This book contains a practical tool kit that will help potential women leaders reach higher levels. Helene Lerner has spoken and consulted at hundreds of companies where women struggle with confidence and the impostor syndrome--ironically, the more qualified women are, the more hesitant they are to take risky assignments. The chapters are organized around myths and truths that can either support or deter women from stepping up. Interspersed among the pages are Confidence Sparks, reflective exercises, and Power Tips to propel readers forward. While Lerner's book is built upon years of experience.
Not only do we need more female leaders at the top, but we need more women at all levels of business, government, and nonprofits to step up—there's no time to waste. The problem, says Helene Lerner, isn't so much that women lack confidence but that they misunderstand what confidence really is. True confidence isn't fearlessness; it's having the courage to jump in even when your knees are shaking. Any woman who waits until she feels 100 percent confident before offering a big idea or asking for a raise or promotion will never get anywhere. Drawing on her own and other female leaders' experiences, as well as on her survey of over 500 working women, Lerner lays out practical strategies for beating this confidence myth and overcoming obstacles like gender bias. The book features dozens of Confidence Sparks, simple but powerful exercises and techniques that can catapult anyone's career to the next level.
An Amazon Best Business Book of 2018 Selected by Audible as the Best Business Book of 2018 Named “Best New Book” by People Magazine and Refinery29 Named a Most Anticipated Title of April 2018 by Bustle and Levo A Women@Forbes “Boss Moves Book Club” pick A candid guide for ambitious women who want to succeed without losing themselves in the process Fran Hauser deconstructs the negative perception of "niceness" that many women struggle with in the business world. If women are nice, they are seen as weak and ineffective, but if they are tough, they are labeled a bitch. Hauser proves that women don’t have to sacrifice their values or hide their authentic personalities to be successful. Sharing a wealth of personal anecdotes and time-tested strategies, she shows women how to reclaim “nice” and sidestep regressive stereotypes about what a strong leader looks like. Her accessible advice and hard-won wisdom detail how to balance being empathetic with being decisive, how to rise above the double standards that can box you in, how to cultivate authentic confidence that projects throughout a room, and much more. THE MYTH OF THE NICE GIRL is a refreshing dose of forward-looking feminism that will resonate with smart, professional women who know what they want and are looking for real advice to take their career to the next level without losing themselves in the process.
Examining the thinking of great religious teachers, philosophers, and psychologists, the founder of one of the world's most successful forms of therapy teaches readers how to accept themselves--and others--unconditionally.
“Molfino explores female empowerment in her zesty debut. Women searching for ways to increase their self-worth and confidence will find many gems.” —Publishers Weekly Women: it’s time to break the good girl myths that are holding you back and share your true gifts with this groundbreaking book from Stanford University-trained designer and women’s leadership expert Majo Molfino. For thousands of years, women have been taught to be “good” instead of powerful. But when we embody the good girl, we hold back their voices and gifts in a world that desperately needs female perspectives. Drawing on countless coaching sessions and conversations with female leaders, Majo identifies five self-sabotaging tendencies (“the five Good Girl Myths”) every woman must overcome to unleash her power and design a more purposeful life: The Myth of Rules The Myth of Perfection The Myth of Logic The Myth of Harmony The Myth of Sacrifice While there are many women’s leadership books, Majo uses her knowledge and training in design thinking (which is used by the world’s most innovative people and companies) to help you build creative confidence and break free from these disempowering myths once and for all. Discover how each myth negatively affects your relationships, career, and well-being and identify your primary good girl myth—the blindspot that’s zapping most of your power as a creative badass. “An elegant, powerful framework for female liberation.” —Amber Rae, author of Choose Wonder over Worry “Smart, empowering, and practical . . . guides you in creating a better future for yourself—and the planet.” —BJ Fogg, PhD, New York Times–bestselling author
The "unputdownable" (Dave Eggers, National Book award finalist) story of the most infamous American con man you've never heard of: James Strang, self-proclaimed divine king of earth, heaven, and an island in Lake Michigan, "perfect for fans of The Devil in the White City" (Kirkus) A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Longlisted for the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist for the Midland Authors Annual Literary Award A Michigan Notable Book A CrimeReads Best True Crime Book of the Year "A masterpiece." —Nathaniel Philbrick In the summer of 1843, James Strang, a charismatic young lawyer and avowed atheist, vanished from a rural town in New York. Months later he reappeared on the Midwestern frontier and converted to a burgeoning religious movement known as Mormonism. In the wake of the murder of the sect's leader, Joseph Smith, Strang unveiled a letter purportedly from the prophet naming him successor, and persuaded hundreds of fellow converts to follow him to an island in Lake Michigan, where he declared himself a divine king. From this stronghold he controlled a fourth of the state of Michigan, establishing a pirate colony where he practiced plural marriage and perpetrated thefts, corruption, and frauds of all kinds. Eventually, having run afoul of powerful enemies, including the American president, Strang was assassinated, an event that was frontpage news across the country. The King of Confidence tells this fascinating but largely forgotten story. Centering his narrative on this charlatan's turbulent twelve years in power, Miles Harvey gets to the root of a timeless American original: the Confidence Man. Full of adventure, bad behavior, and insight into a crucial period of antebellum history, The King of Confidence brings us a compulsively readable account of one of the country's boldest con men and the boisterous era that allowed him to thrive.
Tired of trying to attain the mythical work-life balance and constantly feeling frustrated? Are you giving yourself a C– for your performances at work and at home? Teresa A. Taylor knows that trying to be a career woman and a mom can leave you feeling tired and defeated, and she wants you to take a new approach. She herself rapidly ascended through the ranks to become COO of a Fortune 200 company while raising two boys with her working husband, and in The Balance Myth, she shows you how you can do it too. Taylor takes you along to a meeting in the White House, to union negotiations, and to her sons’ soccer practices as she shares her candid, humorous, and heartfelt stories. Based on these real-life experiences and the lessons she learned from them, she shares the key to living with multiple responsibilities: integrating—not bifurcating—your personal and professional worlds. In addition, she offers insights about leading with integrity; surrounding yourself with positive resources; pushing through adversity; and celebrating accomplishments—especially your own. Taylor couldn’t take the mother out of the career woman or vice versa, and she believes that you shouldn’t have to either. Don’t search for balance; the answers are within you! -- Written in an engaging voice, Teresa Taylor, the high-profile COO of Qwest who orchestrated a $20 billion acquisition in the telecom industry, uses memoir and real-life examples to deliver valuable business perspectives that illustrate how she rose to the top of a Fortune 200 company while also raising her two sons with her working husband and maintaining fulfilling family relationships. Taylor illustrates that executives (as well as professionals with executive ambitions) don’t have to sacrifice a successful family life for a corner office position—and she provides the keys to managing these multiple responsibilities based on her experience.
The bestselling classic that redefined our view of the relationship between beauty and female identity. In today's world, women have more power, legal recognition, and professional success than ever before. Alongside the evident progress of the women's movement, however, writer and journalist Naomi Wolf is troubled by a different kind of social control, which, she argues, may prove just as restrictive as the traditional image of homemaker and wife. It's the beauty myth, an obsession with physical perfection that traps the modern woman in an endless spiral of hope, self-consciousness, and self-hatred as she tries to fulfill society's impossible definition of "the flawless beauty."
The Undiscovered Consumer . . .and the Mistake of Universal Excellence What do customers really want? And how can companies best serve them? Fred Crawford and Ryan Mathews set off on what they describe as an "expedition into the commercial wilderness" to find the answers. What they discovered was a new consumer -- one whom very few companies understand, much less manufacture products for or sell products or services to. These consumers are desperately searching for values, a scarce resource in our rapidly changing and challenging world. And increasingly they are turning to business to reaffirm these values. As one consumer put it: "I can find value everywhere but can't find values anywhere." Crawford and Mathews's initial inquiries eventually grew into a major research study involving more than 10,000 consumers, interviews with executives from scores of leading companies around the world, and dozens of international client engagements. Their conclusion: Most companies priding themselves on how well they "know" their customers aren't really listening to them at all. Consumers are fed up with all the fuss about "world-class performance" and "excellence." What they are aggressively demanding is recognition, respect, trust, fairness, and honesty. Believing that they are still in a position to dictate the terms of commercial engagement, businesses have bought into the myth of excellence -- the clearly false and destructive theory that a company ought to be great at everything it does, that is, all the components of every commercial transaction: price, product, access, experience, and service. This is always a mistake because "the predictable outcome [is] that the company ends up world-class at nothing; not well-differentiated and therefore not thought of by consumers at the moment of need." Instead, Crawford and Mathews suggest that companies engage in Consumer Relevancy, a strategy of dominating in one element of a transaction, differentiating on a second, and being at industry par (i.e., average) on the remaining three. It's not necessary for businesses to equally invest time and money on all five attributes, and their customers don't want them to. Imagine the confusion if Tiffany & Co. started offering deep discounts on diamonds and McDonald's began selling free-range chicken and tofu. The Myth of Excellence provides a blueprint for companies seeking to offer values-based products and services and shows how to realize the commercial opportunities that exist just beyond their current grasp -- opportunities to reduce operating costs, boost bottom-line profitability, and, most important, begin to engage in a meaningful dialogue with customers.
GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD WINNER FOR GRAPHIC NOVELS AND COMICS! These casually drawn, perfectly on-point comics by the hugely popular young artist Sarah Andersen are for the rest of us. They document the wasting of entire beautiful weekends on the internet, the unbearable agony of holding hands on the street with a gorgeous guy, and dreaming all day of getting home and back into pajamas. In other words, the horrors and awkwardnesses of young modern life. Oh and they are totally not autobiographical. At all. Adulthood Is a Myth presents many fan favorites plus dozens of all-new comics exclusive to this book. Sarah's frankness on personal issues like body image, self-consciousness, introversion, relationships, and the frequency of bra-washing makes her comics highly relatable and deeply hilarious, showcasing how she became one of the most influential voices in web cartoonists.
