1. Know when to follow the rules and when to rewrite
them. It will help you identify your weaknesses and play
to your strengths.
2. I don’t want to spend too much time dwelling on what I’ve
already done because there is still so much to do.
3. Don’t ever grow up. Don’t become a bore. Don’t ever let
the Man get to you.
[A #GIRLBOSS KNOWS WHEN TO THROW PUNCHES AND WHEN TO ROLL WITH THEM]
4. Life is short. Don’t be lazy.
5. It takes a lot of hardwork to get there, and then once you arrive, it takes even more hardwork to stay there.
6. A #GIRLBOSS is someone who’s in charge of her own life. She gets what she wants because she works for it.
7. Sometimes you break the rules, sometimes you follow them, but always in your own terms.
8. It took years of living with dirty fingernails from digging through vintage, a few painful burns from steaming clothes, and many aged Kleenex hiding in a coat pocket to get here.
9. I don’t want you to look up, #GIRLBOSS, because all that looking up can keep you down. The energy you’ll expend focusing on someone else’s life is better spent working on your own. Just be your own idol.
10. The straight and narrow is not the only path to success.
11. I’d been told for so long that the path to success was paved with a series of boxes you checked off, starting with getting a degree and getting a job, and as I kept trying and failing at these, it sometimes seemed that I was destined for a life in the loser lane. But I always suspected that I was destined for, and that I was capable of, something bigger.
12. Abandon anything about your life and habits that might be holding you back. Learn to create your own opportunities. Know that there is no finish line; fortune favors action. Race balls-out toward the extraordinary life that you’ve always dreamed of, or still haven’t had time to dream up. And prepare to have a hell of a lot of fun along the way.
13. Instead of sitting around and talking about how much I care, I’m going to kick ass and prove it.
14. You don’t have to choose between smart and sexy. You can have both. You are both.
15. It’s insulting to be praised for being a woman with ni college degree. But then, I’m aware that this is also to my advantage: I can show up to a meeting and blow people away just by being my street-educated self.
16. You don’t get taken seriously by asking someone to take you seriously. You’ve got to show up and own it.
17. You combine hard work, creativity, and self-determination, and things start to happen.
18. When you believe in yourself, other people will believe in you, too.
[FIGHT THE BOREDOM]
19. I had no income and no plan. But boy, did I have time.
20. The thought of paying to look like everyone else seemed utterly ridiculuous.
21. Two keys to running a successful business: Knowing your customer and knowing how to get free marketing.
22. Many companies were spending millions of dollars trying to nail social media, but I just went with my instincts and treated my customers like they were my friends.
23. If you believe that what you’re doing will have positive results, it will—even if it’s not immediately obvious.
24. I noted every flaw, and was always totally honest about the condition of everything.
25. What made me successful wasn’t necessarily what I sold, but how I sold it.
26. Instead of spendig my time trolling the forums and obsessing about what other sellers were doing, I focused on making my store as unique as possible.
27. Internet Catfights: It seemed like a pointless waste of time, but it soon got too annoying to ignore.
28. I was beginning to see that it had potential far beyond anything that I had ever imagined, and to see that potential I’d have to go out on my own.
29. It takes a special kind of stubbornness to succeed as an entrepreneur. And anyway, you don’t get what you don’t ask for.
30. If it sold, we learned. If it didn’t sell, we learned. And we kept on learning.
31. I just knew that talking to the girls who bought from me was important and always had been.
32. My customers told me what they wanted, and I always knew that if I listened to them, we’d both do okay.
33. There are secret opportunities hidden inside every failure.
[ALL ACTIONS ARE CREATIVE]
34. I believed that my variety of short-lived failures, or as I prefer to call it, job promiscuity, made me an experienced young adult.
35. Customer Service Tip: Just apologize to people. Even if it’s not your fault, they’ve been disappointed by the company you work for and it’s your job to empathize with them.
36. It makes me sad to remember how apathetic I was.
37. What I know now is that nothing is universally boring–what’s boring to you could be totally engaging to someone else. If you’re bored and hating it, it’s a big sign that you’re most likely just in the wrong place.
38. Unless you’re born the child of a billionaire, work is something we all have to do.
39. It’s pretty impossible to succeed while doing something that you genuinely hate.
40. Time may be the one thing in the world I can’t negotiate, no matter how hard I’ve tried.
41. Shitty jobs made the good ones more meaningful. Most people don’t land their dream job right out of the gate, which means we all have to start somewhere. 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.
42. I was looking for something that would pay me to do nothing and still get ahead of life, and that, my friends, does not exist.
43. We’re internet kids who have been spoiled by our desires being no more than a click away. We think fast, type fast, move fast, and expect everything else to happen just as fast.
44. You’ve got to work for what you want.
45. I respect people who are willing to just roll up their sleeves and get the job done, even if it’s a shitty one.
46. If you suck at school, don’t let it kill your spirit. It does not mean that you are stupid or worthless, or that you are never going to succeed at anything. It just means that your talents lie elsewhere, so take the opportunity to seek out what you’re good at, and find a place where you can flourish it. Once you do, you’re going to kill it.
47. Madeline Poole: I’m still striving for fabulousness. I knew I didn’t want to worry–I wanted a well-traveled, creatively inspired life where money was not my first concern.
48. I’ve always had to work hard because I had no other choice, but I always believed in myself. I always knew I’d be a #GIRLBOSS.
[THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW IS NOT THE ONLY PATH TO SUCCESS]
49. I wanted to live outside the capitalist structure, to live free and travel free, and to exist outside a nine-to-five lifestyle.
50. But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in. -Junot Diaz
51. Living a comfortable life can allow you the psychic space needed to focus on other, often bigger, things, and when you treat your possessions as emblems of your hard work, they inherit a meaning that transcends the objects themselves.
52. Compromise is just a part of life.
53. Life is unwritten, like a great big experiment.
[MONEY LOOKS BETTER IN THE BANK THAN ON YOUR FEET]
54. I cared as much about the process as I did about the results. No decision was too small.
55. Learning how to manage your money is one of the most important things you’ll ever do.
56. Being broke gets old, so start making decisions now to avoid paying for stupid ones later.
57. When you take care of little things, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find out that the big things often happen much more easily.
58. Big companies are like the mob—they never forget, they never give up, and they alwas get their money.
59. Money is a guarantee that we may have what we want in the future. Though we need nothing at the moment, it insures the possibility of satisfying a new desire when it arises. -Aristotle
60. Do not spend more money than you have.
61. Forcing me to figure out how to provide for myself was probably one of the best things my parents ever did to me.
62. Another big no-no is increasing your spending as soon as your income increases.
63. You can’t act like you’ve arrived when you’re only just recieving the invitation.
64. As much as I liked the shoes I could afford, I liked having the money more.
65. Treat your savings account like just another bill. It has to be paid every month, or there are consequences.
66. Be really honest with yourself and make sure that you deserve the raise that you’re asking for. You do not automatically deserve a raise just because you’ve been somewhere for a certain amount of time.
67. Spend money because it’s an investment in your own well-being, not because you’re bored and have nothing else to do.
68. Luxury can be a great experience, and the things around you should represent the life that you’ve made for yourself, as long as you are taking the time to appreciate those items.
69. Don’t live like a CEO when you’re still a sandwich artist.
[TREAT YOUR MIND LIKE YOUR MONEY: DON’T WASTE IT.]
70. What I hate about luck is that it implies being devoid of responsibility.
71. Success is something given to a knighted and often undeserving few. Luck tells us that we don’t control our own fate, and that our path to success or failure is written by someone, or something, entirely outside ourselves. Luck let us believe that whatever happens, whether good or bad, it's not to our credit or our fault.
72. Recognize the fact that we control our own thoughts and our thoughts control our lives.
73. It’s the age-old concept of like attracts like, or the law of attraction. You get back what you put out, so you might as well think positively, focus on visualizing what you want instead of getting distracted by what you don’t want, and send the universe your good intentions so that it can send them right back.
74. I didn’t want to talk about my job–I wanted to do my job. But then talking about my job became my job. Even worse, people expected me to be a certain way just because I’d accomplished something.
75. Magical thinking is the alchemy that you can use to visualize and project yourself into the professional and personal life that you want.
76. I am talking about the visualization that works when we actually get off our asses and do stuff.
77. Take care of the little things–even the little things that you hate–and treat them as promises to your own future. Soon you’ll see that fortune favors the bold who get shit done.
78. This ensures that when I’m bogged down with day-to-day bureaucracy and details, I don’t lose sight of what I really want.
79. Keep reminding yourself over and over that this is what you want, and you’ll soon find that the more you know what you want, the less you’re willing to put up with what you don’t.
80. One of the best things about life–a reason not to go blindly after one goal and one goal only–is that sometimes it will take you to something that is way cooler than anything you would have consciously set out to do in the first place.
81. All I knew was that I wanted to do something awesome, and was open to whatever shape or form this awesomeness took.
82. While I truly believe that you must have intentions to fulfill your dreams, I also think you have to leave room for the universe to have its way and play around a bit.
83. Don’t get so focused on one particular opportunity that you’re blind to other ones that come up.
84. I also think you can end up ignoring, and even losing, the positive things in your life by focusing too much on the negative. That’s a huge drain, as well as a waste of time.
85. I realized that I’d put so much energy into thinking about what I didn’t want to happen that I’d caused that exact thing to happen.
86. I don’t want to spend time thinking about things that I don’t want to have a place in my life. You have to kick people out of your head as forcefully as you’d kick someone out of your house if you didn’t want them to be there.
87. Focus on the positive things in your life and you’ll be shocked at how many more positive things start happening.
[LET YOUR FASHION FREAK FLAG FLY]
88. There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.
89. It’s a weird world we live in, and until time travel exists we’ve all got to make the most of where we land.
90. Dive headfirst into things with-out being too attached to the results. When your goal is to gain experience, perspective, and knowledge, failure is no longer a possibility. Failure is your invention.
91. It is she who listens to the rest of the world who fails, and it is she who has enough confidence to define success and failure for herself who succeeds.
92. No matter where you are in life, you’ll save a lot of time by not worrying too much about what other people think about you. The earlier in your life that you can learn that, the easier the rest of it will be. You is who you is, so get used to it.
93. When you accept yourself, it’s surprising how much other people will accept you too.
94. It’s not cool to get drunk on your own success.
95. Norma Kamali: I think if you have a unique point of view and stay relevant and authentic, you will make an impression. You have to be excited and passionate about your ideas to make them work.
96. Norma Kamali: The most important thing to do is to take risk. The risks are where breakthroughs happen, and big shifts take you to new places and create opportunities. They can be really scary and intimidating, but that means it is taking you out of your comfort zone.
97. Norma Kamali: Dream and never stop dreaming. Making my dreams come true has always inspired me to work hard.
[WORKING IN FASHION IS NOT AN EXTENDED TRIP TO THE MALL]
98. Competition is stiff–particularly in a tight job market and tough economy–so unless you can sweep someone off his or her feet, unemployed you will stay. Ideally, you’ll be applying for a job that you genuinely think is interesting and exciting. If you’re not, #GIRLBOSS, then fake it till you make it.
99. People of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things. -Leonardo da Vinci
100. Opinions are like assholes; everybody’s got one.
101. A #GIRLBOSS knows that she may not nail it on the first try, and that’s okay. Remember to be open and keep your head up when something doesn’t work out.
102. A #GIRLBOSS knows where she excels and where she could use some work, so get to know yourself and your weakness.
103. Knowing when to speak up and when to shut up will get you very far not only in business, but in life.
104. Sometimes you’ll find an opportunity to step in when your boss is out, or just swamped, and show your worth.
105. It’s that attitude, and behavior, that will get you ahead.
106. Own up to your mistakes and apologize for them. Everyone will make a mistake at some point, and the sooner you can admit where you went wrong, the sooner you can start to fix it.
107. Everyone should be given the opportunity to improve.
108. Getting fired can be a much-needed wake-up call, a push in the right direction, or an escape route.
109. Christene Barberich: I don’t think you can truly know what you’re made of until you are in charge of your days. How you use that time, and the work you pursue, teaches you so much about who you are and what you can become.
110. Christene Barberich: It’s really astounding how discouraging people can be, especially if it’s something that seems particularly risky. But, you know, risk can be thrilling.
111. Christene Barberich: Sometimes you just have to jump, screaming the whole fucking way. I don’t know if there is any greater feeling then proving you are your own biggest advocate. And all that noise out there is seriously just bullshit.
112. Christene Barberich: As hard as it is, stop caring so much about what other people think. Find a way to hear what you want. Recognize what is your dream.
[DREAM BIG, START SMALL]
113. Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle. - Abraham Lincoln
114. When you begin with the finish line in mind, you miss all the fun stuff along the way.
115. The best entrepreneurs know to listen along the way and adjust things, including their business plan.
116. Tooting your own horn too early can put you under the spotlight when you’re still figuring out the basics of running your business.
117. There is a whole wide world of free education out there for anyone who wishes to take advantage of it.
118. Human nature tells us to want what we can’t have.
119. Jenne Lombardo: I always wanted to have my own office–I thought that epitomized success. I also always wanted something that was mine. Something that was tangible, which I could look at and say, with pride, “I did this.”
120. Jenne Lombardo: I never want to be without financial stability again.
121. Jenne Lombardo: Without risk, there is no reward and no change.
122. Jenne Lombardo: If you are a risk taker, you have to feel comfortable in knowing you could fail. You have to have enough confidence and conviction to go full force even if things don’t work out.
123. Jenne Lombardo: There is a solution to everything. It’s all a matter of perspective and how willing we are to be flexible when it comes to our point of view.
124. Jenne Lombardo: Become the master of what you do.
126. Jenne Lombardo: Good old-fashioned manners can get you very far.
[OWN YOUR STYLE LIKE YOU OWN YOUR USED CAR]
127. It taught me that when I do things because I want to do them, and not because I have to, I can accomplish a lot.
128. If you’re dreaming big, #GIRLBOSS, don’t be discouraged if you have to start small.
129. Leandra Medine: I knew I never wanted to have to ask anyone to appease my indulgences, so that was a point of motivation to work hard.
130. Leandra Medine: Overwhelmingly busy is much better state to be in than overwhelmingly bored.
131. Be willing to try something new.
132. And we don’t just want to stay on top of that game-we want to stay ahead of it.
133. I believe a #GIRLBOSS should have a sneer and a smile in her back pocket, ready to whip either out at any moment.
134. No amount of money can buy you style. Having good style takes thought, creativity, confidence, self-awareness, even sometimes a little bit of work.
135. Being mean won’t make you cool, being rich won’t make you cool, and having the right clothes, while it may help, won’t make you cool.
136. Being a girl is fun. We can experiment with our looks as much as we want.
[BET ON YOURSELF]
137. When you are a one-percenter, you live your life your way.
138. I remind myself that if I really want something badly enough, I have it within myself to make it happen.
139. You create the world, blink by blink. It is entirely yours to discover and yours to create.
140. Regardless of what your dreams are, if you listen only to those around you, the chances of your dreams coming true are pretty small.
141. You can’t have it all, and nothing comes easy.
142. Difficult doesn’t mean impossible.
143. When life hits you with something unexpected, you have to be prepared to hit right back–and leave your own smear in the process.
144. Never let go of your appetite to go after new ideas, new experiences, and new adventures.
145. Judge yourself on what is your personal best and you’ll accomplish more than you could ever have imagined.
146. 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.
147. Once you’ve found success, don’t stop. It’s not about being insatiable; it’s about not resting on your laurels.
148. Look up and look around, and if you’re not finding something inspiring, then you’re probably not looking hard enough.
149. An advantage of being naive is being able to believe in oneself when no one else will.
150.They take leaps before seeing the bridge because they know that if they don’t, someone else will gt that holy grail. That holy grail is yours for the taking.
