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   Book Review by Dawn G. Prince

A mbitious women have long been a topic that's created heated debates about the glass ceiling, balancing, and sacrifice. Debra Condren's new book, am • BITCH • ous redefines the word ambitious when it comes to women. Right on the cover is the new definition of Ambitchous : (def.) A Woman Who: 1. Makes more money 2. has more power 3. gets the recognition she deserves 4. has the determination to go after her dreams and can do it with Integrity."

A life coach who's worked with over 2500 women as founder the Women's Business Alliance, Condren lets us know that it is alright for women to be ambitious. It's not a dirty word. Condren says that women owe it to themselves to live up to their full potential, feel passionate about their work and value their worth. That is the key to finding harmony in their lives. Condren's new message and mission is "to remind women that ambition is a virtue, not a vice. Ambition is the best of who we are."

But the truth is that driven women who go after their dreams are usually categorized as bitchy and selfish, bad wives and mothers, while men who aggressively pursue their careers are seen as go-getters. Another part of the negativity is that ambitious women who choose not to have children are seen as failures in their personal lives, and those with children and spouses are seen as choosing careers over their families. Overly ambitious women are seen to have lost their feminity despite their lacy camisoles under their Armani power suits. On top of that, women bear the burden of wrestling with their own thinking about being nice and worrying about being labeled a certain way if they go after their dreams.

Condren wants that kind of negativity to change, although she says that it's not men that are holding women back, it's women who sabotage themselves by pulling back and wanting to be seen as nice and team players instead of going after what they really want. Her advice: Women should take credit for their work, take their power and not feel guilty about making career decisions and the kind of money they deserve. By reclaiming the word 'ambitious', women can empower themselves.

A lot of women consider their dreams or career goals as sidelines to the other priorities in their lives, and they try to work around their dreams because they so want to have balance int their lives. Condren says forget about the balancing act, that feeling unbalanced in some areas of your life is normal. If you are the kind of personality that wants to get ahead, it's harmony that you're after - finding happiness in following your professional dreams and still fulfilling the personal side of home and family. It's about giving equal attention to all parts of your life and not sacrificing your ambitions because you fear not being able to do it all, or you fear being labeled by society's rules.

Chock full of invaluable advice, exercises, strategy, questionnaires and examples of women who've followed their career goals, amBITCHous shows women how to be go-getters and achieve personal and professional success without sacrificing their families, careers, femininity and integrity. It about choosing to pursue passions aggressively and making no apologies for wanting to be successful.

As Condren says in the first chapter of the book, "This is most emphatically not a book about how to be unapologetically bitchy to get what you want. This is a book about redefining your ambition in the face of social sanctions and unapologetically going after your dreams."

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