Diversify: A fierce, accessible, empowering guide to why a more open society means a more successful one

That was a pivotal moment for me, a moment when I let fear win the day. What was different this time, compared to when I was walking onto that stage? Why did I make a choice to play it safe rather than risk rejection? On another occasion, there could have been an entirely different outcome – there have been plenty of times in my life when opportunities have presented themselves and I’ve jumped at them, because in that particular moment I was feeling confident and sure of my abilities.

I’ve nicknamed this moment a ‘Jochen Moment’ – basically the opposite of a light-bulb moment. Fortunately, ‘Jochen Moments’ do not occur as much as they used to, but when they do, Agyness is usually lurking somewhere not too far away.

I’m pleased to say this story has a happy ending: a few years later I did manage to summon up the courage to ask and, yes, Jochen did end up speaking at one of my events. In this case opportunity actually knocked thrice, but obviously this is by no means the norm. I got lucky.

I encourage you to muster up the courage to seize all good opportunities when they arise. Courage requires risking failure and rejection, but it’s a muscle that needs to be regularly exercised in order to develop core strength.

The Agyness Challenge

My cousin Reg has an interesting theory about women and fearing rejection – he believes that part of the reason men are better at dealing with rejection is because of the practice they get in the dating arena. According to Reg, from the time boys hit puberty and start asking girls out, ‘no’ is a word they become well acquainted with. Therefore they take ‘no’ less personally, and see it as a numbers game. As far as Reg is concerned, for every ten women he asks out at least one is bound to say yes – two if he’s lucky. Those aren’t bad odds.

And he might actually have a point. The research suggests that in the workplace men are better at dealing with rejection than women, and certainly don’t judge themselves as harshly. Sharon Vosmek, founder and CEO of Astia (a US not-for-profit organization that supports women-led businesses), cites a study by Professor Shelley Correll at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University, which monitored the reactions of ‘C’ grade calculus students. This is what Vosmek discovered:

The men were perceiving they had passed and were wizards, and would potentially use it to go on and negotiate a higher salary. Women in the same calculus class – the majority would drop the course, perceiving they had failed and never mention it again. So what happens when women are rejected? They are already rejecting themselves.

My ‘Jochen Moment’, it turns out, was a classic female response, hardwired from centuries of gender conditioning. It forced me to face my insecurities and stop avoiding the fact that they existed, something I had been doing my whole adult life. And using Reg’s theory as my guide for healing, I decided to develop my own ‘Agyness Challenge’ based on Jason Comely’s ‘Rejection Therapy’; I suppose this is a sort of Degree for the Others. Comely, a Canadian entrepreneur, devised a social self-help ‘game’ for overcoming a fear of rejection, whereby to ‘win’ required you to receive at least one rejection each day for a period of time, with the intention of training yourself to overcome the fear through extended exposure.

Do this today: the five objectives of Rejection Therapy

1. Be more aware of how irrational social fears control and restrict our lives.

2. Smash the tyranny of fear and reap the treasures (treasures include wealth, relationships, and self-confidence).

3. Learn from, and even enjoy rejection.

4. Do not be attached to outcomes, especially when it involves the free agency of other people.

5. Permit yourself to fail.

My challenge involves me journaling which of my career choices have been led by Agyness, and which by my confident self. I also do simple things, like seeking advice or mentorship from people I admire – this can be by cold email, or by approaching them at events and seminars.

I force myself to do this much more than I am naturally comfortable with. Even though I work in television and on the surface seem to be very much an extrovert, I am actually quite shy, so this is a real effort for me. However, the benefits far outweigh the safety of staying in my comfort zone.

One example of this is a friendship I now have with Simon Collins, former Dean of the Parsons’ School of Fashion in New York. I wanted Simon’s help with Ldny.com, a fashion social enterprise I was launching. I emailed him more than five times and he ignored me on each occasion. Something similar happened with Ed Burstell, then CEO of Liberty.

Usually, I would have let Agyness’s fear of rejection win, but this time my challenge meant I couldn’t. So even though it wasn’t exactly a boost to my ego, I refused to give up, and persisted until both of them responded. I can now confidently say they are both glad they did. We’ve gone on to work on some great projects together as well as to form great friendships, all of which we would have missed out on had I not persisted – which causes me to ask myself: what have I lost on those occasions when Agyness has prevailed?

So, I urge women and other ‘others’ everywhere to challenge their own Agyness. We have to learn not to take rejection personally, and rather view it as part of the pathway to success. Once women allow themselves to fear that they are not pretty enough, not clever enough, not strong enough, they behave in a way that limits themselves and makes their dreams less likely to come to fruition. I don’t know if it’s ever possible to rid ourselves 100 per cent of our Agyness – a lifetime of conditioning cannot be erased overnight. However, facing rejection head-on means you become desensitized to it and better equipped to rise above it, which will help level the playing field not just for ourselves but for future generations.

Having it all

The payoff, for ourselves and for society, when we push beyond our worthiness barriers is priceless. Through my work, I’ve been fortunate enough to come up close and personal with some of the most inspirational women of our time – women who fearlessly embody the Sheryl Sandberg philosophy of ‘leaning in’; women who defy (present-day) expectations and limitations.

These women are creating a new normal – one that is centred around female-friendly working practices – and it’s being led by women like Mary Callahan Erdoes. As chief executive officer of J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Callahan Erdoes is one of the most important people in finance and supervises over $2.2 trillion in assets. A wife and mother to three children, she explained to me how she used her seniority to make it easier for other working mothers within her organization. She leaves the office early enough to collect her children from school every day, and loudly announces it daily to her team: ‘I’m leaving to go and pick up the kids.’

Another leading working mother who is unapologetic about it is Helena Morrissey, former CEO of Newton Investment Management, a £51 billion Bank of New York Mellon European fund. Morrissey is also the co-founder of The 30% Club, a campaign to make UK FTSE-100 boardrooms 30 per cent female. She is a trailblazer and has risen to the top of the UK finance industry. However, she is almost as famous for her professional achievements as she is for her nine children, who range in age from seven to twenty-four.

Morrissey leaves the office every day at 6 p.m. to be home in time for family dinner and the odd bit of ironing. She credits part of her success to having a stay-at-home husband, Richard: ‘The idea that a woman can have a family and friends and hold down a difficult, high-octane job when both partners work full-time – that is a very tall order. I am not saying it’s impossible, but it’s a bit unrealistic.’

Morrissey believes that the key to having it all is for modern couples to determine which career should take precedence while the children are young. And, crucially, this doesn’t have to be the man’s. In Morrissey’s case, after their fourth child was born she and Richard, then a journalist, decided he should stay at home and she should continue with her career – a decision that has paid off considerably. The return on investment (ROI) has not only benefited their family (as Morrissey is one of the highest paid executives in the city), it’s also benefited British society – for, in this couple, we have a high-profile example of what The Other Way could be.

Obviously, Callahan Erdoes and Morrissey are unique examples, as these two women are at the very top of their industries. Parent-friendly working practices are easier to implement when you are the boss. However, if more women rise through the corporate ranks, from VP level to the coveted C-suite (Corner office), these sorts of flexible working patterns will become more and more commonplace – because they will have to.

A new kind of role model

Role models are important, for women and men; they give us a glimpse of our possible futures and can keep us on track when our dreams seem out of reach. I remember having a conversation about this with my friend Toby Daniels, founder of the highly successful Social Media Week conferences. I’ve often chewed the fat with him regarding gender equality, as I do with all my male friends and colleagues, and on one occasion Toby made a point that stopped me in my tracks: ‘Men don’t see women as role models.’ In an attempt to halt my jaw from hitting the floor, he went on to explain:

Mark Zuckerberg grew up wanting to be Bill Gates, Mark Dorsey grew up wanting to be Steve Jobs, Marissa Mayer probably looked up to the same male role models as Zuckerberg and Dorsey with a few female ones too. I doubt Zuckerberg and Dorsey would have had female business role models. When we have a woman who creates and is credited for the next groundbreaking innovation that moves humanity forward, such as the next Internet or the next Apple, then there will be a generation of boys and young men wanting to emulate those women.

I had never even thought about whether or not boys, or indeed girls, grew up with any female business role models. I’ve always had a slew of male business icons I’ve looked up to and whose biographies I’ve devoured. As it stands, women have many professional male role models, but the reverse is seldom true.

I have no idea if Toby is right about Marissa Mayer growing up inspired by Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, but I do know that Mayer has a surprising female role model whose ‘against all odds’ story deeply resonates with her own – the 2002 Olympic Gold medallist Sarah Hughes. In a 2013 interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Mayer likened her appointment as CEO of Yahoo to Hughes’s unlikely winning performance. ‘No one thought Sarah Hughes had a chance to win. Afterward, Hughes said that she didn’t quite know how she had done it and she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to repeat it. It was the routine of her life … I feel like Sarah Hughes. Actually, I still have her performance saved on my TiVo.’

At 37 and seven months pregnant, Mayer managed to pull off an incredibly impressive career move and leapfrog from vice president, location & local services at Google, to president and CEO of Yahoo. Many industry insiders were stunned, as there were numerous tech execs who were more senior and would have seemed more likely candidates for the job, but Mayer had something these didn’t: the power of the personal brand.

While at Google, Mayer carved out a stellar profile for herself as spokesperson for the company. She was also well known and respected outside of tech circles and able to explain complex technologies to the masses via the mainstream media. Undoubtedly her public profile would have played a role in helping the board of Yahoo in their decision. They would have been savvy enough to know that not only did Mayer have the ability to do the job, she also had the brand to sell the company to shareholders and potential advertisers. Even though Mayer’s tenure at Yahoo has been viewed as mixed, she undoubtedly brought something extra – something unquantifiable on a CV, but nonetheless impactful in real life.

Every female in a leadership position is a role model for a new generation of both men and women about what is possible. One such woman, who’s always been one of my favourite role models, is Clare Boothe Luce, a woman who carved out a phenomenal life for herself in mid-twentieth-century America, then very much a man’s world.

A Vanity Fair excerpt from the second volume of Sylvia Jukes Morris’s biography of Boothe Luce opens with: ‘What Clare Boothe Luce wanted, Clare Boothe Luce got: a man, a seat in Congress, an ambassadorship.’ All this was true, but Boothe Luce also managed to achieve so much more. She was able to soar to great heights in three distinctly different careers. Starting out as a journalist, she rose to become managing editor of Vanity Fair in 1930, aged 24, making her one of the youngest magazine editors in history. She then tried her hand at playwriting, penning the smash hit The Women in 1936, and later the screenplay for the movie Come to the Stable, which earned an Oscar nomination in 1949 for Best Story. After writing came a foray into politics, where she became one of the first women in Congress after running as a Republican and winning what was then a safe Democratic seat. She rounded out her political career as an ambassador to Italy for the Eisenhower administration.

Boothe Luce was very much aware of the double standards women of her day faced, and that her success or failure would affect not just her personally but the perception of female ability in general. ‘Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, “She doesn’t have what it takes”; they will say, “Women don’t have what it takes.”’

Any woman who works knows that Boothe Luce’s words are as true today as they were when she uttered them over four decades ago. Even so, she never let the barriers she faced prevent her from succeeding. Instead, she used them as motivation to defy expectations for women of her day. Hers was a life well lived and a life that has inspired generations of women who have followed in her footsteps.

The American Dream seems to provide a better breeding ground for these kinds of entrepreneurial women. By default, American women benefit from this system more than their UK counterparts. British women are still so underutilized, especially once they become mothers, when we still have so much more to add to the British economy. In a 2012 speech about female economic empowerment, then Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg declared that the ‘absence of women from our economy is costing us dearly. If the United Kingdom had, for example, the same proportion of female entrepreneurs as the United States, we would see an extra £42 billion on GDP. In the words of the World Bank, gender equality is “smart economics”.’ He closed with, ‘Greater equality, a fairer society, a stronger economy too.’

Having lived in both the UK and US, I’ve seen for myself that this is an area US women excel in. And it’s not just about the job, it’s about what you stand for. Across the pond, being of service is very much expected – even in the case of Sheryl Sandberg herself. Becoming a fearless spokesperson for female professional empowerment has opened countless doors and brought all sorts of new opportunities to her and to others, and has also helped to establish Sandberg as one of the most admired women of our day. She and others like her have proved that when we leap over the barriers within as well as without ourselves, we can achieve incredible things. This new normal hasn’t yet filtered all the way up to influence the top job, as we know, but as Hillary Clinton said after her defeat in the 2016 presidential election: ‘The future is female.’

ACTION POINT: Take the Rejection Therapy Challenge for seven days.

DISCUSSION POINT: What if Steve Jobs had never tried again – and never gone back to Apple?

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_307d680f-1060-5c3d-99de-76da3e70fd34)

In the Media (#ulink_307d680f-1060-5c3d-99de-76da3e70fd34)

‘You can’t be what you can’t see.’

Marian Wright Edelman

Throughout the ages, from paintings through to magazine covers and the movies, society’s beauty standards have been represented via images that have been heralded as the ‘ideal’ of the day. Women in particular have been subjected to this relentless objectification and anyone falling short of these standards is either denigrated or ignored, leaving millions of young girls and women feeling unworthy, unrepresented, and fearful of rejection. Women are held to an entirely different set of standards than their male counterparts – we are valued by the way we look and how young we are; the ‘prettier’ and younger the better – and the mental pressure this creates wreaks havoc on our self-esteem. As a result, women are plagued with a level of self-doubt and self-criticism (myself included) that men do not have to face. And it’s led to a narrow representation of women, not just in the visible media but behind the scenes as well.

As someone who has worked in the media for almost 20 years, I am very much aware of the power of image and the impact it has on how we value ourselves. I’ve even experienced its discriminating effects first-hand. So now, with ordinary women drastically under-represented, with actresses frequently flagging up the gender pay gap in the film industry, the proliferation of misogynistic trolling on social media and the easy access to online porn, it’s become blindingly obvious that unrealistic, unrepresentative, and sometimes unhealthy images of women are projected into people’s homes and minds on a daily basis. To counter this, we clearly need our media to start involving and portraying women in a more balanced and affirming manner.

Leading ladies

The Oscar-winning actress Geena Davis has become a leading advocate for the better representation of women in the media: her Institute on Gender in Media is doing a stellar job of holding Hollywood accountable by monitoring the representation of women both in front of and behind the camera.