Once upon a time we were all over the concept of the lady boss like a rash.

Lady boss. Boss lady. 

Do you remember those days? Being a lady boss sounded so enticing, didn’t it? The idea of working from our laptops at home. Or from Bali. Or maybe a romantic, yet slightly dishevelled European city.

We dreamt that the kids would tag along, and that somehow we would miraculously escape the school run by also finding the time to home educate. (They’d learn foreign languages while we worked. They’d learn diversity of culture as we travelled. We’d toss a coin at breakfast to decide whether to hit the ski slopes of the surf beach at the weekend.)

Or perhaps your lady boss was more corporate than mine? The type of lady boss responsible for running large, multi-site global scale projects, and having the salary and the respect to boot. This type of boss lady would live in the townhouse with a nanny whom she gifted with a Prada handbag every Christmas. (I met that nanny at the school gate in real life. ‘Cos the boss lady was never there, and I never did escape the school gate, actually.) 

Here’s the thing though. Well into the reality of what it actually means to be a lady boss by now, and matured with the understanding of reality of what it entails for real. Most of us have ended up sick to the back teeth with a concept that, ultimately, turned out to only mean more work and less time in the end.

This post then, is for women who are generally irate and exhausted like I was. who were seduced by the lady boss dream but are now, to put it mildly, more than a little bit over it.

It will give you some ideas about how we got to this point as women and where to go next. In an age of stress it will also focus on quick easy wins. In this post you will learn three easy strategies to help shoulder the overwhelm and learn - shock horror - to even accept a little help from your friends.

So What Exactly is a Lady Boss and What Does It Mean?

Recently I posted in some of my online threads the following question:

“What does the idea of being a lady boss mean to you?”

The feedback really surprised me. 

Mostly the women were vehement - they scoffed loudly.  It wasn’t hard to uncover - we are apparently well and truly sick and tired with the concept of the lady boss. There was a quality to the way my women friends spoke about this subject, which reminded me of a lover who has come through a bitter breakup. The aura of having survived a particularly draining love affair.

Fair enough, I replied. 

And. Wow

So why Did We End Up with this boss lady obsession anyway?

A lot is stacked against us as women here, let’s be honest. We can read about workplace inequalities and glass ceilings and the fight for justice so we might smash through them at last.

But here’s the thing - most of us seduced by the lady boss fairy lights were only ever after freedom in the end. 

I remember the time I attended a workshop at a large corporate office in central London. It was interesting to me to watch the buzziness of the corporate environs. In a way, I found myself a little jealous. (Faint whispers of the townhouses. The teams of nannies. The Prada handbags.) 

But I remember one woman in particular. She was much admired in the room for being at the top of her career, and she spoke for some time on the stage as a result. She told us how she had headed up a project that made a name for itself. I am talking the size of project that comes along once in every decade or so. And she had run it like the ninja she was. Because she was damn good at her job and - even under the most enormous performance pressures, the kind of pressures that had the whole world watching - still she pulled it off with absolute finesse and efficiency.

Lady boss extraordinaire.

It was interesting because she gravitated towards my little break out group in the lunch interval. (Corporate buzziness. Raw sushi. Little pickles. Water shot with bubbles. Carpaccio and rocket salad. Got any Prada with that?)

Anyway - this particular lady boss was a different picture up close.  What struck me first was the sheer level of exhaustion dripping off this woman. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her hair was limp and lifeless. She had a slight stoop, like in spite of the prestige of her position she just did not have the heart to live up to it for another day.

She sighed as she told us about how she had outstripped the performance criteria of her department at every juncture. She mentioned her flagship client - a massive global corp - and how she had increased their project's percentage margins year upon year. How delighted they were with her.

And yet here was the thing - there was no tangible joy in anything she said. She talked about how each time she reported on the marginal increase, her employers just replied: “Great. Let’s increase that by another 2% then next year.”

This lady boss was in a machine. And it was sucking the very marrow from her bones.

When I told her I lived in a narrowboat and played the guitar. She looked at me with the kind of envy that made me realise that it does not matter how many Prada handbags you own, if all you do with them is drink a couple of bottles of Chardonnay each evening and puke up into them in the cab on the way home.

What Is a Strong Independent Woman in Today’s World Then?

I have to say, that in spite of my bohemian and envious boating musical lifestyle, I found myself falling into similar traps. Granted, the corporate career path was never for me. (Ooops. There goes my pension.) But what did happen was I let the boss lady concept seep into my veins anyway.

The most important thing to me was to be - strong.

What this meant to me through most of my twenties and thirties was to be:

• Financially independent. (Like I could walk away from anything.)  
• Emotionally independent. (Like I could walk away from anything.)
• Locationally independent. (Like I could walk away from anything.)
• Professionally independent. (Like I could walk away from anything.)

I mean maybe I should hire a life coach to help me identify a pattern here?

But Why Would You Need Anyone, Anyway?

It only took a couple of decades for me to figure out that maybe independence wasn’t all it was cracked up to be after all. Because the lady boss archetype had worked for me in her own way too. I went the entrepreneurial route - but I was successful enough at it that I had an income and a home and the latest iphone and I drove a luxe car and sent my son to the Montessori nursery. I went to the local tapas bar enough that they knew I had a favourite dish.

Still there came a point where my health, my body and my relationships were suffering. The lady boss was a dream of freedom - but it wasn’t freedom in and of itself. I too felt exhausted from the moment I woke up til the moment I went to bed in the evening. Glued to my phone and the schedule I had set for myself as I tried to live a life in the boss lady image. The constant demands of parenting, working, money and lifestyle were taking their toll.

“Money is the means to wealth. Not the wealth itself.” 

Akala.

Honestly, it didn’t take long for the lady boss dream to evaporate when my body was becoming beset with inflammation, pain and an inability to breathe upon physical exercise.

There simply came a point then where I knew I needed to stop and learn to relax and rely upon other people for a bit. Like - what was the harm in letting go for a day? Or - maybe I could just stop for a while and not be sending myself back to some form of post-feminist imprisonment after all?  Or - putting down the iphone for a day, was not the same thing as consigning my life to wearing a pinny and home-baking for my child. (Leave the home-baking to the Montessori school. God only knows I was paying them enough.)

Slowly but surely, the epic ambition of living like a lady boss left me.

I moved to the country. I did get a life coach. (Those patterns are an amazing thing, right?!) And I found myself on my long walks with the dog, and through my various practices, I found myself coming back to my body.

Me and my lady boss hanging out

All I can say that is nowadays my lady boss is still there. She's still dreaming. And hey, maybe one day she will live in Bali and work between surfing trips. To be honest she wouldn't mind being polyamorous and owning a Shoreditch penthouse. But thankfully, I have received enough guidance, help and support along the way in my journey to have her firmly in the back seat and along for the ride. Rather than hurtling down the fast lane in control of the whole thing. 

Sure, boss lady is happy for me to earn my own way and have the kind of choice and agency that money and work can bring. But more and more - she isn't looking to escape with me. She is looking at how she can help me stick around and work it out.

As such, boss lady is my right hand woman.  She nods her head with cynicism when I say maybe independence isn't all its cracked up to be, that maybe we should try a more relational route. She knows all about my crush on Charles Eisenstein. She knows one day I may, like him, try and support my family through receiving gifts and gifts alone. (Wow.) But she also knows I've been homeless. She also knows sometimes friends have betrayed me. She also knows once I was alone in Mexico and nearly died and it was the credit card got me home.

Yeah yeah yeah, says the lady boss. 

Stick around and work it out with your friends.  And just in case that fucks up - I've got you covered.

me and the lady boss and the receiving muscle

I promised you some quick wins at the beginning of this article, and quick wins you shall get.

So. It's unlikely that you are going to want to lose all positive attributes of living in lady bossdom, right? Like me, you may find that your lady boss won't let you anyway.

Fortunately though, it's not like you actually need to DO anything with her. The answer is more simple than that, I have found.  Just - let her be - and start practising the use of other muscles instead. Sit her down and give her a double espresso and some fat bombs (my boss lady is keto all the way.) And let her put her feet up for a bit.

Personally speaking, the most important thing I ever did, to help counteract lady boss dictator rule in my life, was  to hone the muscle of receiving.

(Small caveat - our lady bosses are so addicted to getting it all done themselves, that it is advisable to start this one slow. We don't want to completely blow their minds.)

Que? Receiving? what's that then?

Think about every time your colleague offered to buy you a drink and you refused. Think about when that man held the door for you and you scoffed at him for being sexist. Think about the time someone paid you a compliment and you batted it back like it was an alien creature not fit for daylight exposure.

Here is a classic example of this - just last week I was at a public meeting, and one woman got celebrated  by another participant. "I just want to thank you for ........" type of thing.

Straight away, and with the type of lightning speed only women are capable of in instances such as these. the woman who was being asked to receive the praise, batted that public celebration of her work back to the one offering it like it was a speedy tennis ball. Or a disease.

"Oh but YOU have done x,y,z...." She went replied. "You are SO much more x,y,z than I will ever be...."

It was immediate. It was chronic. It was the story of her life.....Her refusal to receive it.

Have you done this too? Do you recognise yourself in this?

It's a female kind of tragedy. 

Just take it, woman. Take it. Take it with grace and gratitude. 

Let the love in.

lady boss just melts under the power of attention

The best way to soften your lady boss overdrive then, is to gradually let yourself open to receiving what the world has to offer you. In lots of little doable ways you can make this happen for yourself too. You don't have to do this in a rush. (Be still lady boss. Have another fat bomb.) 

Receive the smiles. Stop and let that guy open a door for you - he's not telling you you can't do it yourself, he's offering to give you his attention. And attention is a precious resource. Thankyou, that man.

In fact, although my lady boss cringes as I confess - deep down I crave attention more than I crave anything else. More than I crave money, sex or free time. I want people to see me. I want to be seen. In fact, I need it like I need oxygen. And in my work helping women empower their lives, over and over I have seen the same thing. It's like we got so used to doing it all ourselves and nobody even noticing, that we don't truly believe we are worthy of attention anymore.

to the quick wins then

Below you will find three quick ways to work that receiving muscle, as promised.

And because you are probably in a rush, or someone, somewhere needs your attention also, you can start doing them just a few times a day. Until, like me, you may even find you wanna take your time with them. You may want to savour them through your entire day:

TRY THESE THREE STEPS AND SEE HOW THEY OPEN UP YOUR CAPACITY TO SOFTEN AND RECEIVE:

1. Look for the small examples of attention - the smile on the tube. The eye contact at the store etc etc. Take a little time over having them. Slow that moment down and drink it in.

2. When someone gives you a compliment - agree with them. For example, people are always telling me my hair is epic. Just the other day I was lying down in a South London park and a teenage girl shouted at me: "Lady, your hair is SICK." And I had to stop myself. The tennis ball thing "Well YOURS ABS ARE..." But I didn't. I slowed down. I said "Yes." And smiled. That is all. (Radical. Uncomfortable. Lady boss was in a fret. Something else in me melted, however.)

3. Make an adjustment to a gift - and make it with grace and humour. Next time someone gives you a cup with your name in Starbucks spelled wrong. Hand it back and ask them to write it spelled right. Next time the waiter brings you a glass where the ice is slightly melted, hand it back and ask for crisp ice in your glass. Now here's the trick - don't do it with annoyance, entitlement or resentment. Do it with joy. Give them the opportunity to love you better. And see how it effects your day 🙂

Here's an example of me practicing my receiving muscle earlier in Pret: