Brave, Not Perfect by Reshma Saujani (Book Summary)


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Such a large number of women these days live in dread of not being adequate. Regardless of whether it’s continually putting on an agreeable face to everybody you meet or not being excessively disparaging of others because of a paranoid fear of being viewed as bitchy, exploring the world as a woman is frequently an unimaginably troublesome undertaking. 

While young men are educated since early on to investigate and take risks, women are molded to please people around them. This implies young girls grow up to be women that are frequently reluctant to fall flat. Be that as it may, falling flat is a fundamental piece of life and a wellspring of profitable life exercises. 

This is the thing that the creator learned after her epic disappointment while running for Congress. Rather than giving it a chance to get her down, however, she ricocheted back with another, fearless thought – instead of serving the open through holding office, she established Girls Who Code. 



She committed a ton of errors en route without a doubt, however by walking on, courage close by, her association has now arrived at a huge number of girls and women everywhere throughout the nation and outfitted them with the learning that they can use to excel. 


1 – Rather than being educated to be courageous and go out on a limb, girls are prepped to satisfy others and take a stab at perfection.


Meet Erica. She’s a moderately aged, effective lady who is in every case very amicable, supportive and welcomes everybody with a stunning grin. Working from sunrise until nightfall to intrigue customers and partners don’t prevent her from continually looking new and prepared to go. 

In reality, regardless of the circumstance, Erica is continually anticipating perfectionism onto her general surroundings and attempting to satisfy everybody she runs over. 

Be that as it may, where it counts, Erica wishes she could act unexpectedly. Truth be told, now and again, she wants to be fearless enough to reveal to her greatest customer that she thinks his business procedures are horrible. Tragically, the inborn drive that such huge numbers of women feel to satisfy everybody around them and endeavor towards flawlessness keeps her secured a real existence that she wouldn’t like to live. 

Erica is a decent companion of the creator. What’s more, similar to the creator, she’s a casualty of a general public where women are educated to fear chance, of being intense and picking the lives they need to lead – freely of what others think. 

Rather than being valiant, little youngsters are instructed how to be ideal for satisfying everyone around them. The inverse is valid for little youngsters, who are urged to investigate, come up short and go out on a limb. 

The order of girls as pleasant accommodating people begins when they’re conceived. One investigation that put infants without unmistakable sexes in impartial garments demonstrated that when they were disturbed, grown-ups were bound to think they were young men. Be that as it may, when they were cheerful, most grown-ups expected the babies were girls. 

What’s more, this desire for girls rapidly forms into the real world. 



Consider a University of California study including a basic lemonade stand. The catch? Rather than including sugar, the scientists included salt, making the drink not exactly fulfilling. In the wake of giving them out to gatherings of boys and girls, the consequences of the social molding girls experience turned out to be clear: young men quickly passed on how disturbing it tasted, while girls pleasantly tasted it. 

Simply after the specialists squeezed the girls on why they continued drinking did reality turn out – the girls said they didn’t need the analysts to feel terrible. 

This is the general public we live in – where young men are reproduced to be daring, and girls to satisfy through an unending drive toward perfection. 


2 – Bravery, not perfection, enables women to excel.


Stanford therapist Carol Dweck once broadly said that “if life were one long grade school, girls would rule the world.” Getting straight A’s in school is anything but an awful thing, yet the drive for perfection it results from doesn’t interpret of well into grown-up life. 

In all actuality, while being respectful and wonderful may make you a prominent discussion accomplice around the water cooler, it won’t help you when you require the boldness to manage inappropriate behavior in the workplace. And keeping in mind that having an ideal body may enable you to get hot dates, it won’t give you the mental fortitude to begin to look all starry eyed at and get your heartbroken. 

The creator’s biography reflects how valiance is a considerably more significant characteristic than perfection. She was a straight-An understudy at school and proceeded to turn into a legal counselor at a renowned corporate law office. 

Be that as it may, she loathed her activity – her fantasy had consistently been to engage in open administration. 



At the point when the 2008 Democratic designation was declared, the creator was distressed in the wake of discovering that her deity, Hillary Clinton, whom she’d broadly crusaded for, had lost to Barack Obama. However, Clinton’s concession discourse helped the creator understand that she expected to quit making progress toward perfection. One disappointment, Clinton declared, doesn’t mean we should abandon our fantasies. 

In this way, the creator quit her corporate activity and settled on an extreme choice – she would keep running for Congress. While she flopped hopelessly at doing as such, the experience revealed a few legends of perfection that she had fallen for. 

One of these is that being immaculate outwardly will ensure an ideal consummation of each story. By concealing her instabilities and imperfections with perfect hair and a flawless stump discourse, the creator was persuaded she’d be saved analysis from her rivals during her keep running for Congress. 


She immediately figured out how wrong she was. Perfection wasn’t what she required – fortitude notwithstanding analysis was considerably more significant. 

It is not necessarily the case that the strain to seem immaculate isn’t fanciful. As Clinton herself had commented in 2008, while Obama could essentially “a take-off of bed and into a suit,” she needed to go through hours getting her hair and make-up accomplished for any open appearance. 

How we present ourselves does make a difference – yet it isn’t all that matters. Furthermore, sticking onto the facade of perfection as opposed to exhibiting a fearless face won’t enable us to overcome the troublesome circumstances that all women will in the long run face throughout everyday life. 


3 – Bravery isn’t an inalienably male attribute, however a widespread attitude that women shouldn’t be hesitant to grasp.


The creator gave a TED talk on the requirement for women to be courageous in 2016. 

While her discussion got far-reaching acclaim, it was not without its depreciators. Male console warriors took to the remarks area of her discussion to mansplain that grit is a male attribute because of advancement. Women, a portion of these confused men clarified, were essentially not naturally fit to be brave and go out on a limb. 

Such deceptive contentions are not new. In any case, the Tarzan/Jane perspective on men being the dauntless suppliers who hazard their lives to go out into the wild to chase, while pregnant women remain in the wellbeing of the cavern, is a serious obsolete contention. Society has changed a great deal from that point forward, without a doubt. 

What’s more, the job of women in the public eye has changed also. 

Consider Sharon, a companion of the creator, who finished a 25-year marriage and agreeable life as a housewife to expose the unadulterated truth and proclaim that she was a lesbian. Or then again Audrey, the sitter the creator contracts to take care of her child, who endured bosom disease and is present without cancer. 

Or on the other hand shouldn’t something be said about every one of the women who raise their voices to take a stand in opposition to sexism in the working environment, regardless of whether it jeopardizes their activity? Don’t these courageous activities oppose an alleged “transformative” contention that men are the more daring of the genders? 



The creator herself had her bravery tried as far as possible in 2017 when taking a disliked position against what she saw as outrageous foul play. After being welcomed to an occasion commending the Trump organization’s 200 million dollar responsibility to software engineering training, the creator ruled against visiting. All the enormous names in tech would have been there, yet she openly denied the welcome as a New York Times opinion piece. 

Why? She believed she needed to stand firm against the fanaticism exemplified by Trump’s ongoing restricting of evacuees from seven Muslim-dominant part countries. 

The creator anticipated a tremendous reaction because of her choice to conflict with the stream. In any case, rather than getting scorn mail, her association Girls Who Code saw an enormous uptick in little gifts from everywhere throughout the country. 


4 – Women must embrace a specific attitude to be brave.


While everybody has unfortunate propensities they need to transform, we as a whole realize that it’s frequently actually quite difficult. All things considered, change is conceivable if we put our psyches to it. 

This is especially so with regards to getting away from the endless loop of always making progress toward unattainable perfection – and supplanting it with the propensity for being valiant. Fortunately, various methodologies can enable women to build up a courage mentality. And keeping in mind that achieving it doesn’t occur without any forethought, it’s not as troublesome as you may suspect. 

The first and most significant advance in embracing the fortitude outlook is to consistently keep your tank full. Numerous women that the creator knows are never-ending depleted from juggling the jobs of representative, parent, housewife and boss family unit coordinator. Over the majority of that, they’re continually putting the necessities of others first and making progress toward perfection. 

Current womanhood is a formula for burnout. 

It’s incredibly hard to be bold when you’re generally very nearly fatigue. Being courageous requests stamina, vitality and perseverance, thus the significance that women remain sound – both rationally and physically. 

Make a point to get enough rest, put aside time each day for reflection and keep up a standard daily practice at the rec center. By continually keeping your tank full, you’ll be prepared to begin placing the dauntlessness outlook into training. 

One approach to do so is to set day by day courage challenges. For instance, on the off chance that you’ve generally been anxious about shouting out at a gathering except if you’re certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s a very shrewd perception, toss that out the window. Reveal to yourself that today, you will make some noise at the gathering regardless of whether your thought may fail to attract anyone’s attention. 

The more courage you practice, the simpler it gets. 



Another test you could set yourself is to consistently request criticism from your friends. For women fixated on perfectionists, accepting analysis can be the exact opposite thing they need to hear. In any case, on the off chance that we will improve ourselves, at that point, it’s a great opportunity to move outside the safe place. 

Rather than sitting tight for input, courageously welcome it. Get some information about what you could be improving. After some time, you’ll enter a condition of “stream” where you’ll remain vigilant for criticism in everything that you do, which will enable you to start venturing down a street of steady personal growth. 


5 – Expanded courage comes about because of structure sisterhoods with other women and figuring out how to endure disappointments.


In 2017, Shalane Flanagan turned into the primary American woman to win the New York City Marathon in 40 years. 

In any case, she didn’t simply establish another precedent – the “Shalane Flanagan effect” roused other female competitors to meet up and bolster each other. Together, she and her group are presently positioned among the world’s top long-separation sprinters. 

Flanagan and women like her are playing for Team Brave. Women can accomplish incredible things when they rally, and rouse each other to be valiant in what the creator calls sisterhoods of solidarity. This is particularly significant in the present time of “bitch culture,” where women are regularly more awful than any time in recent memory within the background tattling, mean remarks and controlling. 

So as opposed to slaughtering the sisterhood with a thousand cuts, get out there and bolster your kindred women. This doesn’t need to be by winning a long-distance race – the sisterhood is reinforced by something as basic as shouting out when you hear a chauvinist remark coordinated toward another woman. 



Since you’ve focused on your every day dauntlessness challenges and have joined the sisterhood of solidarity, it’s the ideal opportunity for some awful news. 

Being brave involves higher dangers, and with hazard comes the probability of disappointment. So it’s critical to realize how to manage disappointment, regardless of whether it’s losing a race like a creator did, or bombarding a prospective employee meeting. 

The primary activity after any disappointment is to allow it to full scale – put in a couple of days hopeless, marathon watching arrangement and eating Ben and Jerry’s. Be that as it may, three days most extreme, women, because the subsequent stage in the wake of despondent is to praise your disappointment. 

On the off chance that you’ve fizzled at something, it implies you, in any event, had the valiance to attempt. Also, you have to praise that courage, regardless of whether attempting didn’t a prompt achievement. 


At long last, it’s an ideal opportunity to survey, reassess and realign. Make sense of where you turned out badly. What occurred, precisely? What would you be able to have improved? What are the results of your disappointment? When you’ve checked on the circumstance, reassess it from an outer point of view. Attempt to venture out of your head and take a gander at the circumstance through another person’s eyes. You may suddenly see things. 

The last advance is to realign. Keep in mind what drove you towards your disappointment in any case. For the creator, she needed to have any kind of effect by pursuing an open position. At the point when that fizzled, she picked another approach to have any kind of effect and propelled Girls Who Code.


Brave, Not Perfect: Fear Less, Fail More, and Live Bolder Reshma Saujani Book Review


Since the beginning, Girls are prepared to progress toward becoming accommodating people and perfectionists from their early ages. This is as a glaring difference to their male friends, who are urged to commit errors and get their hands filthy. 


These socially molded character characteristics proceed into adulthood, making endless women be kept down in their own and expert lives. By tossing out compulsiveness and grasping the grit outlook, notwithstanding, women can shield themselves from burnout, accomplish their fantasies and gather as one with the goal that women wherever can flourish.


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Savaş Ateş

I'm a software engineer. I like reading books and writing summaries. I like to play soccer too :) Good Reads Profile: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/106467014-sava-ate

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