Today, “Girlboss” is a buzz-word among young female professionals and a label used to best describe women in power. It all started with the original Girlboss, Sophia Amoruso and today is a widespread term used to label female humans who are taking charge of both their personal and career lives, making a name for themself in their specialized industries.
Being a Girlboss means different things to different humans but to moi, this woman is an empowered individual who sets her sight on a goal, achieves that goal, and then takes it to new levels. While I may not be a human Girlboss, I consider myself to be the feline equivalent. The only difference is that I can be a power woman even with a few (dozen) catnaps thrown in between.
In honor of my fellow female leaders for Women’s Month, What Goes Around Comes Around hosted a “Power Panel” last week featuring a line-up of successful women, including Choupette Social Girl (AKA Ashley Tschudin). Fellow panelists included Grace Murray, VP of Fohr, April Mokwa, Managing Editor of Fast Company, Sterling McDavid, Co-Founder & President of Burnett New York, Joiee Thorpe, Celebrity & Editorial Fashion Stylist, and Mandi Meng, VP Marketing & Communication for WGACA. These dynamic dahhhlings discussed everything from female empowerment and career success to power dressing. Because let’s be honest, every Girlboss feels her most powerful when dressed her best!
Girlboss Tips from WGACA Panelists:
Grace Murray, VP of Fohr, on her first job and lessons learned from it:
“I worked casually in hospitality for nearly ten years – some amazing jobs & some terrible ones. A lot of people barely notice their servers or bartenders, but it is a tough job to be good at and when I see someone nailing the delicate-but-rapid-expectation-dance that it is, my first instinct is to hire them.
One important lesson was learning how to play both sides of the fence to get things done as quickly & happily as possible. You don’t tell a customer who’s ordering a well done steak that they’re an idiot, but that’s exactly what the chef will want you to do, & likely make you feel like one too for putting the order in as if it was NBD. I learned to tell the customer it was no problem, and to deliver the order to the chef with an eye roll to make it feel like I was on their team & the customer sucked. That may sound disingenuous but working with other people and paying customers often means competing priorities & personalities, & sometimes being able to get it done means figuring out how to make everyone feel heard, understood, and as though you’re on their team. This is like a step before picking your battles: it’s avoiding being shot as the messenger via subtle chameleon-ing.”
