My Year Of Being Brave

Men are fearless, while women are held back by a desire for perfection. So says Women Who Code author Reshma Saujani in her latest book which encourages women to make braver choices – even if we fail while we’re at it.

- Kerry Potter

This time last year I vowed to be braver in my career. I wasn’t earning enough money and was bored after years of freelance journalism. What else was out there, I wondered? I began to dip my toe into other types of work – consultancy, PR, marketing, events. It wasn’t easy. I felt nauseous every time I said no to a writing commission to focus instead on something untested. I stayed up all night writing my first-ever PR client pitch, brazenly thought I’d nailed it on the day… and didn’t get the gig. I politely sat in marketing meetings, not understanding what anyone was talking about, my phone under the table so I could sneakily google acronyms. But despite these wobbles, I ended the year surprisingly exhilarated. I’d learnt lots of new things, made new contacts, been busier than ever and had demanded far more money than I’d normally dare ask for.

My year of being bolder in business meant that Brave, Not Perfect, a new book by New Yorker Reshma Saujani, really chimed with me. It’s a funny, punchy call to arms for women to pull ourselves out of our comfort zones, embrace failure, take risks and be bolder in our decision making. Boys, she argues, are taught early on to be brave whereas we socialise girls to be diligent, people-pleasing perfectionists.

“Perfection holds us back, right?” says Reshma, down the line from her Manhattan office. “That feeling of not being good enough is holding us back from living our biggest lives. I want to challenge women to say, ‘F**k it, I’m going to live a life of bravery. And this isn’t about bravery in the sense of jumping out of a plane. It’s about living your life with the mindset that every choice you make, you’ll make the braver one and take the bolder path.”