“I found my inner bitch and ran with it.”

Courtney Love’s candid thoughts on success.

Love attributes her success to a fierce competitiveness. As someone who has never considered ambition a dirty word, I admired her unvarnished candour.

What kicked off her career could best be describes as miss-placed confidence. She met Andy Warhol and confided, “I’m going to be really famous, would you do my portrait?” He loved her moxy, did her portrait, published it in Interview…and the rest is history.

She counsels that for women “self confidence breaks the glass ceiling.”

Love has always been incredibly ambitious, she’s never had a Plan B. Failure was not an option. Her operating mantra? “I want the most cake.” She has been laser-focused in building her career. She laments how few women make it to the CD job (less than 3% around the world).

Love advises finding a mentor (for her it was Kim Gordon) and to “go for the wife”. Her point is that in most marriages, the power-broker is the wife. She’s pulling the strings. So if you want to build a relationship with a man who is in power, court his wife.

She was incredibly open with her thoughts. Open about her imperfections. Love has always preferred her persona on stage, to her real one. Why? When she’s on stage, doing her job she is sure of her purpose. Sure of her role. In real life, it’s like jazz, you’re riffing. Making it up as you go along.

When asked to explain her following she shrugged and answered, “I’m not a great singer. I scream-sing. For some reason that’s what people seem to love.”

Indeed.