Condren - Ambition is not a dirty word: a womans guide to earning her worth and achieving her dreams

Contents

For Devin, Stephen, and Jake,
my parents, Marjorie and Tommy Condren,
Ella Martin Boyes Daily
and The Girlfriends

Let's reclaim ambition as a virtue, not a dirty word:

ambitious woman } noun (def.) a woman who:

1. earns her worth

2. has more power

3. gets the recognition she deserves

4. has the determination to go after her dreams and can do it with integrity and without guilt

Author's Note

A number of women shared with me their personal stories and thoughts about ambition, which are incorporated in this book. Some stories represent composites of many women. In order to disguise the individuals involved, certain names and some of the identifying characteristics of women depicted have been significantly changed to such an extensive degree that any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. For those who are not composites, the woman is identified by first and last name. The ideas, techniques, and advice in this book are not intended as a substitute for consultation with a qualified professional.

one

Wouldn't It Be Great?

SHE'S a staple of movies, novels, and TV: the hard-charging female executive in her Armani power suit and Manolo heels. She's smart, aggressive, successfuland most people can't wait to see her get her well-deserved comeuppance. When her fall from grace over her latest business failure or scandal lands her above the fold in the newspaper, it seems only right that she gets knocked to her knees.

Let's face it, there's just one word that our culture bestows on that supremely ambitious woman who unrepentantly values a career: bitch. It's our prevailing cultural paradigm: ambitious men are go-getters, but ambitious women are bitches.

It's been open season on ambitious women for a long time. It's been almost twenty years since Madonna made her then-outrageous claim that she wanted to rule the world. Despite her largely making good on her promise with an astonishingly successful multimedia empire, the media stories trumpeting her alleged foibles (trendily embracing Kabbalah, creating new personas, kissing women to grab headlines, being the unconventional mom) outnumber tenfold the stories broadcasting her entrepreneurial triumphs. Jennifer Lopez, her contemporary doppel-gnger, gets the same treatment, with far more ink spilled on her marital merry-go-round than on her business savvy with a successful line of clothes and perfume on top of her acting and recording successes.

When Carly Fiorina was ousted as chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard, how many people, women and men alike, felt that she got what she deserved, either because she'd lost sight of the fact that she was a woman and had overshot her ambitious mark, or because she was being punished for forgetting her female roots and sisterly loyalties in her climb to the top? Ohand Carly's crowning deficiency? She chose not to be a mother.

On the other hand, each time the media reports an interview with yet another professional woman who has seen the light and taken time out for motherhood, everyone breathes a collective sigh of relieffinally, this woman has figured out what's really important.

No wonder so many women simultaneously crave and fear their ambitious goals.

Wouldn't it be great if women could ignore what our culture thinks about high-achieving women and eliminate the fear part of our ambition equation? Just imagine how that would change our perspective.

Can You Imagine?

Wouldn't it be great if you could reclaim and redefine ambition in its most gloriously positive sense? Wouldn't it be great if you could look yourself in the eye in the mirror and, with pride and without ambivalence, say, I am ambitious. Wouldn't it be great if you could say thatand feel itwithout cringing ever so slightly? Wouldn't it be inspiring if you could acknowledge straight up, to yourself and to others, that you have big, wild, and precious professional goals? That you crave excellence? Wouldn't it feel great to challenge yourself fiercely? To unapologetically derive a big part of your self-worth from your professional identity?

And wouldn't it be great if you could experience all that as a virtue, not a vice?

Wouldn't it be great if you believed that you could be audaciously ambitious and happy at the same time? Wouldn't it feel great to trust that you could be determined to achieve your career goals without compromising your personal life, but rather enhancing it? Wouldn't it be so freeing to acknowledge, in your core, that your ambitious goals were sacrosanct, just as inviolable as other nonnegotiable priorities in your life?

Wouldn't it be such a relief to know deep down that you are great at what you do? Wouldn't you love to learn to shut upand shut outthat nagging inner critic that sometimes warns, Watch out... who do you think you are? Aren't you getting too big for your breeches? You're just an impostor heading for a searing humiliation! Wouldn't you feel fabulous if you could bitch-slap that doubting voice in your head that accuses you of not having earned your spot at the grown-ups table, of not deserving your share of the power, the recognition, the creditand the money? And wouldn't it be thrilling if you could then pull up to that power table with a relaxed sense of professional entitlement and an inner voice that says, I've worked hard for this place. I'm worthy. This is my time to shine?

Wouldn't it be great if you felt comfortable making sure that you get recognition for your contributions without apology and without fear? Wouldn't it feel great if you could walk into a meeting and know how to take credit for your work without feeling guilty about it, and also how to reclaim stolen credit that is rightfully yours? What if you had the know-how, confidence, and guts to confront someone who was shamelessly trying to steal your thunder? What if you could do that with grace and aplomb that earned you self-respect and the admiration of your coworkers? Wouldn't it feel great to walk into your boss's or client's office and demand in a disarming but utterly firm way to be paid what you're worth? Without worrying that you might not be giving them their money's worth? Without being afraid that you'll be fired or lose an offer, a promotion, or some other opportunity? And without always feeling that one way or the other you will ultimately have to back down, oh so submissively?