Unexpected Lessons from Girl Code

I was at my mom’s house this last week working on my iPad with the TV on in the background… and suddenly I had the thought, “What IS this? It’s hilarious!” Come to find out, it’s a down-to-earth, “real talk”-type show on MTV called Girl Code. Now, let me add my bottom line before I begin the body of thought: Do I agree with everything they said? No. Definitely not. But I admit I watched the full 60-minute segment (which includes opinions on many subjects) and took notes for today’s article because I LOVED their honesty. And truthfully, I did learn a thing or two!

On Confident Women in the Workplace: One gal was of the opinion that confident women may have to work 10x as hard to get where they want to be in the corporate world – and the truth is, they may or may not be paid what they’re worth once they get there. But working hard as a woman “in a man’s world” is worth it – remember you’re paving the way for other confident women to follow. Confident women have grit.

I 100% agree, but realized quickly I hadn’t thought about how my confidence and sheer grit to achieve the goals I want could pave the road for my future daughters, granddaughters, nieces and others to follow. That makes my heart happy!

On Role Models: I was pleasantly surprised that this segment had the most people weigh in. One reminded us that role models are not nominated, they are chosen by others you love. An example was a younger sister confessing to her older sister that she “wanted to be just like you when I grow up.” and the older sister had a sobering moment, realizing she wasn’t living her life the way she wanted. Picture examples followed – but I’ll spare you!

Another stated that role models are human and imperfect too, so if you’re on either side of the role model status, stay realistic that no one will get it right 100% of the time.

Finally a guy weighed in, and he mentioned he thought a woman’s role model is a great picture of her perspective on life. This was a new thought for me, but think about it: if you were getting to know someone and they mentioned their role model was Miley Cyrus — what would you think?

On “Flaunting”: This topic was one of the funniest – and honestly my favorite – segment of the night. The ladies FIRE came out and one after another passionately exclaimed something along the lines of bragging that you can drink any male under the table at a bar and then proving it is NOT something to flaunt about! A second example was, it is NOT good to flaunt about how many times you’ve been so wasted you don’t remember what happened the night before! They practically yelled that ANYTHING with CLASS is the BEST thing to flaunt: Your high SAT score, your white smile, your hard work ethic, etc.