In this series from the book #girlboss, we have taken a look at the style – or rather, attitude – behind one species of today’s successful female. We’ve looked at the creative spirit, Picasso-inspired. We’ve looked at the care that goes into successful creativity. The last facet I want to share is about the entrepreneurial spirit, which includes a number of gems from entrepreneurs. I hope that you find it inspiring!
Amoroso quotes Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn:
“All humans are entrepreneurs not because they should start companies but because the will to create is encoded in human DNA.” (186)
…You can be entrepreneurial without being an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial people are passionate about what they do, comfortable taking risks, and quick at moving on from failures. (187)
An approach to think about:
When you begin with the finish line in mind, you miss all the fun stuff along the way. The better approach is to tweak and grow, tweak and grow. I call it the incremental potential. (181)
Quoting Leandra Medine:
If you’re working, you’re working hard, and if you’re not doing that, what are you doing? (214)
Overwhelmingly busy is a much better state to be in that overwhelmingly bored.
What is there to gain from all the waking up and go-getting in the daily grind?
Difficult doesn’t mean impossible, and out of the bajillions of things in this universe that you can’t control, what you can control is how hard you try, and if or when to pack it in. (237)
You’ll appreciate your amazing career so much more when you look back at your not-so-amazing jobs in the past, and hopefully realize that you learned something from all of them. (65)
Inspired by Steve Jobs’ commencement speech to Stanford University, Amoroso writes possibly the most motivating paragraph in her book. It is quotable.
Never let go of your appetite to go after new ideas, new experiences, and new adventures. Compete with yourself, not with others. Judge yourself on what is your personal best and you’ll accomplish more than you could ever have imagined. Life stops for no one, so keep moving. Stay awake and stay alive. There’s no Auto Correct in life – think before texting the universe. Breaking the rules just for fun is too easy – the real challenge lies in perfecting the art of knowing which rules to accept and which to rewrite. The more you experiment, take risks, and make mistakes, the better you’ll know yourself, the better you’ll know the world, and the more focused you’ll be. (237)
You! The reader – I’m writing to you, the entrepreneur who is discovering your strengths at this moment. Consider this gem from Mel Robbins’ 2011 TED Talk:
…how the chances that you are you are about 1 in 400 trillion.
This takes into account the chance of your parents meeting out of all the people on the planet, the chance of them reproducing, the chance of you being born at the exact moment that you were, and every other wildly improbable factor that goes into each individual person. The whole point of her crazy calculation was that we should take the sheer improbability of our own existence as a kick in the butt to get out of bed in the morning. If you hear this fact as discouraging – that you’re only one in billions – then flip the script. You are one in billions! Someone has to succeed, so it might as well be you. (236).
Think about it for a moment.
To summarize: Work hard, do your job, stay in the moment, create because it is in your DNA.
I recently came across this article on Create & Cultivate called “a eulogy for the term #girlboss.” With a title like that, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I found the points to be valid and worth considering. Can terms we may use to unite with others harmful by setting expectations that hinder progress? Would you rather be a #girlboss or a #boss. What does the term #girlboss imply in a subtle way? Immaturity? Cuteness? Something that goes against the strength of a movement of women entrepreneurs? None of that?
What do you think of this perspective?
Amoroso ends with,
#GIRLBOSS, make it count. (237)
Or, should I simply say,
#BOSS, make it count. 🙂
It is with this post, that I close this series. It has been fun – I’ve enjoyed sharing these insights with you!
Cheers,
BlueBoots
P.S. If you’ve missed the last three posts, here’s a quick list of links for you!
- Create {Series: insights from #girlboss}
- Choosing to make the little things count {Series: insights from #girlboss}
- The difference between Style and Fashion {Series: insights from #girlboss}
