The Big Sister’s
Guide to the World of Work
The Big Sister’s Guide to the World of Work
THE INSIDE RULES EVERY GIRL MUST KNOW
Let’s be honest. Office politics are real, they are everywhere, and no one actually teaches you how to navigate them.
You can take all the classes you want in high school and college, but no one explains how work really works. How to communicate so you’re heard. How performance is actually judged. How power moves through a room. Or how decisions really get made.
Most of us learn the hard way. I certainly did.
When you consider that we spend roughly 90,000 hours of our lives working, it’s absurd that these skills aren’t considered basic education.
After years of falling on my face, figuring it out, and then watching smart, capable women struggle with the same invisible rules, I decided to do something about it. I wanted to create the guide I wish I’d had — for women just starting out and for those who are knee-deep in their careers thinking, Why does this still feel so hard?
That’s how The Big Sister’s Guide to the World of Work: The Inside Rules Every Working Girl Must Know was born.
I had no idea how to write or pitch a book. I didn’t have a roadmap. I asked questions. I asked more questions. I figured out who knew what, what materials I needed, and how the whole publishing world actually worked. From first idea to finished book took about a year and a half of persistence, learning, and a lot of uncomfortable reaching out.
My biggest regret was trusting the woman who I asked to help write this book. She has talent but she never learned the art of grace nor gratitude and took advantage of my good nature. She is my biggest professional mistake in the 40+ years I have been working. However, success, happiness, joy and love have prevailed.
If I can figure it out, you can too.
After plenty of failing and succeeding, I decided to fill the gap no one ever talks about — for those just starting out and for those knee-deep in their careers thinking, How is this still so confusing?
That’s how The Big Sister’s Guide to the World of Work: The Inside Rules Every Working Girl Must Know was born.
The book struck a nerve. It became a lasting, practical guide that continues to resonate with women around the world.
"EFFORTLESSLY ENGAGING..."
Effortlessly engaging and anything but predictable, The Big Sister’s Guide to the World of Work: The Inside Rules Every Working Girl Must Know is a we-feel-your-pain business book for women that promises to transform job exasperation into career determination–without boring them to tears.
In The Big Sister’s Guide to the World of Work is Bridget Jones’s Diary meets The Nanny Diaries meets The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People – part confession, part thinly veiled exposé, part career survival/success guide.
The inevitable contradictions of workplace politics get many women more twisted up inside than pantyhose in the spin cycle. The Big Sister’s Guide deftly untangles and translates the alien language and rituals of the work world into comprehensible girl-powered terms that are anything but Plain Jane.
"AS EDGY AS IT IS WISE..."
Fluently propelled by a fearlessly candid, tragic/comic narrative of the authors’ unlikely journey from suburban know-nothings to the top of the New York media food chain (and the cannibalism they encountered when they arrived at the top), the thrust of The Big Sister’s Guide is the authors’ amusing and boldly opinionated advice regarding the hows, whys, whats, wherefores, and whatnots of getting in, getting ahead and staying ahead at work–without losing your head.
As edgy as it is wise, The Big Sister’s Guide to the World of Work refreshingly relevant and stylish take on career foundations like Be Snow White & Deal with Your Dwarves or taming the barking menagerie commonly referred to as colleagues is accessorized with a full line of “Duh’s and Don’ts” every woman should have in her working wardrobe. Ballsy and smart, DiFalco and Herz take the guesswork out of office behavior so that anyone at any corporate level can be her best self at work.
Other Books Recommended by Jocelyn
- The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
- Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1850 by Kenneth Holmes, ed.
- Bridget Jone’s Diary by Helen Fielding
- Cool Dead People: Obituaries of Real Folks We Wish We’d Met A Little Sooner by Jane O’Boyle
- Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
- The Courage to Create by Rolio May
- I Dont’ Want to Talk About It by Terrence Real
- The Fine Art of Small Talk by Debra Fine
- Six Months Off: How to Plan, Negotiate and Take the Break You Need Without Burning Bridges or Going Broke by Hope Dlugozima, James Scott and David Sharp
- The Charisma Myth – Olivia Fox Cabane
- Pitch Perfect by Bill McGowan
- Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain
- Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand
- Something More: Excavating Your Authentic Self by Sarah Ban Breathnach
- The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
- Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff by Richard Carlson
- What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Boiles
- Everything that Harvard Business School Didn’t Teach You by Mark H. McMormack
- The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Managing People by Arthur R. Pell, PhD, et al.
- Blue Ocean Strategy by W.Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne
- Business Plans for Dummies
- First Things First, Stephan R. Covey
- The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference On the Day You Were Born by Malcolm Gladwell
- Emotional Intelligence by Naiel Goleman
- Elizabeth I, CEO: Strategic Lessons from the Leader Who Built an Empire by Alan Axelrod
- EVEolution: The Eight Truths of Marketing to Women by Faith Popcorn, Lys Marigold
- Life’s Little Instruction Book by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
- Dress Your Best: The Complete Guide to Finding the Style That’s Right for Your Body by Clinton Kelly, Stacy London
