Getting in
the game

A new book says women who want
financial clout need to shed their
old patterns of self-perception

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By Nadine Kam
nkam@starbulletin.com

"Secrets of Six-Figure Women: Surprising Strategies to Up Your Earnings and Change Your Life," By Barbara Stanny (HarperCollins), hardcover, 274 pages, $23.95.

Those trips to Vegas will be a thing of the past if Barbara Stanny is right. The author of "Prince Charming Isn't Coming: How Women Get Smart About Money" is back with a new tome, "Secrets of Six-Figure Women: Surprising Strategies to Up Your Earnings and Change Your Life."

Before you get too excited, be aware that, like most self-help books, this is not a practical how-to in that it doesn't offer such concrete suggestions as promoting yourself via newsletters or parlaying interests into speaking engagements and the like. Rather, it takes a rah-rah approach to positive thinking about money earning, which Stanny says is in short supply among low-wage earners. In other words, free your mind and the cash will follow. Stanny is a tireless cheerleader, serving up her financial experiences as her own best example.

Author Barbara Stanny

Her father was the founder of H&R Block, one of the nation's largest tax services, and she was a trust-fund baby, raised to be a wife and mother and thoroughly dependent on men.

She found her way to writing after a failed marriage to a man who lost much of her fortune in reckless investments. He left the country after their divorce, leaving her to contend with "colossal tax bills, three small children and a brain incapable of deciphering financial jargon."

"It never occurred to me that I could make money," she said, in a phone call from Santa Barbara, where she was helping her daughter settle into college life. "I wasn't brought up that way, and besides, I was a writer, and everybody knows writers don't make money.

"But I started interviewing women who were making six-figure incomes, and many of them were writers. I could relate to them, and the only difference between them and me was how they thought. They thought bigger. They valued themselves more. They had more self-esteem. They just said, 'I deserve more and I'm worth it.'

In interviewing more than 150 women -- both high and low earners -- she said, "I saw what it took, and it didn't take some fancy degree, being in the 'right' field, working 24-7 or sacrificing your personal life. People also have the view that people who make money are arrogant, aloof or workaholics, but all that went out the window.

"A lot of the women weren't working any harder than I was; some never went to college; some never went to high school."

At that point, Stanny challenged herself to match their success, setting her target at $125,000, a goal she reached before her book was completed. She started by upping her fees.

"That was scary for me. The voice inside my head was asking, 'Who do you think you are?' I thought people would turn me down, and they did. But I stood my ground, and eventually people started paying my fees.

"I had to let go of disabling, limiting beliefs I had about myself, and I found that once you declare an intention, it becomes like a magnet, drawing opportunity to you."

Her examples include a businesswoman who was making only $12,000 a year and was tired of working long hours for so little. With coaching she was able to land an executive position at a bank, demanding and getting $110,000.

"I know it sounds like pie in the sky," Stanny said. "I know you think people like her are the exception, but she's the exception because she asked for it, demanded it, got coaching for it and made it happen. She prepared.

"It's true that not everybody is able to make six figures, but it is possible for anyone to make more than they are making now." Sometimes that means making a leap to another profession, Stanny's Strategy No. 2, which is to "let go of the ledge," what she terms "the stretch."

"Most people are fearful, so they don't do anything. Often, they find success just outside their comfort zone."

To find out if this applies to you, she suggests asking yourself, When was the last time you did something you weren't sure you could do?

"If you don't do anything because you don't know if you have what it takes, you're fearful, you're staying stuck."

Although this sounds like irresponsible advice in light of the economy, Stanny said, "I know the economy is bad, and I've called these women back to find they've lost jobs and seen their salaries go down, but their attitudes are amazing. They just know they have what it takes to bring their incomes back up.

"Economy, husbands, friends -- don't let any of those things hold you back." In a chapter titled "Get in the Game," Stanny found that low-wage earners typically surrounded themselves with naysayers who will point out the futility of their ambitions and how dumb their ideas are. In taking a positive approach, Stanny sees them as doing you a favor. "They come to test our level of commitment. If you notice, the more tentative you feel, the more pessimistic they sound. If they succeed in discouraging you, be grateful. You didn't have the moxie to make it in the first place."

Certainly, you many be working for a company that may not value your skills, but, she said, "There are places where they will.

"Yes, there is a glass ceiling, there is an old-boys' network. It's only in the last 100 years that women have been able to have jobs, let alone keep our own incomes. For most of history we've been the property of our husbands or fathers.

"Society is not totally happy about us reaching the glass ceiling. But the bigger problem is the lead ceiling in our heads that keep us down."

Bring on the zeroes Here are seven strategies employed by six-figure women, according to author Barbara Stanny. She is in town through Friday for press interviews and to participate in a mother-daughter luncheon for Salomon Smith Barney. 1. Make a declaration of intention. How much do you want to make? 2. Let go of the ledge. Recognize the things that hold you back, and be willing to make changes. 3. Get in the game. Create and act on opportunities. 4. Speak up. Start making demands, although this is not easy because "good girls" are taught that assertiveness equals bitchiness. Stanny suggests embracing your inner bitch. 5. Stretch. Dare to do what you think you cannot. 6. Seek support. Learn to emulate those you admire; seek out mentors and surround yourself by people who offer encouragement. 7. Obey the rules of money. Once you have it, don't squander it. Learn to save, invest and spend wisely.

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