Break a Rule, Bad Girl

How do bad girls finish first? They act free, take on challenges, break rules. If you don’t, it’s over. Constantly learn and change, be persuasive, dare to be different, have extraordinary stamina and never stop imagining possibilities. The bad girl mantra is “if you can imagine it, you can do it.”

Bad girls also know how to create teams of diverse people who are very loyal, yet also challenge and push their leader to achieve. And, they make sure that everyone remembers them as a bad girl because they don’t care about being a good girl. Bad girls finish first.

Tying Knot, but not Around Your Neck

Do good girls think marriage moves them along in their career? Will having an ordinary, less than supportive spouse take away from their drive and initiative? Do they think that having children will bring out their softer, more sensitive side to being a businesswoman? Or will that be cause for tossing their desire to wind?

>From my own personal and professional lifestyle choices to those of top businesswoman Carly Fiorina, CEO of H-P, there will always be some good girl lurking in background criticizing us. Yet, name of game is to just live your life. Since Carly is a better bad girl than I am and more well known, let’s zero in on her talents for a moment.

Grit, Guts and Luck

She has accomplished great things in business world; but when women size her up, they say she had this uncanny good fortune of working for one of few in America who made promoting women a top priority. Coincidentally, Carly also married a man who took early retirement and happened to have two children from a previous marriage. Many viewed this as a happy ‘instant’ family for Carly when, in fact, she most likely fell in love with a man and took on responsibility of nurturing a healthy relationship with his kids as well. Fortunately, with her smarts and ambition, she chose right man and right job for herself. Luck, guts, persistence and good timing made her life choices work for her in all respects. She chose to be a bad girl. Bad girls finish first.

It’s Not a Glass Ceiling -- It’s a Guyblock in Disguise

Remember saying, “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards.” Well, that’s us, bad girls! Now we just rev up our Harleys. The good girls let guys lead. The bad girls don’t. They size up guys from head to just below waist. They’re an aggressive group that knows how to bust through a guyblock in disguise.

What’s to fear? You can see through a glass ceiling, but not a guyblock. It’s rock solid and it holds you back, but not for long. Take your well-deserved seat in executive suite. Let’s show them what we’re made of. Aim for results, nothing less. Fear lies in eyes of beholder, and that beholder becomes guyblock. Let’s tackle and break their force. Go ahead, make their day. Good girls glaze at glass ceilings and forever wonder while bad girls tackle guyblocks. Be a bad girl.

Ambition -- Push Hard to Get to Top

I consider ambition to be something you can’t live without. Like oxygen, it’s something you need. To adjust your ambition to someone else’s lower level is to prepare yourself for death. Bad girls refuse to decrease their ambition, for it is a part of who they are.

Many times after completing an “ambitious” project, I have been asked, “Who told you that you could do that?” My response is “me.” It’s considered extremely ambitious, by good girls’ standards, to take your life into your own hands and just do what you feel like doing without worrying about what people will say or think. I find it liberating to do this, and I hope you will too. Compelling ambition is when you decide to do what you want to do, regardless of support or knowing in advance outcome. Push hard. Don’t take “no” for an answer. Be aggressive. Drive hard. Forget about what people think. It’s what YOU think that matters. Don’t let other people's mediocre expectations of you become truth about your life.

You good girls out there who have self-doubts and poor self-esteem, listen up! The bad girls are going to help you. Bad girls know that ambition is about unlocking, unbottling and unleashing your energy to reach your full potential. Bad girls know how to make their mark. They maintain clarity and initiative and don’t care about appearing combative -- they just do their jobs. You want to be a good girl? Fine, then you’re not going to get ahead, because bad girls always finish first.

Unabashed Immodesty -- Taking Center Stage

1). Learn your horse or person.

Let's face it. Women can be mysterious -- happy one day, sad next. We can be ruthless but charming. Yet, for a woman to do well in business world, she needs a close observer who knows her, realizes her potential, cultivates it and sees that others get out of her way to enable her success.

Women must actively identify executives who have clout in an organization and with whom they have rapport and ask them to be mentors. Mentors help women learn what goes on in boardrooms and how executives make critical decisions. In other words, a mentor must "learn woman," for her to do well.

2). Make friends.

Just as Seabiscuit required loyal animal companions to feel safe, secure and ready to do his best, women need same in workplace. When you develop loyal friends, you learn how to relax and do your best work.

3). Turn your competitive instincts outward.

Competitive instincts turned outward are good, but when competitive instincts are turned inward, it's disastrous. Why? For a horse, it happens when jockey holds reigns too tight. For women, it's when a person cuts her no slack and fails to provide respect, appreciation and acknowledgment of her existence in business world. If you loosen grip on a horse's reigns, she's free to take off. If you loosen grip on "cat-fight" scenarios and "good ole' boy's" network, a businesswoman is bound to take off and flourish.

4). Do only what you want to do.