amBITCHous def A Woman Who 1 Makes more money 2 has more power 3 gets the recognition she deserves 4 has the determination to go after her dreams and
Wouldn’t it be great if you could be audaciously ambitious and happy at the same time?
You can, and you will.
“I’m here to tell you that all of your priorities—personal and ambitious career goals alike—can fit together harmoniously. I’ll show you how, like thousands of women I’ve worked with over the years, you can make more money, earn the credit and recognition you deserve, have more power, and be as ambitious as you want to be. I’ll show you how you can be ambitchous without compromising your ethics and integrity. I’ll show you that you can feel worthy and entitled to all of this without fear that you risk sacrificing your desire to have a full, happy personal life and without being afraid that you’ll be less of a woman. It’s worked for me. It’s worked for countless ambitchous women I’ve advised. It will work for you.”
—From amBITCHous
We women aren’t advancing in our careers the way we should. We’re not making the money we deserve or getting the fulfillment we desire. And this time it’s not men who are holding us back. This time we’re doing it to ourselves, because ambition—for us—is still a dirty word.
Debra Condren has coached thousands of women at every level—from those just starting out to the most powerful female executives in the United States—and each one possesses the same fear: if she goes after her dream, she’ll be seen as selfish, bitchy, a bad wife, or bad mother. But it’s exactly this fear of ambition that has forced women to leave the best part of themselves—their dreams, their great talents—by the roadside, rendering them less able to be the whole people they should be in every area of their lives.
Condren has a new message and mission: to remind women that ambition is a virtue, not a vice. Ambition is the best of who we are.
The real way to have a great life is to see ambition as a part of your value system to which you must give equal attention, along with the other priorities you hold dear, including your spouse, your children, and your friends. In amBITCHous, Dr. Condren offers fresh, powerful tools for reclaiming your dreams. Her eight amBITCHous Rules provide concrete, innovative solutions to the everyday struggles we as women face, like taking credit, deflecting detractors, and handling confrontation, so that you can become more powerful and fulfilled at work and more satisfied at home. You can redefine your ambition in the face of social sanctions and unapologetically go after your dreams without sacrificing the rest of your life.
You owe it to yourself and the world to make the contribution you were born to make. Debra Condren will show you how to do it.
“A defiant charge to women to ‘reclaim ambition as a virtue’…Ms. Condren, who has been paying attention all along, [has] worked out a way to make charm and ambition pay.”
–New York Times
“Debra Condren challenges women to see ambition as a virtue and to take credit for winning at work and at home. …It’s not that women must ignore the needs of others, but they need to recognize and prioritize their own needs.”
– The Dallas Morning News
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Much-needed helpful book
Ambitchous is Condren’s way of describing the double standard facing women. As she puts it, “Ambitious men are go-getters, but ambitious women are bitches.”
Through interviews with other women and her work as a business coach, Condren has developed strategies to help women overcome the fear of being ambitious. She bemoans the fact that many advice books suggest that achieving “balance” requires career sacrifices. Nonsense, she says. Putting your career ambitions first makes you a better person, she argues, because you will be a happier one. “You must regard your deepest career aspirations as unconditionally sacrosanct,” she writes.
While the pep talk is inspiring, the real value of this book lies in its concrete tips. She recommends asking for the raise you deserve, claiming credit when it’s due, asking for advice from women you respect, and taking regular sabbaticals to make sure you are dreaming big. All of it is great advice.
5 Stars great advice that I plan to incorporate into my life
After hearing Debra Condren interviewed on a podcast about how women undermine their own ambitions, I couldn’t wait to read her book. I related to her thesis. Sometimes, out of fear of looking like I have a huge ego, I don’t even try to take on projects that I know I’m capable of. In other words, I need to learn how to be a little more ambitchous.
That word is Condren’s way of describing the double standard facing women. As she puts it, “Ambitious men are go-getters, but ambitious women are bitches.” She illustrates her point with Madonna and Carly Fiorina. Media stories about both of them tend to focus on their faults instead of their accomplishments. (Perhaps we could add Paris Hilton to that list.)
Through interviews with other women and her work as a business coach, Condren has developed strategies to help women overcome the fear of being ambitious. She bemoans the fact that many advice books suggest that achieving “balance” requires career sacrifices. Nonsense, she says. Putting your career ambitions first makes you a better person, she argues, because you will be a happier one. “You must regard your deepest career aspirations as unconditionally sacrosanct,” she writes.
While the pep talk is inspiring, the real value of this book lies in its concrete tips. She recommends asking for the raise you deserve, claiming credit when it’s due, asking for advice from women you respect, and taking regular sabbaticals to make sure you are dreaming big. All of it is great advice that I plan to incorporate into my life.
And when I’m done with this book, I can think of more than a few friends I’d like to pass it on to.
5 Stars Yes, Please.
Sick of reading titles that are meant to impart wisdom on how I could be a better lady rather than a better business woman, I admit to a certain hesitancy regarding first purchasing amBITCHous… All of my concerns were for naught — by the time I finished the introduction, Dr. Condren had a new fan.
I’ve always considered myself an ambitious woman — but I immediately recognized some of the problems that the case studies in this book exemplified: I’ve stepped down from taking credit for things I’ve done, I have felt myself emotionally battered by those who wish to “steal my thunder,” and — goodness knows — I’ve battled with the idea that I am a bad mother, woman, person for wanting a career as much (or sometimes more than) my male counterparts.
Just recognizing those conflicts would’ve made this book a keeper. But by adding tools and suggestions for overcoming them? Like I said… Dr. Condren has a new fan.
– Nadia Cornier
CEO, COO, CFO, janitor, mother, author and anything else you can think of
Firebrand Literary
[...]
5 Stars Great Book!
I thought this book was an excellent read and I felt very empowered after reading it. I highly recommend this book for any woman at any stage in her career.
I think the author addresses several issues that women encounter. I really, really enjoyed it and I will pass the word about this book.
5 Stars About that pay differential…
The data still come in that women earn about 80 cents for every dollar a man earns. 44% of that wage gap can be attributed to WHAT women do (pink collar jobs, taking time to raise children) and a further 18% of the gap was associated with workplace characteristics such as WHERE women work. But the remaining 38% of the wage gap cannot be explained.
Author Condren attempts to teach women skills to bridge that considerable gap. Not since Hardball for Women has someone tried to instruct women how to play the game to win.
The advice covers quite a range, from avoiding self-sabotaging female behavior (submissive, apologetic false modesty) to blowing your own horn, deactivating detractors and saboteurs, acquiring allies, getting coaching and negotiation skills. Landing a job with the right pay can have cascading consequences downstream to the rest of your career, so this is advice you really can’t afford to ignore.
I’d say “RECOMMENDED” but I think the right word here is “ESSENTIAL.”