Jaclyn Johnson - WorkParty: How to Create & Cultivate the Career of Your Dreams

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Gallery Books

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Copyright 2018 by Create & Cultivate, LLC

Note to readers: Certain names have been changed.

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First Gallery Books hardcover edition August 2018

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All illustrations courtesy of Chloe White

Interior design by Davina Mock-Maniscalco

Jacket design by Chloe White

Jacket photograph by Caroline Lee

Hair by Kristin Ess Makeup by Daniele Piersons

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Johnson, Jaclyn, author.

Title: WorkParty : how to create & cultivate the career of your dreams / Jaclyn Johnson.

Other titles: Work party

Description: New York : Gallery Books, 2018.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018014251| ISBN 9781501190834 (hardback) | ISBN 9781501190841 (trade paper) | ISBN 9781501190858 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: WomenEmploymentUnited States. | Sex discrimination against womenUnited States. | BusinesswomenUnited States. | Success in businessUnited States. | Job satisfaction. | BISAC: BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Entrepreneurship.

Classification: LCC HD6095 .J64 2018 | DDC 650.1dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018014251

ISBN 978-1-5011-9083-4

ISBN 978-1-5011-9085-8 (ebook)

For JoAnn, my unofficial cofounder, my sometimes accountant, but always my mother.

I love you.

And to Arianna Schioldager and Dana Kelly, who helped me turn the last eleven years of my life into 62,899 words. Eternally grateful to you for joining me on this wild ride.

H ard work = the American Dream. This is what I was raised on.

WorkParty = the new American Dream. Or, rather, thats what Im proposing. What I mean is: WorkParty is the hard work that the American dream is based on, but driven by passion rather than necessity. When youre workpartying, you dont clock in or out, but tune into every minute because you are a part of something you love.

And its unbelievably hard.

As a young professional in my twenties, I suffered two massive blows. I looked, leapt, moved across the country for a job, and then I was abruptly let go. Attempting to turn that door into a window, I launched a promising company with a trusted business partner, but soon discovered that she had made some detrimental decisions for the company without my knowledge. I went through a brutal business breakup. I was twenty-four.

But it was worthwhileby the time I was thirty-two, I had sold a company, launched a much-buzzed-about new one, bought my first home, found the love of my life, and had a million ups and downs in between.

How?

By turning distrust into determination, frustration into fuel, and heartache into hard work.

Oh yeah, and that determination, fuel, and hard work? It can be so. much. fun.

Not because my office is filled with streamers and champagne. Hardly. Its spreadsheets and team meetings, where I happen to be surrounded by other strong women. Together, were all creating and cultivating the careers of our dreams together. We leaned in, and now we are standing up. We are redefining work for a new generation of women who want it all and more, and guess what? They can have it and so can you.

I am not the Wolf of Wall Street; I am not Tony Robbins here to espouse my great theories on life; this is not a marketing scheme. Rather, WorkParty is the lessons I learned and the advice I wish Id gotten when I was twenty-one and at my first major job. Or when I was twenty-four, bright-eyed and a bit nave, launching my first company with a business partner. Or twenty-eight and striking out on my own. Or even thirty, having created and cultivated a community of over five hundred thousand women.

So consider this my official invitation to you to start your own #workparty. Where creative and entrepreneurial women celebrate each others successes. Where you can celebrate your own achievements because you are doing it all yourself, unabashedly, at the best bash the workplace has ever known. Because, listen, the joy has been sucked out of our careers for far too long. And were bringing it back. Who said business had to be boring?

These are my experiences, these are the hard-fought lessons I learned, and this is your guide to making it all happen and more.

Work hard. Party on.

Y ou arent good or bad at anything you havent tried. You cant fear what you havent figured out yet, and sometimes navet can be the best business strategy of all.

But sometimes you might try something, give it your all, even move across the country for it, and get fired. Or, ahem , politely let go.

Thats the beginning of my story, at least, but lets back up a little bit.

I started my career during a time I like to call P.E.

Pre-exclamation. Pre-emoji. There was no such thing as a hashtag either.

No one was livestreaming their lives, outfits, or meals. And I truly believed life was somewhat like a rom-com: work hard, move to the big city, a dashing dude sweeps you off your feet, and you live happily ever after in your apartment that is always spotless, right? Wrong.

But there I was, a recent graduate of NYU, and like so many other women who trekked the sidewalks of Manhattan in heels before me (before you realize you need to bring flats with you everywhere because, again, #notlikeamovie), I was eager to crush it at my career. The big-corner-office, chic-power-suit, boss-haircut, eager-assistant, town-car kind of crushing it. And for a minute, it was working. I dyed my hair black and spent a critical few minutes every day blow-drying my side-swooping bangs. Think big belts and boho bags. Sure, I was dating a club promoternot exactly the sort of partner who shared my corner-office goals, no, but he did facilitate some wild nights that ended with sunrises and pizza slices.