Tap Your Wild Courage with Jenny Wood
Your Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
Release Date: 03/23/2025
Your Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
After receiving harsh feedback about her lack of self-awareness despite strong business results, embarked on a deep exploration of leadership through philosophy, psychology, and management studies. She ultimately developing her MYLO (Manage Yourself to Lead Others) approach for other leaders, which led to her writing her new book, Manage Yourself to Lead Others: Why Great Leadership Begins with Self-Understanding. Caroline and Margaret talk about the practical steps for identifying the leader you want to become, managing emotions and difficult situations, navigating...
info_outlineYour Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
In this episode, Caroline talks to , a diversity practitioner and human resources expert about how to promote workplace diversity amid current DEI backlash. Jenn has worked with organizations like Gap Inc., Red Bull, Harvard, and the US Chamber of Commerce. Rather than offering generic advice, she provides actionable insights for combating hidden biases at every stage of the talent lifecycle—from finding and attracting candidates to engaging and developing employees. Her new book, The Equity Edge: How Addressing Bias in Recruiting and Retention Drives Success, serves as both a strategic...
info_outlineYour Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
, a clinical professor at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, joins Caroline to talk about eleven pivotal innovations that changed business and the human experience. From gunpowder, to the printing press, to Julia Child's cookbook and now generative AI, Scott tells the stories of how these innovations changed the world. Rather than simply celebrating these inventions, Anthony reveals the underlying patterns of how disruption actually occurs and spreads through society. More from Dr. Scott Anthony: Book: More from Caroline Dowd-Higgins: ! . .
info_outlineYour Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
Caroline sits down with , an organizational psychologist and executive coach, to talk about how women should reconsider everything they think they know about power in the workplace. Josephine is the author of the new book Rising to Feminine Power: The Lasso of Truth, which talks about how current power structures aren't working and how women especially can bring a new kind of leadership to the workplace. Josephine talks about the science behind feminine power and how we uncover the hidden barriers that may be holding you back from stepping into your authentic power. ...
info_outlineYour Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
On this episode, Caroline talks with , a management consultant with over 25 years of experience in employee well-being. She's the founder of , an award-winning consultancy that helps companies manage workplace pressure to facilitate growth and development. Her new book, , addresses the persistent problem of workplace well-being despite widespread support systems. The book tackles the harsh reality that employees often fear speaking up about workplace pressure due to concerns about consequences, creating a culture sustained by fear rather than openness.
info_outlineYour Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
This week, Caroline talks to Juliet Schor about the case for the four day work week. , and has gained widespread recognition through national media appearances and her viral 2022 TED Talk "," which has been viewed over three million times. Caroline talks to Juliet about her latest book, , which is the first large-scale study of the four-day work week based on her four decades of work research. The book demonstrates how companies like Kickstarter, Bolt, and Basecamp have successfully eliminated the fifth workday while maintaining productivity and dramatically improving employee well-being,...
info_outlineYour Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
On this episdoe of Your Working Life, Caroline talks to , an award-winning business professor and management consultant at The University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business. Andrew specializes in virtual communication and workplace technology, and wrote a new book called "PING: The Secrets of Successful Virtual Communication". He and Caroline talk abbout his actionable framework for mastering modern workplace interactions across all communication platforms. Social Media/Links: Read ' Music credits for this episode: Week Thirteen by Ben von Wildenhause, Free...
info_outlineYour Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
is an award-winning professor at Cornell University and an expert in organizational psychology. She leads groundbreaking research on influence, authority, compliance, and defiance. A trained physician, she practiced medicine in the United Kingdom and worked as a management consultant for the pharmaceutical industry. She currently teaches executives, leaders, and students in healthcare and business. Dr. Sah is a sought-after international speaker and consultant, advisor to government agencies, and former Commissioner of the National Commission on Forensic Science. Her multidisciplinary...
info_outlineYour Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
produced programmes for the BBC for 13 years. She then moved to the US where she spearheaded multimedia productions for Intuit, The Learning Company and Standard&Poors. She was Chief Executive of InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and then iCast Corporation, was named one of the “Top 25” by Streaming Media magazine and one of the “Top 100 Media Executives” by The Hollywood Reporter. The author of six books, Margaret’s third book, Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at our Peril was named one of the most important business books of the decade by the...
info_outlineYour Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
is a national thought leader and visionary on building human-centered workplace cultures at the intersection of diversity, flexibility, and well-being. As the Founder & CEO of the , Manar is on a mission to empower organizations to unlock their full potential by creating inclusive environments, implementing effective flexible work strategies, and prioritizing holistic employee well-being. A sought-after speaker, author, and trusted advisor, Manar brings a wealth of expertise from her background as an employment litigator and adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University. She is the...
info_outline
In her 18 years at Google, Jenny Wood grew from entry-level to executive, and she most recently led a large operations team that helped drive billions in revenue per year. In 2021, she started a passion project within Google called Own Your Career, which grew to one of the largest career development programs in Google’s history. Through the program she founded, she has trained tens of thousands of people on: acing a job search, building relationships, personal branding, effective email writing, landing the right mentor, maximizing workplace influence, and most importantly, increasing confidence. Jenny’s writing has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneur, Inc., and Forbes. She is an FAA-licensed private pilot, a daily hiker, an improv student, a tap dancer, and a zucchini bread connoisseur. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her two young children and her husband, Jon. She met Jon by chasing him off the NYC Subway, and the New York Times featured their story.
WILD COURAGE: Go After What You Want and Get It
A bold, empowering, and energizing guide to embracing your ambition and chasing after what you want from an executive who spent nearly two decades climbing the ranks at Google.
What if the traits you need to get ahead are the exact opposite of what you’ve been told? To be successful you need to be Weird, Selfish, Shameless, Obsessed, Nosy, Manipulative, Brutal, Reckless, and Bossy. And that takes courage. WILD COURAGE: Go After What You Want and Get It is an energizing and empowering guide to embracing your ambition and chasing after what you want, from Jenny Wood, an executive who spent 18 years from entry-level to executive at Google. Wood reclaims nine traits from their negative shackles and teaches you how to apply them in a savvy and sane way to supercharge your success, whether you’re trying to impress your new boss, snag a stretch promotion, or land a life-changing deal.
Wood knows her way around courage. In this book, she shatters conventional wisdom about achieving your goals. She gives you permission to ditch your fear and chase after what you want, unapologetically.
Wild Courage will teach you how to be:
Ø Weird: Win as you or lose as “who?”
Ø Selfish: Be your own champion.
Ø Shameless: Kick impostor syndrome to the curb and self-promote with ease.
Ø Obsessed: Push, persist, and perform at your highest level.
Ø Nosy: Get curious to network confidently and learn from others.
Ø Manipulative: Build influence with empathy and manage up like a pro.
Ø Brutal: Draw lines and stick to them. Embrace the power of no.
Ø Reckless: Err on the side of action and take healthy risks.
Ø Bossy: Steer others to success, even if you’re not in charge yet.
Wild Courage coaches you to smash through your fear of discomfort, failure, and the judgement of others, to embrace your boldest self in pursuit of what you want. To be successful, you need to have courage. Wild amounts of it.
Wood can speak to:
- Getting what you want. Unapologetically.
- Increasing confidence at work—and in life.
- Communicating effectively and powerfully.
- Recognizing how tiny daily actions can have a big impact.
- Discovering work-life balance and the power of boundaries.
Gather Your Courage. Overcome fear to achieve your biggest ambitions. Stand out to get what you want in life. Just don’t expect it to be easy.
Chapter 1. Weird: Win as you or lose as “who?” Within your so-called weirdness lie your greatest strengths. Hone and highlight every ounce of weird you’ve got.
Chapter 2. Selfish: Be your own champion. Give everyone a leg up at your own expense and get trampled. Start showing up for yourself.
Chapter 3. Shameless: Find your swagger. Audacity—shamelessness—is a survival skill. How will you learn whether you’ve got the goods if you don’t act like it first?
Chapter 4. Obsessed: Push, persist, and perform. None of these traits will serve you if you don’t learn to deliver—not for some company but to achieve your ambitions.
Chapter 5. Nosy: Get insatiably curious. Curiosity drowns out fear and pulls you toward what is most exciting to you. Use it as a compass.
Chapter 6. Manipulative: Build influence through empathy. Whether you’re selling a product, an idea, or yourself, the ability to win friends, allies, and supporters is all about mutual benefit. Figure out what people want and get it for them.
Chapter 7. Brutal: The power of no. People-pleasing pleases no one and keeps you small. Brutality is cleaner, more effective, and far kinder. Cut through the bull and spare everyone’s time, energy, and attention.
Chapter 8 Reckless: Err on the side of action. Better to learn from your mistakes than waste time predicting the consequences of every decision. Think fast and fearlessly—if you’re on the fence, do it.
Chapter 9. Bossy: Steer others to success. All the traits and habits that looked so negative in this Table of Contents come together and create a leader. Cultivate allies, partners, and collaborators. Help them aggressively. Push them mercilessly. Win their gratitude. Achieve amazing things together.