Fearless and Free

by Wendy Sachs

American Management Association     2017

226 pages     Nonfiction

The subtitle of Wendy Sachs' excellent look at women and their careers is: How Smart Women Pivot and Relaunch Their Careers. In it, Sachs tells her own story of the multiple iterations of her career and encourages her women readers to be creative, resilient, and passionate about their career choices and career plans.

In story after story, Sachs shows how women create opportunities for themselves—or seize opportunities—and shine in whatever career they choose. She suggests that in today's world, opportunities abound for the determined, creative woman. She also asserts that most women will have several careers in their lifetimes, with agility being a must-have skill. She says:

"This book is for women at all stages of their professional journeys. Some may be looking for a total relaunch. Others are trying to reposition themselves to stay relevant. Still more may be looking to get back into the game after taking time off to raise kids and need the confidence and direction to take the first step." 

I kept seeing my daughters, step-daughters, and daughters-in-law in the context of the book. They are all attempting to be resilient, relevant, and challenged.  Actually, I saw myself as I figured out what career would best meld with my life as a widowed mother of three. Then, what I would do after I retired from my education career. Actually, I have made 4 different career moves in the years since I retired. 

At the same time that Sachs is telling all these wonderful and inspiring stories, she is also telling women about how to be successful in a male-dominated world. Her story about Hilary Clinton is a case in point, and it is certainly something that all the women in the country observed in this last election. The question kept coming up, "How is a woman supposed to act?" I appreciated her advice, for example, to stop apologizing all the time. Just tell it how it is.

Well, for sure, the world of women is changing rapidly, and Wendy Sachs and her book should prove inspiration for an entire new generation of women who must be agile enough to take advantage of the change as it happens.

About the Author

WENDY SACHS is the author of Fearless and Free (AMACOM; 2017) and a master of the career pivot. An Emmy-award winning TV news producer, Wendy has worked at Dateline NBC, Fox, and CNN. She also worked as a Capitol Hill press secretary, public relations executive, CNN contributor, content strategist and editor-in-chief of Care.com. In a more random role, Wendy appeared as the on-air spokesperson for Trip Advisor. A frequent speaker, Wendy has written about work/life and women’s issues for multiple publications, including The New York Times, CNN.com, the Huffington Post and Refinery29. She has appeared on dozens of radio and TV shows, including Good Morning America, NBC's Today, Fox and CNN’s Headline News. Wendy lives with her husband and two children in South Orange, New Jersey. For more information, please visit wendysachs.com and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter