As we drove to Indiana, she talked about how much she enjoyed her job: flying around the country and driving nice cars to pick up promotional models and drive them to football games in each new state she visited. The day before my first day of work, a 24-year-old blonde woman who I'll call Laura* picked me up at my apartment in a nice rental car. After all, who cares if I had to tolerate drunk men joking about boobs for a few hours if it would help both my bank account and women with cancer? I figured why not-I could enjoy earning a lot of money while also supporting a good cause. Boobies Rock! was offering around $200 for a single day of work, on top of covering travel to and hotel stays at promotional locations. When I saw a Boobies Rock! ad listed on Craigslist, I debated with myself before applying-I generally believe men should care about cancer without having it sexualized for them, but the money was too good to pass up. Back then, I was a struggling freelance copywriter living in Chicago, and did promo gigs on the side for extra cash. My short stint as a Boobies Rock! promotional model took place over three days in October of 2012. 'Tell me where I'm going to die, that is, so I don't go there.(Image credit: Courtesy of Jay Thompson, Design by Mia Feitel) Avoid these qualities, and you will succeed.' Munger said. sloth, envy, resentment, self-pity, entitlement, all the mental habits of self-defeat. And when it comes to advancing your career, those blockers often include '. This is the inversion principle - something billionaire investor Charlie Munger (Warren Buffett’s long-term business partner) is a big proponent of.Īnti-role models allow you to uncover (and avoid) the biggest blockers to success. So, why study the people who have, thus far, failed at accomplishing their goal? Because the values and behaviors of those people will help you create guardrails for avoiding a similar fate. An anti-role model is someone who has not achieved what you want to achieve, despite being on the same career path. While it may sound similar to a reverse role model, there’s a clear distinction. And for Dave, being able to see what this elite level of marketers looked like helped him overcome impostor syndrome because he was able to recognize that even marketers in the upper echelons aren’t always as knowledgeable as they make themselves out to be.īy observing reverse role models, you’re able to see the status-quo approach for reaching the next level in your career, which in turn gives you the opportunity to figure out how you want to do things differently.įinally, the anti-role model. Sure, they’re all accomplished, but how much more do they actually know than him? They’re mostly interested in themselves and having their fancy CMO dinners. Those are all CMOs, but they’re also all muckety-mucks. Finally, I explained that the reason I sent him is that I wanted him to look at reverse role models. He told me about it, but I could tell he really didn’t want to say what was on his mind. But I pushed him to go.Īfter the dinner, I asked him what he thought. He was hesitant and felt like maybe these CMOs would be way out of his league. When Dave joined our organization, I was invited to a CMO dinner at some fancy restaurant in Cambridge, but I sent Dave to go in my place. My favorite example of someone who’s learned from having reverse role models is our company's VP of Marketing, Dave Gerhardt.

When you look at the behavior of a reverse role model, you realize that imitating their behavior would not be in your best interest. Reverse role models check a lot of the same boxes as positive role models: they’re successful, they’ve achieved something you want to achieve and they provide models of behavior you can follow to achieve the same thing. The reality is having reverse role models is just as (if not more) important.

To quote Fussell, “If you just have those three individuals that you’re constantly measuring yourself off of and you’re constantly learning from, you’re going to be exponentially better than you are.” Someone senior to you that you want to emulate. Someone subordinate who’s doing the job you did a year, or two, or three years ago, better than you did it.ģ. A peer who you think is better at the job than you are.Ģ.

Role models boobies