#GIRLBOSS (10 page)

If you’re frustrated because you’re not getting what you want, stop for a second: Have you actually flat-out asked for it? If you haven’t, stop complaining. You can’t expect the world to read your mind. You have to put it out there, and sometimes putting it out there is as simple as just saying, “Hey, can I have that?”

That being said, if you don’t like talking about money, I get it. There are ways to make the whole thing less
traumatic. The first piece of advice I can give you is to learn to separate your money from your emotions as much as you possibly can. Whether someone is asking you for money, you’re asking someone else, or you’re contemplating a significant purchase, approaching financial decisions as calmly and as rationally as possible will make everything a whole lot easier.

It also quite literally pays to be as unemotional as possible when you’re asking for a raise. First, be really honest with yourself and make sure that you deserve the raise that you’re asking for. You do not automatically deserve a raise just because you’ve been somewhere for a certain amount of time. But if you can articulate the reasons why you deserve a pay increase, then schedule time to meet with your boss and let her know in advance what you want to talk about. This can be as simple as “I’d like to schedule some time with you to talk about my salary. Is it okay if we put something on the calendar?” Talk to your boss about this in person. Hitting him up on Gchat is not appropriate. If your company does regular yearly reviews, that can also be your chance to talk about money.

When you do meet to discuss it, skip the personal sob stories. The only factor that affects your chance of getting a raise is whether or not you’ve earned it. It doesn’t matter if your car broke down or that your landlord’s raising your rent. Those facts are not your boss’s problem. All she needs to know is that you’re kicking ass, like a #GIRLBOSS should.

Put That Money to Work

While I still don’t blow my money, I am now comfortable with buying expensive stuff. It is natural, at some point, to realize that it’s worth it to spend a little extra (if you can afford it) to get something that’s just right. This is true when it comes to buying clothes and it is true when hiring employees—sometimes it pays to spend a little more than you bargained for on real quality.

Spend money because it’s an investment in your own well-being, not because you’re bored and have nothing else to do. Don’t get all Versace-Versace-Versace and buy things just because you can. Luxury can be a great experience, and the things around you should represent the life that you’ve made for yourself, as long as you are taking the time to appreciate those items. I bought silverware recently, and when I was eating my yogurt this morning, I couldn’t help but think,
This spoon is serious!

Don’t live like a CEO when you’re still a sandwich artist. The first car I bought after the Volvo wasn’t a Porsche—it was a used Nissan Murano. I loved this car. I put half down (around $10,000), financed the rest with an 11 percent interest rate (my first loan!), and was so excited about the horrible deal I had just gotten that I hugged the car salesman when he handed me the keys. I paid it off in full within the next year.

Last year I decided it was time to upgrade. One great thing about Los Angeles is that you can get away with being
flamboyant with little consequence. It’s a car-centric city, where driving can be rush-hour hell or a hedonistic romp. Cruising down Sunset Boulevard with the Cramps blasting and palm trees silhouetted by the neon signs of strip clubs can sometimes repair the worst of my moods. When I went to buy the Porsche, I was ready to splurge. But me being me, I wanted to again put half down.

The dealership, however, put a kink in my well-laid plans for a financially responsible splurge. They wouldn’t give me a loan
or
a lease. Who would have guessed that Porsche had stingier financing than Nissan? And, as it turned out, even though I was now running my own company and had enough money to put down a hefty deposit, my credit was still only mediocre. It was a WTF moment that drove home to me how screwy the credit system is. I was reminded again that the common way is not always the best way. Therefore, I paid cash for that Porsche. A #GIRLBOSS has gotta do what a #GIRLBOSS has gotta do.

This time, when I got my keys, nobody got a hug. And no, it wasn’t because I was bitter about the financing. It’s that buying the Porsche, in all of its German-engineered perfection, just wasn’t as special. Nothing will ever compare to the first time I bought myself a car, because it simply can’t be done
again.

Hocus-pocus: The Power of Magical Thinking

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

—Aleister
Crowley

I
hate the concept of luck, especially when people try to apply it to me. Yes, it’s true: Hundreds of thousands of businesses fail. Mine succeeded. Was that all just because I “got lucky”? I don’t really think so.

What I hate about luck is that it implies being devoid of responsibility. It implies that you can do nothing and then step into success as easily as stepping into a pile of dog poop on the sidewalk. It implies that success is something given to a knighted and often undeserving few. Luck tells us that we don’t control our own fate, and that our path to success or failure is written by someone, or something, entirely outside ourselves. Luck lets us believe that whatever happens, whether good or bad, it’s not to our credit or our fault. That is why I don’t buy luck.

But I do buy magic.

I’m a member of the Magic Castle, which is a private magician’s club housed in an old Victorian mansion in the Hollywood Hills. Its floors are carpeted, its waiters tuxedoed, and its drinks strong. Quite often, my boyfriend and I are the youngest ones there, but in my mind, there is no better or more glamorous place to spend a Saturday night, all dressed up with a champagne cocktail in hand, watching an aging showgirl do a tap-dance shuffle on stage while a man works the crowd with a dove in one pocket and a few card tricks in the other.

There’s that kind of magic, for sure. But there’s also the everyday kind of magic that we make for ourselves. And that’s really not magic at all. It’s just recognizing the fact that
we control our thoughts and our thoughts control our lives. This is an extremely simple, totally straightforward concept, but for a lot of people, it’s so alien that it might as well be magic. Chances are that you know someone who is really negative. You know the type: always complaining, getting fired, having her car broken into, his girlfriend is cheating on him. These people are convinced that life is shit . . . and so it is. It’s the age-old concept of like attracts like, or the law of attraction. You get back what you put out, so you might as well think positively, focus on visualizing what you want instead of getting distracted by what you don’t want, and send the universe your good intentions so that it can send them right back.

The success of Nasty Gal has been a wild and fast ride, and I’m not going to lie: There were times when that ride has been absolutely terrifying. For about the first year after the business really started to take off, I felt like a lamb being led to slaughter. We were hiring like crazy and getting tons of attention from press and starting to get noticed by investors. Every day I got up, went to work, and got hit in the face with something that I never could have predicted from a business that I’d originally started so I wouldn’t have to talk to people. I went from doing small tasks with measurable results (selling more clothes!) to abstractions like going on
E! News
to talk about what’s hot, or speaking at a conference. I didn’t want to talk about my job—I wanted to do my job. But then talking about my job became my job. Even worse, people expected me to be a certain way just because I’d accomplished
something. A sizeable part of me resented the fact that I had to choose my words carefully.

I often wondered,
Was this a choice?
Because it sure as hell doesn’t always feel like it. But I did choose it—even if growing a huge business was never my singular goal, every small choice that I made along the way was something that contributed to where I am now. Every time I got up in the morning instead of saying “screw it” and sleeping in, every time I spent a few extra minutes on a product description to make it perfect, I was choosing my fate and sowing the seeds of my future. It’s really hard to chart the path that led here, but it happened, and I did it.

In my book (and this is my book!) magical thinking is the alchemy that you can use to visualize and project yourself into the professional and personal life that you want. I’m not talking about stuff like
The Secret
self-help book, which basically tells you to tape a picture of a car to the wall and then sit on the couch and wait for someone to drop it off in your driveway. I am talking about visualization that works when we actually get off our asses and do stuff. How totally crazy is that? Each time you make a good decision or do something nice or take care of yourself; each time you show up to work and work hard and do your best at everything you can do, you’re planting seeds for a life that you can only hope will grow beyond your wildest dreams. Take care of the little things—even the little things that you hate—and treat them as promises to your own future. Soon you’ll see that fortune favors the bold who get shit done.

Chaos Magic

Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

—Roald Dahl

Chaos magic is the idea that a particular set of beliefs serves as an active force in the world. In other words, we choose what and how we believe, and our beliefs are tools that we then use to make things happen . . . or not. Though this comes from a school of magical thought, it actually seems really practical and “no duh” to me. It all goes back to the red string of my imaginary kite—if you believe something, other people will believe it, too. You can’t convince someone else—whether it’s a potential employer, a loan officer at the car dealership, or someone you’ve been crushing on—that you’re amazing and terrific if you don’t actually think you are. This isn’t the false confidence that comes from getting a bunch of “likes” on your Instagram selfies, but a deep-down, unshakeable self-confidence that persists even when things aren’t going all that great.

A big practice in chaos magic is the use of sigils, which are abstract words or symbols you create and embed with your wishes. To create a sigil, start by writing out your desire in a single word, a couple of words, or a short sentence. Then remove all the duplicate letters, then all the vowels—basically, you can do whatever you want here—until you’re left with a bunch of lines that you can combine into one symbol. Then you put the piece of paper in a book, in your
wallet, or some other place where it won’t get lost, and just forget about it.

The real “magic” of sigils is that you’re only forgetting about it on the surface level. Taking the time to think about what you really want and doing something about it, even if it’s just drawing some lines on a piece of paper, embeds these wishes into your subconscious, and then your subconscious makes it happen, even when the conscious part of your brain is busy doing something else.

I treat my Internet passwords as modern-day sigils, embedding them with wishes or promises to me, or even financial goals for the company. (Hey, I never made any claims to be normal here.) That way, every time I go to log in anywhere, I’m subtly reminding myself of what I’m working for. This kind of intention setting has worked for me. Dozens of times a day, as I tap out a few strokes on the keyboard, I’m reminding myself of the bigger picture. This ensures that when I’m bogged down with day-to-day bureaucracy and details, I don’t lose sight of what I really want.

I’m not trying to say that this kind of intention setting will always work, because you can’t just type “abajilliondollars” whenever you log in to Facebook and all of a sudden become Warren Buffett. It is, though, a heretic’s version of kneeling by your bed and saying a prayer every night. It’s intention setting. It doesn’t have to be as hard and fast as saying “I want a job at a fashion company,” but it can be something like “I want a creative job” or “I want to have fun at work.” Keep reminding yourself over and over that this is what you want, and you’ll
soon find that the more you know what you want, the less you’re willing to put up with what you don’t. One of the best things about life—a reason not to go blindly after one goal and one goal only—is that sometimes it will take you to something that is way cooler than anything you would have consciously set out to do in the first place. I never had one particular goal or dream that I was working toward; all I knew was that I wanted to do something awesome, and was open to whatever shape or form this awesomeness took. I wanted to be a photographer; I wanted to go to art school; I wanted to play in a band; and when I started the eBay store, all of this came in handy even though I would never have associated these things.

My interest in photography gave me an advantage over other sellers who didn’t care about lighting or composition. My days of being the tardy employee at the record store gave me a cultural and musical understanding that was more unique than if I’d just listened to garbage-y pop on the radio my entire life. None of these were things I ever expected to add up to something called a brand, but they contributed to all the ways in which Nasty Gal is just a little off and a little surprising. All of that flailing about, trying new things and finding out that I liked some of them and hated others, ended up amalgamating into something very real and very meaningful, and in the end, made me capable of providing a life for myself.

While I truly believe that you must have intentions to fulfill your dreams, I also think you have to leave room for the
universe to have its way and play around a bit. Don’t get so focused on one particular opportunity that you’re blind to other ones that come up. If you think about one thing, and talk about it all the time, you’re being too obsessive. You might ruin it. If you let yourself meander a bit, then the right things and the right people fall into place. Some things are worth fighting for—don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely a fighter—but I really think that what is right should be easy. My dad has always said that the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, and it’s so true. If something’s not working out, but you keep hammering at it in the exact same way, go after something else for a while. That’s not giving up, that’s just letting the universe have its way.

Treat Your Thoughts Like Your Dollar Bills: Don’t Waste ’Em

Though I believe in magic, I’m not hippy-dippy and I generally abhor people who are. I remember I had a hippie friend once who whispered, “The cat can sense the stillness in my soul,” and all I could think was,
The cat is really going to sense it if I barf because you sound so self-important
. That said, if you approach everything in your life with a certain degree of intention, you can affect the outcome. At the absolute minimum, you will affect how you feel about the outcome and that is ultimately what matters the most. If I am in a shitty mood while making dinner, the food is going to taste like
crap. But if I’m happy while I’m cooking, then dinner is going to be absolutely fantastic.

I also think you can end up ignoring, and even losing, the positive things in your life by focusing too much on the negative. That’s a huge drain, as well as a waste of time. When you think about people, you give them power. My ex-boyfriend Gary taught me this lesson when we first started dating. This was the heyday of MySpace, when you could always see who was commenting on whose page, so I knew way too much about this one girl—or woman, because she was
waayyy
older than me—whom he had once hooked up with and who was still lurking around. She was my favorite horrible thing to talk about, and I brought her up a little too often. For obvious reasons this would piss him off. When he finally got fed up with the subject, he said, “I don’t think about her, and I don’t want to think about her, but when you bring her up, I have to think about her and it makes me uncomfortable. Why are you doing that to me? Why are you doing it to yourself?”

Turns out he had a point.

Flash back to Halloween several years ago; he and I were at the Deco Lounge in San Francisco. He was dressed as a monk and was wearing this hundred-year-old Masonic robe—which, let’s face it, was basically a giant black dress with a skull on it. And I was dressed as a blaxploitation character, wearing a halter disco gown and a giant Afro wig. Not the most politically correct choice, I realize, but as I’ve said before, this was San Francisco and you picked a decade and stuck with it, even in costume.

As we were getting ready to go out that night, I mentioned this woman’s name again, wondering if we would run into her. It was unlikely, as she lived in LA at the time, but she was known to lurk up north. As soon as we walked into the bar, there she was. She saw Gary, made a beeline for him, and began to whisper in his ear as soon as she was close enough. She totally ignored me, even though I was only inches away and holding his hand.

“Hi,” I said, interjecting myself into her whisper fest with an introduction. “I’m Sophia.” I mustered every molecule of inner goodwill to put a smile on my face.

But she just turned and looked at me with a snarl. “Oh, are you his ex-girlfriend?”

“No, I’m his girlfriend,” I said, no longer caring at all about trying to be nice. “So, what are you even doing at this bar at your age, anyway?” And that, dear #GIRLBOSS, was what started the only fight I’ve ever been in.

She pulled my Afro off, I punched her in the nose, and Gary dove in between us, pulling her off me as we went at it on the Deco Lounge floor. Though I can laugh at it now—the absurdity of costumes and wigs and punches and a man in a dress breaking it up—it was a miserable Halloween and a miserable night. During the miserable cab ride home, I realized that I’d put so much energy into thinking about what I didn’t want to happen that I’d caused that exact thing to happen.

I conjured that bitch.

I have also had to learn to rein in my negative thoughts
when it comes to business competition. Around the same time that I launched the Nasty Gal website, I had become pretty good friends with another girl who ran a vintage eBay shop. We talked shop, but in a way that I always assumed was friendly banter between two people who had a lot in common, and not sharing state secrets. A year after I left eBay and set Nasty Gal up with a proper website, she also decided to launch her own. When her site went live it looked really wonderful . . . because it looked exactly like mine. The design was exactly like mine, the wording was exactly like mine. Everything was exactly like mine. I’d known she was launching a website, but assumed she had enough class to do something different. I had one phone call with her in which I told her to get some ideas of her own, and we never spoke again.