Alright, real talk: It’s 4:27am and there should be laws against writing at these hours. Is this what drunk driving feels like? Because I’m pretty sure my eyes are doing cartwheels and my brain is like, “What the ****?” and all the while my stomach is all, LISTEN LADY IF WE’RE DOING THIS I’M GONNA NEED SOME ASSISTANCE DOWN HERE. I mean, I normally wouldn’t mind dragging a bag of Doritos into bed with me at this hour (it’s
The DIRTY 30 COMMANDMENTS of Working for Yourself: How to Slay Like an Unf*ckwithable Boss
When negotiating, put on your big girl pants and start with your BIG ask. What’s the most important thing you *really* want out of this? People usually start with their little asks, and then build up to the big one, because they’re scared to death and trying to warm up to it. But, the other side wants you to do that. They’ll happily throw in your little ones, so when you make your big ask—the thing you really wanted (that
“Never Lose Your Sunny Disposition. It’ll Be the Most Important Asset You’ll Ever Have.”
Her name began with an H. I brought the card down to the hotel lobby with a little swing in my pulse—not because I was nervous to give it to her, although in retrospect, maybe I was. I didn’t want it to seem like I was bribing her. (Or, you know, ASKING FOR SEX.) “My first Kate Spade!” she exclaimed, swinging the lid off the round pink and orange box with the same overflowing enthusiasm that had been the very
$199 vs $200: The difference of a dollar is never just the difference of a dollar.
I was recently told a story about a man named Uncle Bill who went to Colombia, stayed in a hostel, and climbed the ladder into his bunk—even after the four bottles of wine. Uncle Bill wasn’t your average uncle, though. Uncle Bill was eighty-nine years old. Which sounds like a lot, when you say it out loud, right? Eighty nine! What?! But you know what it sounds less than? Ninety. One sounds pretty old, but not as old as ninety. Once you
If You’re Nervous About Pulling the Trigger, Clap Your Handsssss!
There seems to be this idea that you should be ready for stuff before you do it. You should do your research. Come fully prepared. Think ahead. Not get taken by surprise. While that might be practical advice when you’re presenting an 8th grade science project, or pitching your boss an idea, or trying anal for the first time—SHE DID NOT JUST SAY THAT—it’s the farthest thing from practical in a modern world of entrepreneurship. The assumption behind the “plan
You cannot be a sane person all the time. But you *do* get to choose where you spend your sanity.
You know what’s a real mind fuck? The whole “getting taken seriously” thing. Let’s be honest: How much do you just wish you could just hammer down some Doritos and blog about your mother-in-law? Or talk about the fact that, yes, you definitely swore under your breath at tourists last night, who, in their “Pura Vida Costa Rica!” childlike optimism, declared that the city-wide blackout—the one that happened RIGHT BEFORE YOU WERE ABOUT TO MAKE CHICKEN QUESADILLAS—was “charming.” Charming? Did
There are two options: Make your own rules, or make your own grave.
Google can’t save you. Here is a short but compelling list of things Google is good for: Figuring out how the hell to poach a wet, floppy fish Ordering purple pimp costumes to wear to dinner at your in-law’s Frantically searching the correct pronunciation of the word “GIF”—before saying it out loud at your client meeting in 5 minutes And here are things Google cannot help you with, ever: Originality Creativity Discip Practice Experience Trial Error Finding your own fucking
To the Woman With the Fake Smile: Stop It, You Fucking Pigeon
Can we all just stop, already? Stop apologizing. Stop saying sorry. Stop shrinking into some small little ball-less version of yourself—you know, so you don’t make all the other ball-less twats feel uncomfortable. Or risk offending somebody. Or do something controversial. Or doing all of that and then totally screwing it up and feeling stupid. God forbid. I’m sick and tired of it. I’m sick of seeing you hesitate. Second guess yourself constantly. Smile weakly. FUCKING WILT. You’re wilting away
Is Your Life *Actually* a Good One? Can You Even Decide? What Does Good Even MEAN These Days?
It’s hilarious, really. You spent the first twenty years of your life worrying what the f*ck you were suppose to do on this planet—with your ONE BIG PRECIOUS LIFE that every other poster won’t shut up about—only to spend the next twenty years wondering if you did it right. Because, did you? Was this what life was suppose to lo like? Did you do it right? Pass the test, check the box, score the A? Like, is your life
When You Feel Worthy of Being Seen…It Shows
Let me tell you what: American women may have Victoria’s Secret, but Italian women have another secret altogether. You know it by the way she holds her head a little higher than yours, eyes on fire, gliding down the god damn sidewalk as if her and Mother Nature were tag teaming. It is not just confidence—though confidence is plainly written across her shoulders—nor arrogance, judging by the way she laughs with her entire body alongside her friends in the piazza.
For a Long Time I Secretly Worried: What If I Was Screwing Everything Up?!
We’re on a transatlantic flight to London. I just bite into the kind of sausage one should never bite into, and now that we’re exactly 552 miles away from our destination, I realized that my eyes were less than sprightly and my hair loed like Fiona fucked a bird’s nest. So I did what any resourceful woman on a transatlantic flight to one of the most fashionable cities in the world might do: I brushed it. With a toothbrush.
“Ding, Ding, Ding! You Can Have Fun Now!” <—The Universe Is Never Going to Send You This Email, Yo
I’m going to England tomorrow. By which I mean I’m stepping inside a long metal torpedo and sitting my fat ass down on some murky blue pleather for an exact distance of 5,429 miles across a cold, dreary ocean that always makes me wonder things I shouldn’t ever wonder. Like: Would I actually remain calm in case of THE BIG EVENT, like I think I would? Would I place my oxygen mask a top my bouncy little cheeks, knowing exactly
Poets & Killers Get Rich
There are two groups of people: Poets & killers. The poets are running around with their heart placed firmly on their sleeve, hoping that if they do authentic work, it’ll sell itself. The killers, on the other hand, are running around selling everything, none of which is actually authentic, nor genuine, nor useful. (We call these people “scam artists.”) Yet, neither one of these groups is going to make it. Truth is, you might be as authentic as they come, but
Do Something Brilliant With Your One Little Speck
You ever have a hate relationship with an acronym? Take YOLO, for example. Are you as ambivalent about it as I am? Like, ay, in theory “you only live once” is true (two points), it’s an effective argument for engaging in questionable behavior of any kind (five points), it’s a built-in retort when your husband wants to know who ate all the sweet potato fries (seven gazillion points), AND it labels you as someone who may actually know how
There’s So Much Drama Around EVERYTHING.
There is so much drama. Around. Everything. I hear it everywhere. In es. In tweets. In friend’s secrets. In whispers across the internet. Should I launch this? But what about that? What if I fail? What if nobody buys? What if I wasted my time? What if my heart breaks in the process? Should I name my business something traditional or creative? But what if I hate it later? What if I decide to go in a different direction? Should
[New!] UNF*CKWITHABLE GIRLFRIENDS
If you are a woman, I want you to raise your fucking hand. If you’re going through some shit, I want you to raise it even higher. If you’re out here going HARD to make it—if you’re finally starting that business, finally ending that other one, finally going in a new direction, finally stealing the hours, finally demanding that cash, finally going all-in, finally swallowing the lump in your throat, finally loing yourself squarely in the mirror, finally strapping stilettos onto your
My Pet Peeve About the Internet: No One Teaches Any Goddamn Substance
I’ve been running a successful on writing & publishing business for almost ten years now. TEN. Which is like seventy in dog years, and like a hundred and seventy in internet years, which might explain why my wrists ache so much. Does this mean I get to retire? Kidding. I wouldn’t retire from this gig if they paid me; who else is going to run your favorite blog named after a crude redneck gesture? That said, as someone who is
Headspace Is Like a Goddamn Unicorn
Headspace. Even though it feels about as mythical as a goddamn unicorn, it’s a thing. I know most of us would feel comfortable using a keyboard full of hypodermic needles than, you know, actually rela, but in my experience over the last decade running my own business, there are few things I find essential. You are not a machine. You are not a slave. And you certainly didn’t start a business so you could sit inside a dimly lit room
Read This if You’re an Impatient, Demanding, Self-Critical Tart Who Gets Mad at Herself When Things, You Know, Actually Take TIME
What gets measured, gets managed has got to be the most annoying piece of business advice ever. (Right next to “create epic content,” “follow your passion,” and “don’t fart too loud when the mic is on,” of course.) Coming from a background in PR, I’ve always hurled silent insults at the whole “what gets measured, gets managed” thing, because many important outcomes—like positive sentiment, for example—are harder than Donald Trump’s head to measure. And yet, all these years later, I think
Sometimes in Business, You Need to Do YOU.
The dead horse of the decade is the target customer. You’re asked to create personas. Put yourself in their shoes bras. Get inside their head. Imagine what’s keeping them up at 3 o’clock in the morning. (For the record, it’s that their ass is getting fat and they totally forgot to make coies for their kid’s bake sale.) So there you went, thinking about everything from the target customer’s perspective. What will they want? What will they think? What will
On Becoming Unfuckwithable
Unfuckwithable. If you’re contemplating themes for the New Year, I highly recommend borrowing this one. Unfuckwithable. Rolls right off the tongue and deep dives directly into your ovaries. But importantly? We need this. We need this because there are always going to be days—weeks, months, years—where everything feels hard. There are always going to be people who do wrong by you, es you don’t want to answer, decisions you don’t know how to make, money you don’t know where
Constantly Guilt Yourself Over Doing “The Responsible Thing?” Maybe You Shouldn’t.
There’s a lot of bullshit around the word “responsible.” We let this tiny word guilt us to the grave. Do the responsible thing. Act responsibly. Be a responsible adult. Don’t be so irresponsible. I don’t know if we should blame this asshole voice in our heads on our parents or not, but you might want to consider it. (Hi, mom!) There are a lot of things that are, by default, “responsible”—taking the kids to soccer, suffering through another Jillian Michaels
You Don’t Have to Run Some Big, Cheesy Sale to Do Well
Picture it: Your d ones are sitting around roasting chestnuts on an open fire, while you’re hunched over the (pumpkin-pie-greased) keyboard, biting your fingertips and worrying whether or not you’ll have enough money to pull through to January. But what if you didn’t have to run some humongous holiday sale? What if you didn’t have to put ALL the pressure on yourself? What if you could make a few small changes and have it double your revenue in December-so January
Your Hatred is Wisdom
What is it? The thing you sighed with relief about this morning? The thing you didn’t have to do on a Saturday? The thing you exhaled about? (And maybe even shimmied around the room naked over. With this You Tube video playing. And at least two neighbors cursing you to hell.) That’s the thing. Pay very close attention to this thing. Whatever you found yourself ighted to be able to skip today? Is likely the same thing you find yourself not ighted
Do You Suck at Oral? A (Tongue-In-Cheek) Discussion on Why It’s Hard to Ask for Money
My first sales call was the most disgusting thing I’d ever done. I mean, I don’t even like talking on the phone with people I know, let alone people I don’t. My for the phone ended after the 7th grade, when boys stopped calling and AIM instant messenger sank its teeth into our corsage-donning little hearts. Back then, I was an instant messenger queen. I proved myself through my cat-like ability to manage multiple chat windows at a time
When New Opportunities Show Up, Waving Their Ta Ta’s
There’s a lot of…pressure these days. Post to ! And ! And Instagram! And Vine! And ! And AREN’T YOU PERISCOPING YET, YOU CURMUDGEON? Speaking of self-important broadcasts, have you started your podcast yet? Are you #1 on iTunes? DON’T YOU HAVE PLANS TO START A PODCAST?! I’m continually fascinated by the flock’s constant need to do shiny. Everyone’s so goddamn afraid they’re going to get left behind; that they’re going to miss the next best thing. It’s like you
“I don’t feel confident in my work.”
Are you squinting your eyes at the screen trying to decide if this describes you or not? (Of course you are, you’re probably reading this on an iPhone the size of my elbow.) It’s kind of an ugly characterization—nobody wants to admit to feeling less than confident in what you’re doing. And yet, I’ve got news: It’s so, so common. Here’s how it shows up: :: You’re nervous as hell about sending that invoice :: You pray when sending a