Our streak of highlighting female authors in 2025 continues with this month’s feature of Jenny Wood. She’s a former Googler, turned full-time author and speaker (turns out she’s amazing at both).

In her new book, Wild Courage: Go After What You Want and Get it, she poses the question:

What if the traits you need to get ahead are the exact opposite of what you’ve been told?

To be successful, she says, you need to be Weird, Selfish, Shameless, Obsessed, Nosy, Manipulative, Brutal, Reckless, and Bossy. And that takes courage.

As a former Google leader and top career coach who chased an attractive stranger off the subway and later married him, She 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.  

To that end, she reclaims those nine traits mentioned above 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.

In short, 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.

I hope you’ll click the play button below to learn more about Jenny and her new book.

Join in on our chat below

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS

In today’s episode, I ask Jenny about:

• How suppressing individuality for conformity hinders success, while owning our quirks accelerates personal and professional growth
• Strategies to balance being “selfish” in advocating for our own needs while maintaining positive relationships and not appearing overly self-centered
• Techniques for building confidence and proudly promoting achievements
• And lots more!

Order Jenny’s Book

You can order your copy of Wild Courage: Go After What You Want and Get It right now!

Consider Ordering My Book Too!

Purchase a copy of my new book (written with Jesse Wisnewski) Read to Lead: The Simple Habit That Expands Your Influence and Boosts Your Career. There, you can also download the introduction and first chapter for free!

Note-Making Mastery Cohort AND the Read to Lead Community

Note-Making Mastery Cohort is now available as a self-paced course! Check it out.

Also, consider giving ReadtoLead+ a try free for two weeks!

Jenny in Action

Check Out These Additional Resources

Grab a copy of Jenny’s book now.

Check out her website for more on Jenny.

Invite Jenny to speak at your next event.

Connect with Jenny personally on LinkedIn.

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Finally, thanks for listening and remember, “Leaders read and readers lead.”