I have a general lack of amusement for podcasts. However most recently Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow have caught my attention. Born of a general lack of amusement on the elliptical, my obsession with Call Your Girlfriend, a podcast for long distance besties everywhere, has grown exponentially. You can learn a lot from Amina and Ann, but my biggest and best piece of knowledge goodness from my virtual besties is this: The Shine Theory.

The world of women is harsh. In a very sweeping, general statement (yes there are exceptions to everything but I’m not talking about the exceptions, I’m talking about the rule), men are harsh on women’s success, women are harsh on other women’s successes, and who knows who started it but my point is it’s rough out there. I think we’ve (“we” from here forward being the fabulous lady humans) all definitely experienced this feeling.

Let’s go over some examples: In the second grade everyone was jealous of Callie Gibson because she had the best hair and her mom, Lisa, was so fabulous and could do some seriously great braids and thus everyone hated how great Callie’s hair was. That doesn’t even make logical sense if you sit down to think about it. Callie’s hair looked GOOD and we all got MAD about it? No, good things should be celebrated and people should be happy about them. So why did we young females fill with jealousy?

Second example: I work for Challenge Detroit, home to 16 amazing young professional women (and 15 men, but again boys, for once this is not about you) and they are some of the most educated, driven, talented, feisty, classy, passionate, outgoing, yet intelligently inward leaders in this city. Now that I’m done confessing my blatant girl crushes, let me talk about how incredibly intimidating it is to work with these 15 other women. It is a situation under which if I were to act in a manner that society conditioned me for, I would fail. I would fail to learn from these powerful peers of mine, fail to create a support network, and fail to contribute to a society in which women lift each other up for individual successes and the success of women as a population.

That’s a lot right? But the solution here is simple: The Shine Theory. In the words of Ann Friedman, “Here’s my solution: When you meet a woman who is intimidatingly witty, stylish, beautiful, and professionally accomplished, befriend her. Surrounding yourself with the best people doesn’t make you look worse by comparison. It makes you better.”

So here’s to Callie Gibson, who (Surprise! Shine Theory in action!) was one of my best friends in high school, despite the tension from her great grade school hair and is now killing it in her first year of law school. And here’s to befriending ALL powerful women, for their sake, for my sake, and for the sake of girls rule and boys drool.

I plan to spend the next month getting to know my fellow LADY fellows even better. You can get the scoop on how sexy successful they are next month. It’ll be juicy and it’ll also be wicked powerful.

In the name of ladyhood,

Kayleigh