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Are you ready to discover the rules of success we can learn from The Devil Wears Prada? Well, you’re in the right place!
I love this series I started, in which I analyze movies and series and books for their rules of success.
And of course, I had to include such an iconic movie as The Devil Wears Prada!
If you love this list, you should definitely check out the other parts of this series:
Read also: 11 Rules Of Success From Inception
Read also: 11 Rules Of Success From Shadowhunters
1. You need to respect others to be respected
I know you think that this is obvious, but Andy is the perfect example for someone not realizing they haven’t been showing the respect they expect to be treated with themselves.
Throughout the beginning of her employment at Miranda Priestly’s office, Andy was looking down on everyone around her and their obsession with superficial things such as clothing.
She showed this by not caring enough to dress appropriately for the job and having to snort in ridicule about how someone could obsess over the blueness of a belt.
She doesn’t even consider how much fashion shapes our everyday life and how much of a significant impact it makes.
At the same time, she kept being confused about why her colleges and mostly her boss kept treating her with so much disdain and why they gave her such a hard time.
Only when ??? pointed her disrespect out to her did she take action. And the results were stunning! A seemingly simple makeover did wonders for the respect other people showed her.
So you should ask yourself: Have you been respecting the successful people you want to be like?
For example, you can’t talk trash about their over-the-top lifestyle and expect to be included in their inner circle.
Respect is a two-way street, and you should always be aware of which impression you set.
2. Sometimes you have to work really hard for a while
As many of us modern boss babes, I am very willing to hustle for my goals. However, I do not plan on hustling day in day out for the rest of my life.
That’s not my definition of success. For me, success means being in a position in which you can spontaneously take a week or two off from work without it harming your bank account.
I want to hustle when I’m inspired to do so.
Of course, it takes a while to get to this point of success. In the beginning, you often have to hustle harder than later on.
And that’s ok, as long as it is only for a while.
Andy quickly realizes new hustle lifestyle is ruining her social life and the relationships she’s Build over many years.
Ultimately she wasn’t willing to do that anymore and quit her job. And low and behold, she got a fantastic other job with far less grind to it.
Her short-term masculine hustle enabled her to live a successful boss babe life later on.
So prepare to put in some extra hours at the beginning of your success journey. But never let it take over your life in the long-term!
3. Know you self-worth
If you have high self-worth, you won’t let yourself be treated like sh#t. You won’t crawl on your hands and feet to please someone, and you most certainly won’t starve yourself to be a size zero.
The way Andy and Emily scramble to fulfill Miranda’s every wish beautifully shows the difference between people depending on their self-worth.
Miranda Priestly knows her value in this world. She knows how many people depend on her and is impacted by her decisions. Therefore she feels worthy of the success she has achieved and fearlessly goes after even more significant success.
Emily seems to base a big part of her self-worth on the feedback of her idol Miranda. And it reflects in her self-sacrificing behavior.
Andy, on the other hand, doesn’t idolize Miranda at the beginning of her employment. As time progresses and her hunger for career success grows, she forgets about her self-worth for a while.
Ultimately she concludes that she deserves better than a life-sucking career as someone’s errand girl.
Clearer than before on her worth, she boldly quits her job and pursues the kind of success that is meant for her.
Every truly successful person has a healthy amount of self-worth. If you unconsciously don’t feel worthy of receiving money, fame, and overall great life, you will sabotage yourself.
Always remember: A high self-worth attracts a high net-worth!
4. Dress how you want to be treated
No matter how much we like the saying that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, judging someone by their appearance makes out an essential part of a first impression.
Andy’s style is improvable, to say the least, as she starts working in Miranda’s office.
Even in a company that is not about fashion, her appearance would have caused raised eyebrows and judgmental looks.
At the end of the movie, we see Andy’s new style. It’s not her forced fashionista chic she adopted for her job and not her I-am-above-such-superficial-things-like-clothing style from the beginning.
It’s her new personal style. These are outfits that are thought through and express her character and ambition.
Without consciously watching out for it, the viewer immediately gets a different impression and vibe of Andy. It shows the power your outfit choice truly has.
So if fashion hasn’t been at the forefront of your mind until now, start educating yourself about it.
I started pretty late with caring about fashion myself. But let me tell you, the feeling of looking stylishly put together is worth every effort that goes into it.
It not only gains your respect from others but also gives you the confidence to build an empire.
For that, I have compiled some of my favorite styling tips so far in these posts:
Read also: 11 Fashion Hacks For Stylish Women
Read also: 9 Fashion Hacks For Petite Women
Furthermore, I recommend you check out The Devil Wears Prada Film Analysis: The Forces Behind Fashion With ModernGurlz.
I love the fashion analysis videos on the Clever&Chic YouTube Channel; they are really mind-opening and bringing awareness to the psychology behind fashion choices I’ve never previously noticed.
5. Know how to follow orders
One of the movie scenes that never fails to annoy me is when Andy, I supposed to deliver the design book to Miranda’s home.
She is explicitly told to put it on the table next to the door and then get out of there as fast as possible. Granted, there are two tables and two doors.
However, I think most of us can agree that we’d instead put the book on the wrong table than follow the advice of two children that call her upstairs into the clearly off-limits parts of the house.
If you are striving for success in life, you have to learn how to follow orders.
Yes, I know you most likely want to be the one giving the orders and not following them. But rarely anyone starts out at the top, and if they do, their lack of experience often leads to disaster.
I believe there are two main parts of following an order correctly:
- Listen attentively
Most people don’t really listen; instead, they wait to speak and mull over their answers in their heads.
No wonder they miss out on details or forget the task altogether.
2. Be willing to follow the order to the best of your abilities
Even if you hate the task you’ve been given, as long as it is part of your job and isn’t morally problematic, you should do your best at accomplishing it as efficiently as possible.
I’ve met so many people in the workforce who deliver utterly mediocre work because they only want to put in the bare minimum.
Or they stretch out the time it takes to accomplish the task for as long as possible because they get paid by the hour and don’t want to ‘overwork themselves.’
If they were honest, they most likely (there are always rules to an exception, I admit that) have only themselves to blame for having a job they hate.
If you don’t have the guts or motivation to do anything about your tedious job, the least you can do is not ruining it for everyone else by putting in a sh#t effort.
You, as an ambitious Felicity Seeker, need to learn how to follow orders and not just the ones you like!
6. Think ahead of the game
One of my favorite movie scenes is when Andy presents the Harry Potter manuscripts for the twins to Miranda.
And Miranda, still trying to punish Andy for her mistake mentioned above, is just like, ‘well, are my twins supposed to share the manuscript?!’
And Andy is prepared and gives her a second one.
Still, Miranda is trying to catch her off guard and says, ‘well, how are my twins supposed to read them when they are already on the train?’
And Andy, like the badass boss babe she has grown into, gives her a smile and tells her that they already have their copies with them; these two are only backups should one of the others get lost or destroyed.
Like, DAMN, you go, girl!!!
We should all learn a thing or two from Andy in these moments.
Ladies, it’s time to stop being reactive in life. If you only react to what’s already happened, you will always be hustling at the mercy of other people and luck.
It’s time to work smart, not just hard. It’s time to look ahead and anticipate what’s about to happen!
Business-wise this can mean preparing for holiday seasons or events like Black Friday months in advance. Because if you start putting out Christmas content and Pinterest pins on Christmas, it’s already too late.
As a student, this can mean informing yourself about your curriculum for the next year/semester and starting to study in the holidays before it.
Just think ahead! It might seem impossible in the beginning, especially if you’re already lacking behind. Still, if you don’t do something about it now, you’ll always lack behind, which is just unnecessary stress.
Success comes to those who anticipate!
7. Know your priorities and follow through on them
If you don’t know what your real priorities in life are, you will make decisions that won’t align with them, and as a result, you will always find yourself frustrated with some parts of your life.
It’s important to know what you value most in life and what least. Knowing these things is like having the rulebook for a game. Without it, you might be able to win but only by luck.
Andy had to learn that in the end, she prioritized friendship and family over a successful career.
She realized that having the immensely sought after job as Miranda Priestly’s assistant while losing her friends was worse than having her friends but losing her job.
It doesn’t mean she had to give up entirely her goal to be a successful career-oriented woman. She simply had to find a job that doesn’t interfere with her number one priority.
There are too many ‘successful’ people in our world that have made it to the top of their career yet are miserable because they sacrificed all their social relationships on the way.
I am a believer that you can have it all – a successful career and loving relationships.
The way to get there is by honoring our priorities. If your current job isn’t compatible with your dream social life, then that’s the Universe leading you to something even better for you.
Just because you can’t yet see a better way doesn’t mean an opening won’t reveal itself if you follow what makes you happy.
Never doubt that the Universe has your back. All you need to do is give it the chance to help you instead of forcing your way through life.
8. Don’t complain unless you are giving your absolute best
Remember the scene directly before Andy’s makeover?
Andy is frustrated that her work doesn’t get recognized, and she goes to Nigel to whine about it.
He doesn’t take her sh#t and instead gives her some much needed tough love.
Thanks to him, Andy realizes that she hasn’t been giving her best, and she immediately commits to remedying that.
Andy does something at that moment that so very few people have the guts to do.
She admits her wrong, stops blaming life for its unfairness, and decides to take matters into her own hand.
Too many people nowadays whine about life’s unfairness and complain that rich people all just got lucky.
Well, newsflash! Whining won’t get you anywhere. The only thing it does is giving you the short-term satisfaction of ‘poor me, I have it so tough in life.’
But if you’re reading this, you are most likely better off than a significant part, if not the majority of people on this planet.
These people would give everything to be in your position, yet here you are whining about its unfairness.
Get a grip on yourself! You don’t get to whine unless you’ve given it your all! You owe these people that are worse of than you to make to best out of your life and, as a result, pull them upwards along with you.
So, what have you last been whining about?
You’re allowed to have a 10-minute pity party, but after that, you better pull up your hair, put on your blue light blocking glasses, and GET.TO.WORK!
9. Change your pattern
Andy was far from the usual assistant Miranda hired. But since all her past ones ended up disappointing her, she chose to try something else.
And what a success it was!
It took a while, but ultimately, Andy impresses Miranda, which is a real rarity.
Sure, in the end, it didn’t work out between the two of them. However, there clearly was no bad blood between them, so it can be counted as a success.
Many of us, me very much included, get easily stuck in routines and patterns.
We find a way to do something that works moderately well and stick with it. When in reality, there could be a much better strategy out there!
Don’t get too stuck up on patterns and routines. Even if you are happy with something, try changing it once in a while.
It won’t always work out better for you, and if it doesn’t, you can still revert back to your old habits.
However, this is the way to stumble across unexpected blessings and a massive success!
So dare to change your pattern!
10. Know what you want and go get it
Miranda knows what she wants -period.
She’s not afraid to go for it either.
She’s definitely not a people pleaser. She has no qualms about pursuing her lips when she doesn’t like someone’s designs. After all, she has a responsibility to fulfill and can’t just promote anything less than the best.
Too many of us are people pleasers that don’t even consider what it is we truly want.
When is the last time you’ve honestly stopped for a second and considered if you really want to work in a 9-to-5?
Society just always tells us this is the path to go, so most of us rarely consider that there is another way. A scary one, yes, but also an incredibly rewarding and possible one.
So what is it that you truly want in life? What do you want out of your day? And what can you do to unapologetically get it?
11. Focus on what you’re best at and delegate the rest
Leaders have overcome the habit of thinking they have to do it all by themselves.
They are confident that delegating tasks is increasing their efficiency and leading to more success and happiness.
Why bother doing something you dislike or even hate when someone else could do it for you?
Wouldn’t you instead focus more of your time on things that you enjoy doing?
Look at your life for areas that would do well with some delegation.
Perhaps you hate bringing the trash out, and your sibling hates doing the dishes – wouldn’t it be better to exchange your task and do what you’ll like most?
Or perhaps you have a business and hate how much of your time marketing takes.
Do some calculations to figure out how much it would cost you to hire someone to do at least one of your marketing tasks for you. Just one task less on your shoulders can make a world of difference if you hate doing it.
Never feel bad about delegating tasks. More often than not, it’s a win-win scenario.
You get more free time to spend on things you enjoy, and the other person receives the same or gets paid for their work.
So, what can you delegate next?
Phew, that was longer than expected.
I hope this gave you tons of value and motivation to become the successful boss babe I know you’re capable of being.
Pick one of these traits and actively work on it for the next month. If you do that month after month, you will rival boss babes like Andy or Miranda before you know it.
Also, keep a lookout for the next part in this series!
Until next time
Sophie
