There’s only one question: What would Sheryl do?

Recently I read Sheryl Sandberg’s, ‘Lean  In’ [Note it was completely intentional to link through to the Amazon link to this book so that you can purchase it IMMEDIATELY]. For those who are as thin as paper after living their entire life under a gigantic rock, because they don’t know who Sheryl Sandberg is, she is the current COO/CFO of Facebook. The very basic premise of her book (and doing this makes me feel sad because I’m not doing the book justice) but anyway the basic premise of her book is that women need to ‘lean in’ to their careers and be more active with making it all work. She uses lots of anecdotes from her own career spanning the US Treasury to Google to now Facebook and talks through her thinking when making key decisions. Whilst the book is targeted at women, it is very relevant to any young professional trying to weigh up different opportunities in their career. 

Anyway needless to say, reading this book I was actively nodding with a lot of what she was saying. So much so that people on the tram thought I was actually one of those bobble head dolls and a child came up to me and started poking my head to make it move. Anyway now I’m finding that I was so engaged with this book that I feel like I didn’t read the book, I actually had a conversation with her (but one of those conversations where one person does all the talking and the other person does all the nodding and “hmmm yes I agree”). As you would no doubt be accustomed to, now Sheryl makes a frequent appearance in normal conversation – whether I’m making an important decision or facing a tough work scenario or even just in every day conversation: “How would Sheryl handle this douche bag who’s stealing credit for my work?”; “How would Sheryl manage these competing expectations of what I can achieve?”; “I think Sheryl would agree that if I finish this presentation today I deserve a Wagon Wheel from the vending machine”;  “Erik, you know that in the interests of a forming a fair household, Sheryl would insist that you take out the rubbish”.

The brilliance of Sheryl is that her book is equally applicable to any person irrespective of gender. It’s the story of how you rise up through sheer competence and hard work, to run some of the world’s biggest, most influential companies. In fact I believe that every man, woman and child should be forced to read this book…yes even children, because if they are smart enough to read her book then those fucking little shits should realise how annoying and disruptive they are and if they could be semi-competent and raise themselves then we would never have idiot questions like “can women have it all?” being asked.

I for one am more than happy to blasphemously admit that if professional women created a cult, Sheryl would be our Messiah. Hahahaha imagine that cult – ‘Lean In’ would obvious be our religious script, and maybe disciples could all be called ‘Sheryl No. 1, 2, 3 etc.’ and we could all wear “What would Sheryl do” bracelets to indicate our sworn allegiance to leaning into our careers…[just between you and me I actually had a dream that I walked (ie. went on a pilgrimage) to Sheryl’s house (for some reason she lived in Melbourne) and it was this massive mansion with lots of Greek statues and pools everywhere]….haha ok so far I’ve admitted to having conversations with people I’ve never met, dreaming about their Greek-statue-filled mansions, and forming a professional women’s cult….I’m pretty sure if Sheryl saw this she’d tell me to get out more.