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

about in this section, as well as the rest of the book. You may be just beginning in a particular job or field, but in order to score your first major successes, you’re going to have to go big—with your job search, the interviewing process, your early career moves, everything.
    In this world of the supersized, going big is, in fact, probably more important now than ever. Everything seems to be bolder and even more badass. When Cosmo interviewed Pink after the birth of her daughter, she told us she was going to get back into the game full throttle. “I want my album to be really great, and I want to do an amazing tour. I’m going to up the ante, even if it means covering myself in Velcro, lighting myself on fire, and shooting myself out of a cannon. I’ll do that, no prob.”
    I’m not suggesting you shoot yourself out of a cannon, but you need to push the envelope these days.
    You have to be strategic, though, and assess your surroundings first. If you’re in a new job, how much (from what you can tell) will your new work culture welcome the big idea, the bold new strategy? How much will your boss welcome it? What kind of big ideas is your boss likely to be receptive to? Good bosses will respond positively and love you for it.
    A small warning: when you go big, whether it’s early in your career or later, there will be people wishing you had gone home instead. Perhaps you’re pulling off a feat someone else wishes she’d thought of or you’re infringing on her turf—at least in her own mind. Or maybe one of your accomplishments has necessitated a change in someone else’s daily work MO and that person now has to take care of business each morning rather than spending an hour nibbling on his blueberry muffin. You may end up with a few haters.
    Regardless, you can’t get caught up in worrying about whether everyone you work with likes you. Ultimately you want the respect of your coworkers, but you don’t need them to be your buddies. No one says this better than Mika Brzezinski, the cohost of MSNBC’s Morning Joe , whom I asked to write a work column for Cosmo. “Look, it took me twenty-five years in television news and writing two books to realize that it doesn’t matter if everyone adores me,” she says. “Being liked is what women strive for. But when you make that mistake, it diverts your attention from more important tasks at hand.”
    So go big, love the thrill of it and the prizes it brings, but know that when you make a big move, it creates a big breeze, and that can sometimes ruffle feathers.

{ What Are You Really Lusting For? }
    O ne day at Cosmo my art director, John, was driving to a photo shoot in a van with a bunch of twenty-something models. All of a sudden one of the male models noticed that the van was headed out of Manhattan, and when he asked for an explanation, he learned for the first time that the shoot was in the suburbs and the group wouldn’t be returning to the city until at least nine that evening. “Wait,” he told John. “I’ve got plans with a girl tonight. I can’t get back that late.”
    “Sorry,” John told him. “Your booker should have explained the situation. There’s nothing I can do now.”
    Ten minutes later, just as the van was approaching the entrance to the highway out of the city, the model clutched his abdomen and began to moan. “Can you pull over?” he muttered to the driver. “I feel sick.” Once the van stopped, the model stepped outside, leaned over for a moment as if he was about to hurl the contents of his stomach, and then, yup, stood up and took off down the street like a bat out of hell, never again to be seen by the Cosmo crew.
    I burst out laughing when I heard the story the next day. “Well,” I said to John, “at least the guy knows what his priorities are.”
    One thing almost all the successful women I know have in common: they’re doing something they really love and that matters to them. Your chances of being a success are much