Falconer - How to get sh*t done: why women need to stop doing everything so they can achieve anything

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North Star Way

An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 2018 by Erin Falconer

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address North Star Way Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First North Star Way hardcover edition January 2018

NORTH STAR WAY and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Some names and identifying characteristics have been changed.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or .

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Interior design by Davina Mock-Maniscalco

Jacket design by Zoe Norvell

Author photograph by Louis Delavenne/Revolutionpix

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Falconer, Erin, author.

Title: How to get sh*t done : why women need to stop doing everything so they can achieve anything / by Erin Falconer.

Other titles: How to get shit done

Description: New York, NY : North Star Way, [2018]

Identifiers: LCCN 2017036021 (print) | LCCN 2017045585 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501165795 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501165788 (hardcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Self-realization in women. | Time management. | Work. | Success.

Classification: LCC HQ1206 (ebook) | LCC HQ1206 .F173 2018 (print) | DDC 158.1082--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017036021

ISBN 978-1-5011-6578-8

ISBN 978-1-5011-6579-5 (ebook)

For Jocelyn and London, the past and the future

F rom the age of five until I graduated grade twelve, I went to the best private girls school in Winnipeg, Manitoba: Balmoral Hall. In grade nine, the best private boys school decided to let girls in. So I lost a third of my classmates, because naturally, the boys school was considered better. Wamp-wamp.

I was elected head girl. I was captain of the debate team. I graduated valedictorian. I went to the Oxford University summer program on a full scholarship. I played the sax.

The spring of my senior year I started doing stand-up comedy.

Shock was only outweighed by outrage, then, when I was wait-listed (!) at Harvard should I have gone to that stupid bloody boys school?!

And so I decided to do McGillCanadas Harvarda favor and show up there instead. Shock was only outweighed by outrage once again, when McGill let me know it didnt give a shit that I was therea fact that was duly reflected in my B first-year grades.

Undeterred, I doubled down on my studies. Learned how to smoke Gauloises cigarettes. Dated an Asian, an Israeli, and an Arab (theres a joke in there somewhere). You could say I got cosmopolitan fast . For the first time, I fell in love with a city and with poutine, and graduated with honors. I slayed my LSATs and was on the fast track to law school when I stopped and said to myself, Why make things easy?

So I moved to Toronto to become a writer.

With the firm knowledge that their daughter would lose sleep for a week if she scored less than 90 percent on anything including an eye exam, my parents were cautiously supportive, taking comfort in the fact that this act of joie de vivre would be a creative, fulfilling experiment that would, most definitely, end a year later with my acceptance into Osgoode Hall Law School.

Five years later, I sat across from my parents in a Toronto cafEggspectationbleary-eyed from another long, fun night of bartending. Theyd flown in for a polite, Canadian-style intervention. I recall my dad, a worried look on his face, saying, Youve given this enough time here.

I agree! I said, with all the confidence in the world. A relieved, I-knew-shed-start-thinking-rationally-again smile graced both my parents faces. Thats why Ive decided that, if I really want to give this dream a chance, I need to move to Los Angeles, I announced proudly.

And coffee was spat across the table.

Three days after 9/11, I flew back to Winnipeg, jumped in my parents old Camry, and drove across the border straight down to L.A.

I had no moneyC$700, to be exact. I had no papers. And no clue.

The next ten years were a total roller coaster. I worked a string of odd jobs. I finally got my working visa because my education gave me special status (thank God for Canadas Harvard!), and my parents mentioned my law career with less and less frequency. Things were looking good. I wrote five scripts, made two festival-nominated short films, rollerbladed on the boardwalk, lived in Venice Beach, fell madly in love, and became an honorary Angeleno. Everything was perfect. Until it wasnt.

About five years in, I suffered a major personal tragedy (that is a book unto itself). A year later, in 2008, the economy crashed. My partner and I lost everything.

We broke up.

I didnt have a car.

My house was being foreclosed upon.

My visa was up.

I was destroyed.

The words of my father screamed over and over in my head: Youve given this enough time. YOUVE GIVEN THIS ENOUGH TIME! I had completely messed up. If there was some path I was supposed to be on, I hadnt gotten the memo. Or maybe Id got it and ignored it. My whole life I had followed that little voice in my head telling me to go for it. As I looked at my ninety days to vacate letter from the bank, it seemed that voice had failed me.

I had wanted to show the world the person I knew was inside me, that ambitious chick who takes on the world. Instead, I was incapable of doing a single damn thing right. Even worse, I could barely find, much less pick up the pieces of, myself. I just didnt know who I was anymore, but I sure wasnt that confidence-of-ten-men girl I used to be.

So I gave up, put my tail between my legs, and planned my humiliating retreat to my parents house in Canada, complete with YOU TOLD ME SO tattooed on my forehead. I had to accept that I obviously wasnt destined to conquer L.A. I could barely pay my rent, much less make it as a writer. Sobbing, I started to pack up my life, readying for the move.

And in that lowest moment, my life started to take a turn.

Heres what I know to be true: If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.