Wild Courage

A bold, empowering, and energizing guide to embracing your ambition and chasing after what you want from an executive who spent nearly two decades climbing the ranks at Google. What if the traits you need to get ahead are the exact opposite of what you’ve been told? To be successful you need to be Weird, Selfish, Shameless, Obsessed, Nosy, Manipulative, Brutal, Reckless, and Bossy. And that takes courage. As a former Google leader and top career coach who chased an attractive stranger off the subway and later married him, Jenny Wood knows her way around courage. In this book, Wood shatters conventional wisdom about achieving your goals. She gives you permission to ditch your fear and chase after what you want, unapologetically. Wood reclaims nine traits from their negative shackles and teaches you how to apply them in a savvy and sane way to supercharge your success, whether you’re trying to impress your new boss, snag a stretch promotion, or land a life-changing deal. Wild Courage will teach you how to be: Weird: Win as you or lose as “who?” Selfish: Be your own champion. Shameless: Kick impostor syndrome to the curb and self-promote with ease. Obsessed: Push, persist, and perform at your highest level. Nosy: Get curious to network confidently and learn from others. Manipulative: Build influence with empathy and manage up like a pro. Brutal: Draw lines and stick to them. Embrace the power of no. Reckless: Err on the side of action and take healthy risks. Bossy: Steer others to success, even if you’re not in charge yet. Wild Courage coaches you to smash through your fear of discomfort, failure, and the judgement of others, to embrace your boldest self in pursuit of what you want. To be successful, you need to have courage. Wild amounts of it.

Jenny Wood is an unstoppable confidence booster dedicated to helping people make their impossible dreams likely. After chasing an attractive stranger off the subway, giving him her number, and later marrying him, Wood vowed to always pluck up the courage to go after what she wanted in life. And it’s worked; Wood is a Google Executive, founder of Own Your Career, speaker, writer, mom, and pilot. Her writing has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneur, Inc., and Forbes. She earned her B.A. in Economics & International Business at Brandeis and was a research associate at Harvard Business School. She lives in Boulder with her husband and their two kids.