What's Holding You Back?: Eight Critical Choices for Women's Success Book

The first book to help women understand and shatter the psychological glass ceiling, the invisible but powerful thoughts and feelings that stand in the way of real achievement. After thirty years of feminism, women continue to underachieve, occupying only 10 percent of top-level managerial or professional positions. And significant achievement-influential woman leaders and visionaries-is rarer still. The reason, argues this bold and inspiring book, lies in the self-imposed psychological glass ceiling, which influences every decision women make in their lives. What's Holding You Back? charts women's unique pathways to achievement and examines eight life-defining choices that determine their ultimate level of accomplishment.

The Eight Critical Choices that Lead to Success: -channeling motivation and turning it into real action

-learning to take risks (unlearning that rough play in the sandbox is wrong for girls) and embracing confidence and optimism in the boardroom

-moving from problem fixing (a typical female skill) to problem finding (a crucial component of success)

-focusing on purposeful self-evaluation and avoiding self-blame

-learning to compete in hierarchies (more anxiety-producing for women than individual competition)

-rebounding from failure and not taking it personally

-mastering the art of dealing with difficult people and accepting that negative feelings from others comes with the territory of "doing business"

-harnessing women's greatest strength-the capacity for connection-as a powerful tool of achievement

"Linda Austin tackles head on the professional and personal roadblocks that hold women back. This book will teach you to unleash the ability and passion that have been buried deep within your core. Good luck on the journey!" -Paula A. Banks, President, The Executive Leadership Council

"This is The Road Less Traveled for girls and women. Linda Austin has it all-intelligence, enthusiasm, grace, experience-and she generously shares it with us. Austin shows us person-to-person the best strategies for success in our lives." -Lenore Terr, M.D., author of Unchained Memories