How Your Bucket List Can Make You Badass


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Make Your List
If you’re setting intentions this summer, set them high! I loved the ambition of this teen’s bucket list that was reportedly found in the dressing room at an Urban Outfitters. She wants to savor the long days with to-dos like “make a summer playlist” and “go on a picnic”. And she’s using her time away from the rigid rules of school (and parents?) to dare herself even further “Get drunk all the time” and “Get a boob hickey.” (No judgment, we all dreamed big, weird, and dangerously as teens — and that’s what makes us stronger and smarter as adults.)
And then The New York Times perfectly skewered our more grown-up bucket list: “research eye cream” and “try not to drink more than half a bottle of Pinot Grigio on weeknights.” (Again, no judgment, please. While reading this, I realized I already had a browser window open to Allure’s list of best eye creams. Research done!)
But it’s the sincerity of @blairimani’s Twitter list that really inspired me: “Earn a spot on Forbes 30 Under 30…Learn French & Arabic…Open mental health facilities in underserved areas.” Her list is meant to “speak some things into existence,” she writes. THIS is what a bucket list should be. Our hopes, dreams, wishes, prayers. What we want to “earn” — not be given. Goals that are big and require work and help. Intentions that are meaningful to ourselves, to others, to the world.
And so I’m closing the eye cream browser window, and working on a new list of the more ambitious ideas I want to manifest this summer and beyond. I’m sharing my list in progress here. Big, small, self-obsessed, world-changing: What’s on your list?
Until next week,
XOXO
— A.
IN OTHER BADASS BABES NEWS…
THE NEW DUDE
Jay-Z made headlines for getting brutally honest about his marriage on4:44: “We built this big, beautiful mansion of a relationship that wasn’t totally built on 100 percent truth, and it started cracking,”he explained. But I was actually way more interested in this 4:44 clip, which features men speaking from the heart about the pressure they feel to be stoic and emotionless. The baggage of traditional masculinity is weighing them down. But why should it?
Today’s guys are more open, vulnerable, and self-aware than ever before. I even saw proof of that at the dudes’ dinner I hosted last night (Shout out to Cava for the food and The Sauce for the vino). I was so impressed by their candor and honesty, even when the conversation turned to the most complicated emotions. Do you know men who should be a part of the next Badass Dudes dinner? Email me here.
#GIRLBOSS
While GenXers and Boomers are worrying about how to manage their millennial employees, I get just as many questions from young women who are worried about how to be a boss for the first time. I was 34 years old when I became editor-in-chief of Seventeen — the youngest EIC of a major magazine at that time. The first few weeks were rough. I had inherited a team that I didn’t know very well and a workplace culture that didn’t vibe with my POV. I made some lukewarm decisions at first — I was still getting the lay of the land and coming in like a wrecking ball is not my MO…but then, about six weeks in I had an epiphany. It was my job to set the agenda, be clear, keep people accountable, and let them do their jobs to the best of their ability. And that’s it. I didn’t need to have all the answers. But when I did answer a question, I had to stick to my response. We’ve all had wishy-washy bosses who changed their mind every time the wind blew. Or the ones who would tell you one thing, then check with her boss and come back with another answer. Or the ones who couldn’t commuincate a clear mission to save their lives. And so as a boss, my goal was to not torture my employees in the ways in which I’d been tortured.
The key, I tell new bosses, is to make everyone feel like they’re on your team, all working toward the same goal. If you have to manage someone older than you, it won’t feel like you’re the boss and she’s your older underling. It’ll feel like you’re teammates.
SEXUAL HARASSMENT SHOULDN’T BE PAR FOR THE COURSE
Are you as proud of the women who have come forward to say they’ve been sexually harassed in their tech companies or by investors in their start ups as I am? I’m not surprised that they have come forward — but I am surprised how often they say that the harassment is expected or par for the course, or a rite of passage. Bea Arthur, CEO of The Difference (who gives some Badass advice in The Big Life), says bluntly “The people who have the money, who will accelerate your idea, want to see your boobs.” Kathryn Minshew, CEO of The Muse, recalled a time an investor suggested they sleep together after he signed an agreement to invest in her company, but before the cash was in the bank. Jenn Hyman, CEO of Rent the Runway, had the support of her board in parting ways with an investor who harassed her, and pointed out that it’s much, much tougher for other women at earlier stages of getting funding. These women and more stepped forward this month; they’re brave for holding the tech industry accountable. If this kind of despicable behavior is “expected,” what other kinds of B.S. are women putting up with? Worth paying attention to the assumptions we make about what we have to put up with to get what we want.
Until next week!
XOXO
A.