Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead_. But Gutsy Girls Do - Kate White [94]
Well, as so often happens when there's nothing to lose, I performed terrifically, the way Olympic figure skaters do during the closing night exhibition after all the medals have been awarded. I was relaxed, loose, daring. (I also think the pregnancy hormones coursing through my system provided me with extra oomph.) When the owner asked what I would do with Working Woman, I found myself totally inspired and energized. I pulled ideas out of the air, I painted a thrilling future for the magazine, and I even jumped to my feet several times to make a point. I did everything, actually, but perform a number from Cats. With nothing at stake, I gave a great interview—and much to my shock was offered the job three days later.
The night I accepted the position, I lay in bed ruminating about the risk I was taking. What if I delivered early? What if the baby had a three-month case of colic like my first child had? But over the next few days those risks began to pale in comparison to another one. You see, as I started to take a closer look at the magazine (compared to the perfunctory glance I'd given it before the interview), I realized I didn't “get it” or relate to it on any level. It was filled with dense, specialized articles like “How Leasing Employees Saves Time and Money.” “Sweet Success in Sales Automation,” and “How to Keep Your Finger on the Pulse of Productivity.” The reader obviously spoke some kind of secret language that I had no familiarity with. I began to feel this sickening sense that I had bitten off more than I could chew. How could I generate ideas on subject matter I knew nothing about? It was as if I'd accepted the job as editor of Astrophysics magazine, or, worse, had taken a job as an astrophysicist. I felt like I was living the nightmare of the actor who finds herself in a play for which she has never learned the lines.
It was my husband who helped me see the light, as I sat there bemoaning my fate several days before I started.
“Its just new-job anxiety,” he said.
“No, it isn't,” I snapped. “I can't do this job. I know nothing about the subject matter, nothing about the reader.”
“How can you say that?” he asked, astonished. “Aren't you a working woman?”
I thought a moment and then began to laugh. He was right, of course. I might be in a more “artsy” line of work than the middle managers in the target audience, but nonetheless I supervised people, oversaw a budget, hired and fired. I wasn't nearly the outsider I'd convinced myself I was.
That day I reached a new conclusion about risk: 85 percent of the terror a risk generates depends on the perspective you choose to have.
WHY GOOD GIRLS HATE RISKY BUSINESS
Taking risks is an essential part of success in business. A survey of 600 professional men and women at large companies by Wick and Company, a management consulting firm, found that 60 percent defined their crucial developmental experiences as “being at risk in a novel or unsupervised environment.”
A risk could mean pushing the envelope and attempting something on the cutting edge in your approach to your job. It could also mean taking on a new job that isn't one notch above the one you have, but two or three.
Without risk taking, you can never have any major success. Frank Farley, a psychologist and professor at the University of Wisconsin, who has studied both risk taking and the elements of life success, says the two are completely intertwined. “All my research has pointed to the fact that success equals self-knowledge plus motivation—and self-knowledge comes from