Being named America’s top diplomat is the career goal of many in Washington. But not Rex Tillerson.

The former chief executive of Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM, -1.61% and current U.S. secretary of state said he wasn’t particularly interested in the job, and all the pomp and circumstance that came with it, until his wife pushed him, according to a profile published Tuesday by the conservative website Independent Journal Review.

“ ‘I didn’t want this job. I didn’t seek this job. . . My wife told me I’m supposed to do this.’ ” — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson

Tillerson told IJR reporter Erin McPike, who was the only reporter allowed to travel with Tillerson on his recent trip to Asia, that he had never met Donald Trump before the then-president-elect asked to talk with him about the global issues he faced leading Exxon.

“When he asked me at the end of that conversation to be secretary of state, I was stunned,” Tillerson said.

Tillerson, who had planned on retiring from Exxon in March and going “to the ranch to be with my grandkids,” said his wife, Renda St. Clair, made him take the job offer seriously.

“ ‘I told you God’s not through with you,’ ” he said she told him.

His initial doubts about the job appear to have vanished. “My wife convinced me. She was right. I’m supposed to do this,” he said, saying he was still learning the job. “I would hope that people can maintain their patience in these early days and recognize I’ve only been at it six weeks,” he said.

Tillerson’s not the only member of Trump’s Cabinet who didn’t want the position at first. In November, now-HUD Secretary Ben Carson said he didn’t want a Cabinet nomination. “Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he’s never run a federal agency,” Carson adviser Armstrong Williams told The Hill at the time.