: Most people don’t look around, see a toxic workplace, and actively decide to stay in a situation they don’t enjoy. And job hopping is hot right now — 83% of Gen Z workers consider themselves job hoppers, according to a 2023 ResumeLab survey, which polled over 1,000 workers born between the mid-1990s and early 2010s.

But tough workplace situations can represent opportunities to learn and grow, said Duckett, who was named to CNBC’s inaugural Changemakers listin February — after becoming the third-ever Black woman to …