For hard-charging Millennial women – 10 principles for taking no bull. Including: Take Care of Your Future Self, Develop Multiple Income Streams, and more.

1. www.getbullish.com

2. 1. You Do Not Know What Your Future
Self Will Want – But She Will Want
Resources and Options
Society doesn't encourage women to look forward to getting
older. But when you get there, you'll still feel like yourself –
and how awesome your life will be depends greatly on what
you do now. It's hard to know exactly what you'll want when
you're 35 or 55 or 105. A desire to travel in your twenties
may turn into a deep lust for a townhouse in a good
neighborhood – or maybe you'll sell everything and spend a
decade building schools or clinics in a needy
community. You can't know exactly what your future self will
want, but she will want money in the bank, a network of
personal and business connections to help her out, a
professional reputation to bank on, and the freedom to make
choices. She wants resources and options. Set her up!If you
have a hard time standing up for yourself, or if you feel
"greedy" asking for a raise or leaving a just-okay job to look
for a better one, don't just think about you – think about her.
Your future self is an amazing person and she needs your
help now.

3. 2. Cultivate Multiple Income Streams
When you invest, you don't put all your money in one place.
You also don't want all your money coming from one place.
That's risky, and makes you dependent. Being dependent
makes you a weak negotiator. Corporations depend on
that.You want multiple income streams. That could be a side
gig, but make sure you're not just giving yourself a low-
paying part-time job – can you start a business on the side
that's scalable, that can provide passive income, or that can
grow to be a large enterprise? Can your expertise be turned
into products, such as ebooks or video courses? Can you be
a consultant? Think about the vendors your employer
regularly uses – could you start a firm that would replace one
of them? Starting a side business in a different industry from
your main gig means that you may be able to receive
support from your coworkers – a lot of people would hire
their company's graphic designer as a wedding
photographer, for instance.If you're just starting out, it's okay
to focus on getting a job and developing one major income
stream. But once that's in place, don't get soft. You need
multiple income streams.

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5. 3. Think of Work-life Balance Over the
Course of Your Entire Life
No one wants a boss who steals all your free time, but that
doesn't mean you should aim to leave every day at 5 and get
your fill of yoga and relaxing hobbies.If you live in a brutal
capitalist system – and in the U.S., you do – your twenties is
no time to think about work-life balance. Think of "balance"
over the course of your entire life. If there's ever going to be
a time you work less or not at all (caring for children or aging
parents, for instance), maybe you should work more now,
and set your future self up with options and resources.
Working more now doesn't mean giving all your free time to
a boss. Only do that if it will get you raises and promotions.
Your other options include aggressive networking, pursuing
mentors and sponsors, gaining additional education and
training, or starting a side hustle or your own company.

6. 4. Hard Skills and Hard Numbers: No One
Can Take Them From You
It's much easier to break in to an industry if you have skills
that can be quantified, certified, or otherwise counted and
measured. There are too many young women flooding the
freelance writing and English-degree-but-no-business-skills
markets. Professions that are both dominated by women and
involve fuzzy, nonquantifiable skills are likely to pay
poorly.Quantifiable, hard skills are doubly important if you
are likely to be discriminated against in the job market for
any reason, or if you suspect you might just not have one of
those "likable" personalities. No one can deny your Github
contributions or your sales figures. That won't solve every
problem, but it's a good start.And if you have problems with
confidence, you need a hard skill that doesn't change with
your feelings or circumstances. It's not too late for a coding
bootcamp, a career change, or a skill boost.

7. 5. Your “Aggressive” is Probably Their
“Assertive”
Articles for women always talk about being "assertive." This
is a weak word that offends no one. It's not good enough.
"Assertive" will keep you a basically obedient mid-level
employee forever. If you've been socialized to be pleasant
and accommodating, what you think of as being "assertive"
probably doesn't even register. Even what many women
think of as "aggressive" is only barely assertive.If your social
circle is made up of excellent people who care a lot about
being respectful to others, that's great – for your friendships.
But it leaves you unprepared to stand up for yourself (and
others) in a work world that doesn't play by those rules. You
need to recalibrate.Spend some time around the most
entitled, privileged, hard-charging business bros you can get
access to, even if you hate them. Attend venture capital
information nights or investment club meetings. Learn from
them. Don't be afraid to get aggressive.

8. 6. The Best Opportunities are Not
Advertised
If someone has already advertised it on a job board or
turned it into a contest, it's no longer a good opportunity. The
balance of power is against you.Amazingly, there is much
less competition at the very top of most things than in the
middle. A million people want an unpaid internship at a
fashion magazine. No one but you is going to track down a
startup founder and convince him over coffee that you know
how to get his product in the press.You must pitch. Make
your own opportunities. Make mutually beneficial offers to
strangers, including people way above you. Let rejection roll
off; you're on to the next pitch. The best job will be one
created for you. The best client will be one who feels you
understand them perfectly – you just swooped in out of
nowhere and solved their problem. There is no Prince
Charming of work. Do not wait to be picked.

9. 7. Entrepreneurship is Part of the Modern
Career Lifespan
If you're going to work for 40+ years, you will have to be an
entrepreneur at some point, even if you don't want to now.
There will come a time that you can't work full-time and the
part-time jobs are not good, or a time that your company
treats you so badly you want to quit and go crush them, or
just a time that you feel very confident and have a great
idea, and it seems silly and stale and illogical to keep making
money for someone else. It'll happen before you're 65. It will.
Even if you're happy now being an employee, having an
entrepreneurial plan in your back pocket makes you ballsier
when you negotiate. You should go into a salary negotiation
knowing that, if it doesn't go the way you want, you're ready
to go out into the marketplace and start your own damn
company. Entrepreneurship is not optional. If you're
employed, go ahead and ease into it. Read books. Attend
pitch nights and startup events. Save those great ideas.
Never get too comfortable. Everything changes; you need to
be ready to get up and start something.

10. 8. Always Be Willing to Walk Away
The way to win at negotiating isn't to use "power poses" or
memorize some magic words. It's to be very, very valuable in
the marketplace – and for everyone to know it. And for you
and the boss to work together, as peers, to find a mutually
agreeable arrangement. A lot of negotiating advice begins
with the idea that you are an employee who really wants a
job, or is already in a job. At that point, you have no chips.
You want that entrepreneurial plan in your back pocket. You
want a reputation as a game-changer or intellectual
contributor in the field. Your boss should come in motivated
to keep you at any cost. That means you've been
networking, and contributing to your field outside of your job,
even when things are good. Especially when they're good.It's
also not a coincidence that the number one skill, in general,
for thriving in life is the ability to emotionally break away from
toxic people and dead-end situations. There are controlling
families, and partners, and companies, who want to exploit
your capacity for emotional attachment in order to hold you
back. Don't let them.

11. 9. Money is Not Evil
Money is a tool. It does not inherently corrupt. Having it does
not need to change your identity. A lot of people who care
about social justice have mixed feelings about this. Try this:
Who do you admire? Mindy Kaling, Toni Morrison, Jon
Stewart, and Amy Poehler are each worth over $15 million.
And everyone you admire who doesn't have a lot of money is
someone whose projects could use money from people like
you. Pick an awesome famous rich person as a money role
model. Then unabashedly pitch yourself for projects, ask for
raises, and look for ways to generate income. Aim for the top
prize. Be persistent. Keep your role model in mind. Money is
not evil. It just magnifies the personality of whoever holds it.
And you have a pretty great personality.

12. 10. Being Good is Not the Same as Being
Nice
The best way to make the world better is not to be nice to
everyone who happens to be around you right now. Some of
those people are assholes. Some of those people are fine,
but helping them will not change the world. Sometimes, you
must do better than all of those people to get the best job,
the most money, the most influence, the most resources –
and become someone who actually has enough power to
create real change. Doing good often requires the opposite
of being nice – it requires scaring the shit out of people who
are making the world worse. The world needs you to be able
to be more intimidating.Do you feel bad that you don't give to
charity? Well, how much money do you have? Would it be
better to give $20 now, or to buckle down and become a
multimillionaire (or just a $200,000-a-year-aire) who swoops
in and solves problems? A lot of problems – helping a friend
with cancer, paying bail for someone wrongfully imprisoned,
helping a kid with their education – are greatly improved with
a couple thousand bucks. It's okay to put off philanthropy
while you gain money and influence. Go do that. You don't
have to be nice. Be good.

13. This slide presentation was
written by GetBullish founder
Jennifer Dziura.
For more Bullish articles,
information about our annual
conference, or to hire Jen as a
speaker, visit
www.getbullish.com