In this episode of Boss Files, Wall Street Powerhouse Carla Harris, she's vice chairman of Morgan Stanley and a woman who had broken glass ceiling after glass ceiling.

She was the first African American man or woman to join Morgan Stanley's management committee.

A Harvard grad, she's defied numerous naysayers along the way and never

taken no for an answer. Not only has she reached the pinnacle of professional success, she's an acclaimed

gospel singer and a new mother as well. Here's my in-depth conversation with Carla Harris.

Carla Harris, so nice to meet you. Thank you for doing this. Very nice to meet you, Poppy. Thank you for having it. You have quite the resume, and the latest edition, the most important addition to it, is being a mom of a 20-month-old little girl, so we'll get to that in a moment. But let's begin with this. You were no question of first. You joined Morgan Stanley back in 1987.

You became the first black person ever, man or woman, to join the Morgan Stanley Management Committee.

Your road here has not been an easy one, that's for sure.

And you were told by people you could never make it here.

Sure.

You proved them all wrong.

Absolutely. And along the way no matter who you are, there's always going to be detractors.

But there was certainly people who said, you know, there's not anybody that looks like you

that's doing what you're doing, you know, do your very best.

But the one thing that you ought to know about me, Poppy, is that I am negatively motivated. So when you tell me I can't do something, I am all over it like a bad smell. And if anything, it really pushes me even further to go forward, especially if somebody thinks that I can't do it. Have you always been negatively motivated? I mean, walk us back to what your childhood was like and what made you that way. Well, I'll say that I had, in my opinion, a great childhood because my parents brought me up in a no-excuces household. So I could never make an excuse, oh, I didn't get that grade because the teacher didn't like me or this happened or that happened. And so I could never really run to race or gender, you know, as the first base anyway, as to why

something didn't happen.

And the other thing that my parents did that I thought was quite effective is that they always

made me feel that I was supposed to do well.

So when I came home, I'll never forget one day and said,

Daddy, Daddy, you owe me a lot of money.

I made a great report card. And he said, what are you talking about? I said, so-and-so's mama give them a dollar for every age. So-and-so's dad's 50 cents. And he's like, what? You're supposed to do well. See what happens if you don't do well. I'm not giving you any money for that.

So again, my takeaway was, oh, I'm supposed to do well.

...