A Resolution for the New Year, Go-Getter Girl style
For all their good intentions, New Year’s resolutions can lack staying power. There’s never a perfect time–and it never gets easier– to make changes in your life or career, so Go-Getter Girls tend to just bite the bullet and get to it. In the spirit of this tackle-the-hard-stuff attitude, here’s a thought-provoking passage from a book I read over the holidays, Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee. The book follows the post-college life of protaganist Casey, a Princeton-educated New Yorker (from Queens) and daughter to Korean parents who own a drycleaner. She’s not sure what she wants to do with her life and is kind of stuck — hampered by debt from overspending habits; too prideful to ask others for help when it comes to her career; and too individualistic to embrace the traditional path her parents want: go to either medical or law school (with business school a barely acceptable, very distant third) and marry a Korean boy. At one point, frustrated with Casey’s lax attitude toward (to put it bluntly), getting her sh*t together in general, her workplace/big picture mentor, Sabine, who owns the boutique where Casey’s been a part-time sales associate for years, delivers a wake-up call speech that is full of GGG wisdom.
“Listen Casey . . . ” Sabine talked faster and louder because the girl’s attention was slipping. ”Every minute matters. Every damn second. All those times you turn on the television or go to the movies or shop for things you don’t need. . . every time you sleep with the wrong man and wait for him to call you back, you’re wasting your life. Your life. Your life matters Casey. Every second. And by the time you’re my age– you’ll see that for every day and every last moment spent, you were making a choice. And you’ll see that the time you had, that you were given, was wasted. It’s gone. And you cannot have any of it back.” Sabine tiled her head her eyes full of worry. ”Oh my darling, do you see that?”
. . . Sabine reached across the table to cover Casey’s hand. “I’m not saying you can’t f*ck it up. I’m just saying you should be making the mistakes as you head toward your goals. Okay?” . . .”If you made the hard choices and tried to live by them, you’d be at greater peace with yourself.” [pp. 168-169]
The passage acts as a sort of turning point in the story (don’t you want to find out what Casey does next?!) and– if you’ll let me indulge my inner English major!– represents the crux of the dichotomy facing each of the book’s characters, and most of us at one time or another: fulfillment vs. happiness.
The New Year is a great time to consider, Are your actions helping you move towards your life goals, or just making you feel good in the moment? Are you making the hard choices?
Here’s to making every moment count in 2010. Happy New Year!
GGG Finds: A few recent favorite things
Visiting around the country for the book tour I’ve discovered lots of fun, useful items. All of the following are Go-Getter Girl approved!
- Luna Bar “Minis”: only 80 calories, for when you only need two bites of healthy goodness, not a full energy bar. So cute and delish.
- MedeTate by DERMAdoctor: So far, these pantent-pending, anti-sweat towlettes REALLY DO work, more effective than Secret or Degree Clinical Strength, et al. I almost can’t believe it.
- Searle Collection dresses. Compliment-getting sheath dresses that are smart/sophisticated/sexy and come in great jewel colors. Found mine for under $200 at Tootsie’s, but seems like they might be more expensi
ve online, not sure why. - Fresh Soy Face Cleanser: A gentle, non-drying cleanser that gets eye makeup off. Yummy fragrance, too.
- CVS spray hand sanitizer: Non-slimy and discreet anti-germ solution.
- Moleskin Ruled Notebooks. I’m a fan of the Moleskin Reporter notebooks, and received these lovely, thin red journals as a gift from Books, Inc. in San Francisco. Can’t wait to use them!
Making Facebook Friends at 30,000 feet
Part of the Go-Getter Girl philosophy behind Expanding your Circle is that you never know when and where you’re going to make a meaningful connection with someone new. For me last week, it was on a flight back to Atlanta from New York. My neighbor had asked me to give up my beloved aisle seat to sit next to his wife, and I obliged, a little begrudgingly. Then, the woman in the row ahead of me, Iris, kindly offered to let me sit in the empty aisle seat next to her. Turned out she was from Atlanta, a successful businesswoman… and fellow author, too! We chatted about the publishing world, family, cooking (she wrote a cookbook for young adults titled Mama Says, No More Frozen Pizza), traveling, life in general– and the joys of using the new inflight wireless internet. She even Facebook “friended” me at 30,000 feet. Today, she wrote about our fun flight and the book on her blog, Mama Says. Check it out here!
Moral of the story: try to always keep an open mind. It can make life (and traveling) much more fun.
Mid-point Negotiation at the Jade Market in Hong Kong
Modern negotiation scholars advocate getting away from position-based bargaining in favor of “interest-based” bargaining- that is, trying to find a ‘win-win’ situation by looking at what each party’s interests are. However, as I write in the GGGG, there are some situations in life where interest-based negotiation simply isn’t practical or the norm. One of those is the classic market haggling situation.
Case in point, we were just in Hong Kong, where there’s a pretty standard convention for how the market vendors bargain. First, you ARE expected to haggle. The vendors almost won’t respect you if you don’t. Second, the process is almost completely position-based. She offers a price, by typing the amount in the calculator and showing it to you. You say no, no, no– and type in another price on the calculator and show it back. This goes back and forth, you eventually threaten to and then begin to walk away. Then the vendor comes down on price, typing a lower price into the calculator. You might ask if she’ll throw in something else (a smidgen of “expanding the pie”/interest-based bargaining here) for the quoted price. You either come to an agreement or not– and move on to the next vendor, who more or less carries the exact same items!
The reason for the calculator is partly because there is a language barrier– English vs. Cantonese in our case. One savvy merchant at the Jade Market on Kowloon had these printed up cards in English, and she laid down one (in succession, the first card is at top) each time we punched a too low number into the calculator. We thought this is was ingenious and had to laugh. Who knows if she meant to amuse us, or maybe, that was part of her strategy. Bottom line, she was a seriously shrewd, no-budging position-based bargainer. At her stall, we definitely overpaid for our “jade” tchotchkes– but the experience and photos were it worth it :)
Was Helen Gurley Brown a feminist– and a Go-Getter Girl?
Earlier this week I spoke at a bookclub for Ed2010 (a great org for magazine editor-types) alongside author Jennifer Scanlon, a professor of gender and women’s studies who wrote Bad Girls Go Everywhere, a biography of famed Cosmo editor Helen Gurley Brown (or HGB, as she is called). Scanlon argues, somewhat controversially, that HGB should be credited as an antecedent of Third Wave feminism– i.e., the more individualistic strain of feminism that emerged in the 1990s.
One hot-button topic discussed was if/how HGB used sexuality to get ahead in work and in life. She admittedly slept with a few bosses (though said a woman can’t sleep her way to the top) and told women that “A lady’s love should pay for all trips, most restaurant tabs and all liquor.” Some of the young women in the group took issue with her ‘calculated’ methods, and questioned HGB’s feminist legacy. One girl asked something to the effect of, “How could you call [Cosmo] a feminist publication today if every cover says 105 ways to please your man?”
As an advocate for women being sexually liberated, taking care of themselves physically and emotionally, advancing professionally, and most-important, earning their own money, HGB was obviously an original type of Go-Getter Girl. However, as I write in the GGGG, I do think there’s a big difference between using your sexuality to get ahead and embracing your femininity in the workplace. GGGs don’t do the former, period!
On another note, one of the young women at the event was a Columbia grad who has been on the job hunt for a minute. She asked me a few questions about job searching for her blog, Ivy Leagued and Unemployed. You can check out the post here! http://bit.ly/47RJJC.
Coming up next, a primer on negotiation, Hong Kong market-style!
The Importance of Having Allies in the Workplace
This week’s “Corner Office” column in the New York Times features a great interview with Gilt Groupe CEO Susan Lyne, a Go-Getter Girl who happens to run a company that sells great clothes for your GGG wardrobe (if you’re not a member of Gilt Groupe, sign up now!). Anyway, in the article, Susan make a great point about one thing b-schools don’t teach you: how to mobilize those around you and persuade them to help you get stuff done. In the article Susan explains:
“The people who truly succeed in business are the ones who actually have figured out how to mobilize people who are not their direct reports. Everyone can get their direct reports towork for them, but getting people who do not have to give you their time to engage and to support you and to want you to succeed is something that is sorely missing from B-school courses.”
This is a critical GGG concept, what we talk about in the chapter called “Find allies and advocates” in the book. In order to succeed, you need many people your corner who will help you achieve your goals. This could be your boss, your secretary, your coworkers– in your own and different departments; essentially, people who respect you and admire your work and have a role in helping you get your projects and goals accomplished. If you don’t have any allies in your workplace, start building those relationships STAT!
Love it! Paperless Post
Over the summer I received a beautiful invitation to a Fourth of July party. I opened the envelope with delight, to find an elegant, textured card with red and blue sunburst designs, all letterpress- and fancy-looking. But this invite didn’t arrive in my mailbox. It arrived in my inbox, from Paperless Post.
If you haven’t already discovered this electronic invitation site, you will soon fall in love. Calling a Paperless Post creation an ‘e-vite’ doesn’t really do it justice. You can choose the paper type, color, design, motif, font, even an envelope liner– just like you would for a traditional engraved invitation, but without the hassle of wrangling mailing addresses. Plus, it’s affordable ($10 for 150 “stamps,” aka invites sent), and very “green.” Here’s a draft of an invite I’m working on for an upcoming book launch event at Georgetown Cupcake in DC. Don’t know if this design will make the final cut… there are just so many options from which to choose!
Are FitFlops the new Crocs?
The other day at Pilates class, the lady to my left, the lady to my right, and me each sported a pair of thick-soled, bright-colored plastic slip-ons. “How long have you had yours?” asked one. “Do they work?” asked the teacher. These aren’t Crocs we’re all wearing. They’re FitFlops.
You’ve probably seen or heard of them by now– these “biomechanically engineered” sandals that promise benefits from improved posture and leg muscle tone to reduced cellulite. Something maybe you didn’t know is that the flops are the brainchild of Go-Getter Girl Marcia Kilgore, who founded Bliss Spas… and sold it to LVMH for a reported $30 million. It’s safe to say this gal is a marketing genius.
So, do FitFlops actually work? The website does feature some positive study results from “The Centre for Human Performance” and scores of testimonials.
My unscientific analysis: I think the actual Pilates classes are doing much more for leg toning in my life than the shoes I wear to and from the gym! However, having worn mine for many months, FitFlops are extremely comfy and tons more supportive than the average Havania-flat flip flop. They can be worn all day running errands, hitting up the mall, etc., without arch or ankle discomfort. That’s something.
One little quibble with the shoes: Can’t they make them just a *wee bit* cuter?!
The Go-Getter Girl’s Guide is NOW in stores!
Sorry guys for being MIA! Been a little hectic with launching the book, which is now available in stores! Check it out on Barnes & Noble!
Back with a new post next week:)
Bobbi Brown’s Ivy League Collection
Remember when you’d get all excited about planning the perfect outfit for the first day of school? Then you entered the work world, and the big fall debut is less about a first day of class “reveal” and more about that first chilly day when you can finally break out out your new tall boots, or colorful coat, or sassy autumnal lipcolor.
Clever marketers they are, Bobbi Brown has put that “back-to-school” feeling into makeup with its new fall “Ivy League” collection, featuring a range of preppy meets classy meets sexy offerings. Standouts include the creamy eye pencils, available in a range of rich, feathery hues like Dusk and Caviar. The muted-jewel shades blend in almost like an eyeshadow and have just enough color to brighten your eyes (and your day) but still feel daytime appropos.
For nighttime try the pearlized limited edition shadow in Golden Leaf– a goldtone neutral with a hint of smoke– or the Forest Shimmer Gel Eyeliner, a long wearing, glamorous deep green. 
You’ll feel first in class (couldn’t resist 
).
Photo credit: Bobbi Brown
