Adam Bryant conducts interviews of senior-level executives that appear in his “Corner Office” column each week in the SundayBusiness section of The New York Times. Here are a few insights provided during an interview of Julie Myers Wood, chief executive of Guidepost Solutions, a security, compliance and risk management firm. After college, she traveled to Japan but wouldn’t try the sushi. “Later, when I moved to New York, I tried some sushi and loved it. The point is to be willing to try things that are unfamiliar.” To read the complete interview as well as Bryant’s interviews of other executives, please click here.

Photo credit: Earl Wilson/The New York Times

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Were you in leadership roles or doing entrepreneurial things when you were young?

I was always interested in working and earning money. My dad was a small-business owner — he ran an automotive industrial firm — and I grew up helping out with the business. He instilled in us a desire to work. You had to make money and think about doing things to make money in a productive way. I had this spark in me from a young age to try to find a way to create something.

When you were in college, did you have some notion of what you wanted to do for your career?

I always wanted to be a lawyer or a prosecutor. I love to read and to learn things — I was the kind of kid who would read the backs of cereal boxes. But in college, I was not a supermotivated student. I did well on the LSAT, and decided to do law school the right way, and I graduated near the top of my class.

How did you do that?

When I got to law school, I was very aware that I wasn’t the smartest one in the room, but there were a lot of people who thought they were. I decided I could prepare more, be more organized and think more strategically. That worked pretty well for me.

What were some early lessons in your career?

I was working at a law firm, and a colleague went to work for Ken Starr when he was independent counsel down in Arkansas. This was before Monica Lewinsky. I said to them, “If they ever need somebody else to write motions or do whatever, just let me know because I would love to be a part of it.” I ultimately joined them, but it was very hard for me to say to someone, “Hey, I’m interested in this opportunity.”

Why?

Well, it felt a little aggressive, but that’s how I got the opportunity. They never would have thought of me if I had not been willing to raise my hand. I’ve tried to take that lesson with me: How can I show, in an appropriate way, that I might be a good candidate for an opportunity?

Do you find that a lot of people don’t do that?

I think a lot of women don’t do that. And it is hard. It’s definitely against my nature. You think that if you’re good enough, they’re going to realize that. But they’re not always going to realize that, and there are other people at the table who are raising their hands. So I’ve really tried to say to other women: “A job has opened up. This could be a good opportunity for you.”

I also worked briefly in personnel at the White House. I noticed that a lot of men would come to see me who were very inexperienced, but they were convinced they should be the next secretary of defense. Very rarely would a woman do that. They would come in hesitantly. You would almost have to seek them out to push them into bigger jobs.

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Adam Bryant, deputy national editor of The New York Times, oversees coverage of education issues, military affairs, law, and works with reporters in many of the Times’ domestic bureaus. He also conducts interviews with CEOs and other leaders for Corner Office, a weekly feature in the SundayBusiness section and on nytimes.comthat he started in March 2009. In his book, The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed, (Times Books), he analyzes the broader lessons that emerge from his interviews with more than 70 leaders. To read an excerpt, please click here.

His more recent book, Quick and Nimble: Lessons from Leading CEOs on How to Create a Culture of Innovation, was also also published by Times Books (January 2014). To contact him, please click here.