I Shouldn't Be Telling You This: Success Secrets Every Gutsy Girl Should Know Read Free

mark if you concentrate solely on the assignments you’re given.
    I hope I haven’t made your heart start to pound in fear. Sure, new jobs are challenging, but they’re exciting, too—they’re where you first get a taste of success and can begin to run with it.
    And though, as I said before, no one in your workplace may pull up a chair, plop down beside you, and explain the ropes, I intend to do that—right now. This section of the book is all about scoring your first successes. You’ll find strategies for figuring out what your calling in life is, nailing a job interview, knocking your new boss’s socks off, trusting your gut, handling coworkers successfully, asking for what you want, generating buzz, separating yourself from the pack, and finally, propelling yourself to the next big level of your career.

{ Rule #1: Go Big or Go Home }
    I once heard someone famous say that what separates successful people from the unsuccessful ones is their willingness to work really, really hard. Sure, hard work is part of the equation, and so are well-honed skills. And in certain cases, success is even somewhat about the people you know. But I think those factors get you only so far. From what I’ve seen again and again, success is most often the result of doing the bold extra something that no one else has thought of or dared to try.
    I call it the go-big-or-go-home strategy. And before I even talk about the ins and outs of gaining your first career successes, I need to stress the importance of going big. It’s a strategy you need to use now and during every other stage of your career.
    You’ve heard the phrase “go big or go home,” right? My first encounter with it was about five or six years ago. A young staffer used it when she was talking about her plans for Saturday night. What she meant was that if she wasn’t willing to give the whole night an extra push—with her outfit, her hair, her makeup, her attitude—she should bag the entire thing.
    I secretly co-opted that phrase for everything I did in the next years at Cosmo. The magazine is geared toward fun, fearless females, and from the moment I arrived I tried to factor that into my approach. But I liked having a specific mantra to work with. With every photo, article, and cover line I began to ask myself: did I go big or go home with it? If the answer was that I went home, I gave myself a swift kick in the butt and rethought what I was doing.
    Soon I began using that mantra in other parts of my life. And as I thought about it, I realized that most of my successes—and the successes of women I knew—always involved going big. Doing a job well is not enough. The key is to do more than what’s expected, power it up, go balls to the wall.
    Going big doesn’t always have to involve some huge undertaking. You can go big in key little ways, too. Here’s a sampling of how I’ve used the strategy in my own career.
    •  When I was up for my first big job—as editor in chief of Child magazine—the headhunter mentioned that the magazine was looking for someone who was “mediagenic.” So right before my first interview, I had my hair professionally blown out and styled. And I swear that my long, flowing, “mediagenic” locks helped me land the job.
    •  When I shot a cover of Pierce Brosnan, his partner, Keely Shaye Smith, and their newborn for Redbook , they asked the photographer to take a few pictures of the baby breast-feeding for them to keep personally. But when I saw those photos, I decided, with the couple’s permission, to run one as the cover image. That photo literally became news around the world.
    •  When one of my top staffers at a magazine resigned to take another job, I didn’t just graciously (or grumpily) accept her resignation. I wrote a memo called “Ten Reasons You Shouldn’t Leave” and left it on her chair. She decided to turn down the offer and stay.
    You’ll see the “going big” theme running through everything I talk