What’s the big idea?
Your status among your peers and in your community may seem like an uncontrollable factor, by nature of it existing in the heads of others. However, there are actually many fun and easy steps you can take to supercharge your status in humble, authentic, generous ways.
Below, Alison shares five key insights from her new book, Likeable Badass: How Women Get the Success They Deserve. Listen to the audio version—read by Alison herself—in the Next Big Idea App.
1. Being a likeable badass is your path to status.
A likeable badass is someone who shows up as both caring and capable. When people see you as caring and capable, they grant you status. That is, they respect you and hold you in high regard.
Status is a fundamental human need. We all seek status, and it is critical to our quality of life. Feeling respected improves physical and mental health. It also makes it easier to gain power, another fundamental need. The more we feel valued by others, the better our lives are.
Our status only exists in other people’s minds. We only get as much status as others grant us. Fortunately, we can influence our status by how we show up. Science shows that people respect those who care about others and are good at what they do. Showing up as a likeable badass is the most controllable way we can affect our status.
2. Use your skills to help others.
A young woman who was active on Instagram lamented that her older (mostly male) work colleagues saw social media as frivolous kids’ stuff. She didn’t want to abandon something she enjoyed, but she also wanted to build her status at work.
