Kick Some Glass:10 Ways Women Succeed at Work on Their Own Terms

by Jennifer W. Martineau, Portia Mount

The rule-smashing guide for motivated working women who want to stop following someone else’s rules and take charge of their own success.


You leaned in like a palm tree in a hurricane. You cracked the confidence code. You’re determined not to be a nice girl, but a #GirlBoss. You’ve learned you can’t have it all, but you still try anyway. You know all of this. You’ve read the books, downloaded the apps, vision boarded and journaled your way to oblivion and back, to no avail.


Whether you’re stuck in middle management, stalled in mid-career, or mulling over a major career change, sometimes the proverbial glass ceiling feels very real indeed―a barrier keeping you from fulfilling your potential. Unlike other books, which focus on fixing you, Kick Some Glass empowers you to break through your glass ceiling and guides you toward understanding your context and uncovering what you really want, what your definition of success is, what your values are, and how to set the goals to reach your potential.


This is no one-size-fits-all career guide. It’s a top-to-bottom, inside-out, do-it-yourself makeover with the focus completely on you. In each chapter, you’ll be asked to evaluate specific parts of your work life, home life, personal strengths and weaknesses, past history and present obstacles, both internal and external, so you


• Live your intention and design a meaningful life at any stage
• Identify the underlying values that are the core of your being
• Get comfortable with your personal power and understand what it means
• Uncover the conscious and subconscious mental models that are holding you back
• Take calculated risks through planful action with a clear direction
• Let go of things you cannot control or change
• Become more resilient, adaptable, and self-aware
• Make the choices and tradeoffs necessary to fulfill your goals
• Decide if it’s time to reinvent your career―and prepare for your next move
• Find that elusive work-life balance that’s right for you
• Create your own definition of success―and make it happen for you


Best of all, you’ll be able to map out a career course for yourself that is based on your own definition of success, play and win by your own rules, and pay it forward by busting down doors for the next generation of women.


In the end, this book will help you uncover who you truly are and approach your professional life in ways that are authentic and most meaningful to you―and no one else. After all, only you hold the answers. It’s time to Kick Some Glass.

Genres: Nonfiction, Business

240 pages, Hardcover

Published October 18, 2018

Reviews

[Fiona · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was just a collection of stories on women who managed to achieve what they wanted. I couldn't learn anything for my personnel situation from this. There where some "get your notebook out and answer these questions" or "think about this" but never anything about what I should do with it.

[Lee Woodruff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ready to figure out how to claim your power in the working world ? This is your book. Especially loved the advice on motherhood not to drop out but to power down.

[Toyin Spades · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this book is an eye opener and it forces you to take stock of your life and decide what terms you want to live on. Although it is a career book tailored towards women, it is by no means the typical advice you get from other books.

Martineau and Mount take a practical approach in giving guidelines to how women in the workplace can chart a course for themselves to be successful on their own terms.

They challenge women to go hard after their personal and professional goals by aligning their values and intentions with meaningful actions.

At the end of every chapter, there are exercises to take and these help you reflect deeply on what is important to you and what process you can implement to set you up for success.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was excited to begin reading Kick Some Glass - 10 Ways Women Succeed At Work On Their Own Terms. While I do think it offered good insights on the road blocks women run in to when working hard to reach their full potential, I felt the book itself took way to many pages to accomplish its goal. There are many lines I plan to revisit and really absorb, however I could have done without all of the examples. Overall, great concept but too lengthy.

Thank you to Net Galley for providing a copy of the book in exchange for a fair and honest review. A positive opinion was not required. All thoughts are my own.

[Stacey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I would have read this in my 20s. There were so many profound takeaways in this book; I plan to reread it. How much leadership disadvantage woman experience by being considered bossy at such young age where men do not experience the same treatment. I am personally at fault for identifying my toddler daughter as bossy when she is absolutely just demonstrating her desire to lead.

[Nicki Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was ok! It was informative about different struggles women have to face professionally incorporated with personal stories from the authors about their work experience as a woman.

[Nicole Kroger Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to say, this career "self help" book geared toward women is actually better than most I've read on the subject. The interactive components such as the "Values Explorer" were very insightful and did help me to better clearly define my career goals. The journal prompts were also great for further insight and exploration. However, at least one of the interactive components (the work-life balance assessment) is no longer available on the website as advertised in the book.

I appreciated that there were numerous studies cited to back up the research, and the chapters were divided into direct, digestible segments. However, some of the real-life, first-person examples seemed a bit too simplified, in a way in which doesn't seem realistic or approachable.

Overall, this was worth the read. I may go back and explore some of the prompts again later.

[Teresa · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book for a women in leadership book club. The author revisits age old advice on dressing for the job you want and not the job you have, and hiring outside help to take care of the home. In the final Pay It Forward chapter talking about the challenges that girls face at school, she did not do any research except for one anecdote about her own daughter. The remaining examples were from women who were girls in the 70s.

What was missing here was some well thought out insights into what women who are smart and driven often miss in seeking leadership positions. How to take their current position and start running it as if they were a leader. Building strategy and streamlining processes. A lot of coaching for women is leadership coaching and not just, stay fit and wear makeup, power down when you have a baby but don’t stop working.

Another gap in this book deals with working women who cannot afford the perks that come with already being an executive. Powering down is not always an option. Outsourcing your housecleaning and shopping is not an option for many single moms who are not yet managers. It’s one thing to have arrived, but I find that a lot of women half my age do not know how to get there.

[Emily Winter · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a woman a few years into starting her career, I was really interested in this book and how it might help me develop. However, maybe I have read too many articles or other artifacts on this topic because I felt that this piece didn’t have anything particularly new or groundbreaking. It does offer a good breadth of information about the state of women in the workforce and good journaling/reflection questions but the book overall fell flat for me.