Knowing Your Value: Women, Money, and Getting What You'… (2024)

While there are some good basic points here, I was let down by this book by Mika Brzenzinski. Using her natural circle of pundits, politicos and celebrity friends who surround the Morning Joe show on MSNBC as her research resources, much of her advice on how to know your worth and negotiate your best salary rings rather hollow to us down here on the bottom rungs of the socio-economic ladder. If she'd bothered to discuss the hard realities of working poverty eloquently written about by Barbara Ehrenreich, there may have been more truth ringing out here!

As a lifelong feminist who is very tuned in to the many injustices of inequality, I found it hard to sympathize with a highly fortunate, high profile newswoman who was wounded by the criticism over an unfashionable hair clip she'd worn during the 2008 primary election coverage of Hillary Clinton. Was that petty and typical of the kinds of vapid and superficial criticisms women face on a daily basis? Uh, well..yes. All things in perspective I suppose. Average and older women in my station of life have much more serious grievances to deal with in this deplorable economy - like finding gainful employment at all, much less satisfying, upwardly mobile careers where we call the shots and ask for what we're worth!

Women want to be liked but men want to be paid, and those desires drive their decision-making style in salary negotiations. This is the underlying message of Mika Brzezinski's new book, Knowing Your Value: Women, Money, and Getting What You're Worth.

It's not just money, though. We women stay too long in one-way relationships. We give when we should take. We sacrifice ourselves for some external "greater good" (admirable, but not if it's an all-the-time thing). Mika asks us to question that knee-jerk tendency to settle for less, and encourages us not to feel guilty for doing so. Men don't, so why should we? It's just a negotiation, nothing personal. I found that freeing.

Mika writes in a down-to-earth style, with refreshing candor. She didn't smarten up until her forties, spending so much of her own money on job-required travel, wardrobe and other expenses that she was actually in the red working for MSNBC. Her co-anchor, Joe Scarborough, was pulling in fourteen times Mika's salary! Although Joe went to bat for her, big-time, even giving her his bonuses for the show's high ratings, management was downright piggish. The worst was a woman manager who drove Mika to tears when she asked for a raise. Some of her anecdotes about being humiliated by top management are cringe-inducing, making her evolution as a negotiator even more believable.

Although any salary negotiation will be affected by the economy, the lessons of "Knowing Your Value" are applicable to more than just money-based relationships. It's an empowering read, and I recommend it.

I was hoping for a bit more content on knowing your value and less on the already well documented case of women not making what their male peers make. The book probably spends less than half of its content on the subject espoused on the title.

With that said, there is good content on the stated subject and women would do well to read the book. For that matter, so would men.

Ms. Brzezinski does make some pretty sweeping generalizations that are pretty lame such as "men don't mind rejection and will ask ten women out without hesitation." (My paraphrase since I don't have a printed copy to which I can refer). I know a lot of guys and very few fall into that camp. We don't like rejection when we ask someone out or when we ask for a raise any more than women do.

But, while some of her suppositions about what's going on in a man's head are off base, her conclusions on what we need to do to seek our own best interests are good advice.

Oh, and if you're looking for a commercial for her TV program "Morning Joe," you've come to the right place. There's a whole lot of self aggrandizement going on here.

This was a good book overall, but instead of making me feel uplifted and rah-rah-rah, it left me feeling defeated.

Prior to reading it, I was perhaps a little naive to the injustices women still face in the workplace, especially at higher levels. I don't think this was a bad thing- being younger than Mika and attending an all-girls school, I was simply raised thinking that anything boys can do, girls can do better. And the guys I know that are my age almost seem to accept it.

Reading this book left me disappointed in how things are working at the top levels right now but I'm confident that things are continuing to change for the better.

Fortunately, Mika had Joe as not only a good role model, but also an advocate who recognized her value.

Women (and men) need strong role models- both male and female. If the people they look up to aren't looking out for themselves, those people won't look out for those below them either and consequently, those women will also lack positive examples. The cycle continues.

I was eager to read this book. I enjoy watching the television show "Morning Joe" with Mika Brzezinski. I was disappointed in the book. Mika Brzezinski begins the book describing the anguish of unemployment. She obtains a job which requires her to wear many hats to keep the position. She is recruited by Joe Scarborough at the inauguration of "Morning Joe". She is an intelligent, self-sacrificing, hardworking and capable employee. But her hard work is not enough....
Working women want equal pay, promomtions and benefits that men receive. With the competitive job climate retention of a job becomes paramount. Stating your value to the employer is interpreted as a complaint. The employer's jargon is "you are unhappy because you are not a good fit". Next they are shown the door. Most working women know their value but are silent because they need a job.
I wish the book had address the conundrum of job advancement without losing the job.

on a whim I stopped by Barnes and Noble to look for some "negotiating as a woman" books and I stumbled across this one. The book is a story of Mika Brzezinski, a former CBS anchor who was laid off, then being picked up as a co-host for the Morning Joe show with Joe Scarborough. Interspersed with her personal story about trying to learn to stand up for herself is advice from other well known women in the business world. I consumed it in about an hour, and while I had hoped to find some experiential stories of women realizing their value and making real strides in...well, kicking ass. I was disappointed. The sad takeaways from this book were as follows:

*Don't try to act like a man in negotiations (being too aggressive, trying to emulate the posturing and growling men do to each other)
*Women get judged visually and men do not (this is a "duh" but it was sad to read about things like how Joe would basically roll out of bed, throw on sweats and do the show, but one day Mika wore a hair clip on a show and was literally called into a superior's office and berated for it, not to mention the emails she received from viewers criticizing her clothing choices)
*It's women in positions of power that often do more damage to other women, taking advantage of women's known weaknesses in not wanting to be seen as "troublemakers" and appealing to their sense of being liked.
*Often the only way women can "get ahead" is if men in power "sponsor" them.

Although she was co-host of Morning Joe, and contributed in equal fashion to the show, she found out she was only being paid ONE FOURTEENTH the amount Joe Scarborough was. After several unsuccessful attempts at getting more money from the networks, Joe Scarborough himself finally decided to compensate Brzezinski, through giving her portions of his bonus payments (received when he's bested the Don Imus show ratings, the slot the show had replaced). Brzezinksi was somewhat embarrassed and humiliated at this turn of events. After this she went to her boss and "successfully" negotiated somewhat of a raise, but even she described it as not much of a gain.

It made me sad to hear that once again, a woman could not get ahead without a man helping her.

This book made me anxious. I can relate to the fear of confronting an employer over salary and needing to be a martyr because I'm "lucky" to have he opportunity to work wherever. I think she's right that those are typical female perspectives about work.

Mika weaves her story around anecdotes from other successful women from a diverse range of fields. They all have similar stories of struggling to be taken seriously and get paid equitably. The women in this book are perpetually in a catch 22 where they need to be assertive to get a raise, but women who are assertive are regrded as too shrill and bitchy to deserve the raise. She corroborates these anecdotes with studies about the pay gap and the way women are socialized.

What is depressing about this book is that despite acknowledging the cultural and systemic norms that have created this situation, she continuously blames herself. Mika repeatedly writes that ultimately it was her fault she was not paid what she was worth and she takes full responsibility. She dances around "scary" radical terminology like "patriarchy" of "feminism" and even throws a dumb caveat in there about how unproductive it is to "blame men" for earning more than her for the same work. Ironically in a story about overcoming her fear of standing up for herself she comes across as too afraid to stand up for herself.

While the anecdotes and studies are good, this book needs real world advice about how to overcome the situation. Mika can't provide this because apparently she hasn't figured it out yet. Although she finally gets paid more, she says she still doesn't get paid as much as Joe and puts in the same hours. What the hell? If it wasn't for the Paris Hilton incident I never would have even known their show exists. I think part of the solution is being more open about compensation. Name the numbers! She didn't do this at all in her book. Women have no way of really knowing when they're being shafted when everybody's salary is treated like a state secret.

This book should be required reading for any woman who plans on, you know, ever having a job. It isn't about putting a # on your value but on realizing that the traditional ways that women communicate and relate- which often serve us well in our daily lives - actually work very much against us in the work environment. And an important point: it's not about men vs. women, it's about women as their own worst enemy.

First of all, Mika is extremely likeable and easy to identify with. I knew nothing about her, but now have set my tv to record her show, that sort of thing. Her analysis isn't written from a patronizing point of view (memo to every other advice author) but rather from the angle of someone who has been through a lot and had to earn her lesson-learning the hard way. Her humility is engaging, and inspiring (hey, if she ends up sitting on the desk for her book cover, so could you!)

Secondly, she pulls in a pool of high profile executives who corroborate what she says in their own ways. So the book ends up feeling like a star-studded focus group, complete with Carol Bartz's foul language, or Trump admitting that if you ask him for too much he'll probably fire you anyhow. It gives what she says additional validity, and more scenarios you are likely to identify with.

There were so many quotable passages in here; I found myself constantly bringing it up in conversation as I came to terms with how obvious some of the scenarios were, and yet I'd never noticed them. I will be buying copies and gifting this for a long time to come.

When I first saw this audiobook, I only saw the title Knowing Your Value in gigantic, capitalized, bold letters. I didn’t see the small letters of the subtitle: Women, Money, and Getting What You’re Worth. I was misled into thinking that the audiobook was about knowing your value in general. So I must warn readers that this audiobook is not about that, it’s about how women can ask for higher pay in corporate America.

Mika Brzezinski has done her homework. She’s talked to major female players such as Tina Brown, Nora Ephron, Suze Orman and Arianna Huffington. She shares their advice along with her own. The main narrative is her own story of struggling for years in broadcast journalism until she landed her co-host position on the MSNBC hit show Morning Joe. Even after that milestone, she was still overworked and underpaid. As co-host she worked fulltime on the show, but the network still made her do other freelance assignments and nightly shifts, while knowing she was a working mother and paying the other male host fourteen times her salary.

Brzezinski shares informative facts and figures. For instance, women tend to think they’re lucky when they get a break, ask for less pay (they make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes) and generally operate on emotion and approval (one woman told Brzezinski how she received a pair of nice earrings and plenty of praise for her hard work instead of a raise or promotion). Women also tend to do most of the housework, take care of the family and elders even if they are the breadwinner, and shy away from demanding what they want or need. Besides giving the lay of the land on the gender wage gap issue, Brzezinski gives concrete tips and strategies for how to ask for more pay. For instance, before requesting a raise, hand your boss a single page of all your accomplishments and research what others in your position are earning.

Though the audiobook is informative on a timely topic, it falls short on many fronts. Besides the misleading title, the writing is too simplistic and the same concepts are repeated as if the speaker had momentary amnesia and forgot what she just said. The biggest trouble I had with the audiobook was its reader, Coleen Marlo, who sounded robotic and contrived, similar to a voice on a commercial, nothing like the voice of the author. Ultimately, Marlo’s voice didn’t come across as sincere (perhaps because her voice and the author’s are so different). Since this is Brzezinski’s personal story, I found that glitch to be a serious problem. I’m not sure why the author didn’t narrate her own book. Brzezinski qualifies as a professional speaker herself.

Still, despite the audiobook’s flaws, Brzezinski’s cause of equal pay and the gender wage gap is of utmost importance, and one that working women should flag. Such women will find value in the author’s words. Perhaps they should opt for her book instead.

This book is an excellent snapshot into the very real world of working women and the challenges faced by them. Center stage is the story of Mika Brzezinski, co-host of the popular morning political show Morning Joe. As a man reading this book written primarily to women was enlightening in many ways, but in two particular ways.

First, even women themselves struggle to answer the questions of career and family in ways that don't even dawn on men. And further these questions really do drive to the heart of equality and equity. As a father of two daughters (as well as three sons), Mika has helped to frame the questions--even when I don't particularly like the answers (which is not always to say the answers are wrong).

Second, I found many of the principles of of Knowing Your Value to transcend gender and as such useful reading for men. While the book is particularly focused on knowing your value in order to be compensated fairly, the principles could also be applied to knowing your value so as to act in manners consistent with who you are--a goal much larger than and encompassing fair compensation.

On balance I enjoyed the book and recommend it to both men and women who are thoughtful concerning equality and equity between the genders.

Thank you Mika! Not only was this a wonderful idea for a book, but it was very well done. By taking the time to share your personal struggle with being paid fairly, and then reporting on the struggles of other highly successful women, you have performed an invaluable service!

I laughed out loud as I recognized myself in some of your stories. We women really can be our own worst enemies sometimes when it comes to receiving fair compensation for our work. We think if we just work hard enough, they will come to us with a bucketful of money in thanks. We agree to contracts way below what the fellas agree to, and we wonder why we can't pay our bills.

The priceless Arianna Huffington quote on the jacket serves as a kind of thesis statement for the book: "Just look around and you'll see plenty of evidence that asking for what we want results not in the realization of our own worst fears but in getting what we want." Amen!

Thanks for doing the looking around part for us, Mika. I shared this book with a niece as she was graduating from high school this year. I hope she reads it.

This is a quick read and offers a lot of personal perspectives from high level females (and some males) in the the work place about not being paid appropriately for work. Brzezinski, of course, tells her tale about the self-discovery that she wasn't as confident in herself as one in her position should be, and SHE was the reason for her proper lack of compensation - not anyone else. It's a helpful guide if you're somewhat established in a career and need a supportive shoulder for negotiating salaries. It's also nice to have the validation that you're not alone - that most women do struggle to ask for raises, to say no when it's too much. Most women do take on the thankless jobs and simply think, "I'm just lucky to even have work." There's some inspiration in these pages, but it's not the most groundbreaking book of all time. Worth a read if you have a few hours.

This book was very similar to Cheryl Sandberg's Lean In. It adds a little more focus on salary negotiation, but it falls short on offering practical advice. It is particularly undermined by the fact that she still says she doesn't think her compensation reflects her value (even though it is much improved).

Like Lean In, this book is really targeted toward the upper eschelons of professional women, particularly those who do have nearly irreplaceable value. For younger women or middle tier professionals I'm not sure taking a hard line and being ready to walk out is practical in many cases.

I would recommend Lean In over this one and both do offer great encouragement and easy changes that women can make to realize their potential.

This paperback was as secondhand freebie given to me. I fit Brzezinski’s intended demographic: young women, working professionals, who want to be recognized at equal value and be compensated for what they are worth. This book is a companion to the statistical fact that women take home less pay than men.

I appreciated Brzezinski’s metaphor that it is women who are more likely to “take up the mop” and do the invisible labour that needs to be done to move “the team” forward. We are willing to take on tasks to get things done, even when we are not fairly compensated for them. I perform tasks that fall into this category everyday – the very nature of my job is to make sure things run smoothly, so that executives do not notice that there was a glitch, an issue, a problem, because I have solved it for them. This work should be recognized for its value more often. I would say I work in an office that is liberal and progressive, but even then, I’ve been told, “how are your arts and crafts going” as I am taping down receipts to prepare an expense report for an executive who valued this work beneath him. When a woman is attending a meeting, it has been called “taking notes,” as if she is only there in the room to observe and record when she is actually actively participating as a critical member of the discussion. This is a shout-out to all men and women: do not belittle our work and do not let it go unnoticed.

Some tips from Brzezinski’s guide book:

1. Copying men does not mean success. You can’t behave as a man would – you have to stand up for your worth by staying in character. Shouting at your boss and rough-housing with him like a couple of college jocks will actually back-fire on you. Remain calm, come prepared, and be a dignified woman.

2. Find a male sponsor. Most women succeed because a man saw their potential and helped them up the corporate ladder.

3. Don’t be duped. Women want to be liked so when your boss buys you a gift or takes you out to lunch for your hardwork instead of giving you a raise – be mindful that these rewards for good behaviour are not sustainable compensation for your worth.

3. Don’t be afraid to walk. When expressing their circ*mstance, women tend to say they feel lucky to have their job, they do not think they can survive if they were not hired, whereas men are more bold and willing to walk if they do not agree to the terms. Be confident in your skills that you can find another position if you are not being recognized for the value you bring to the team. And you are valuable, my dear, don’t forget it.

A quick and interesting read. What I really appreciate about Brzezinski's book is the emphasis on women's mistakes - on the fact that women often perpetuate and create our own powerlessness. Owning this fact gives us the agency to realize that we actually possess power to recreate structures that don't get us what we want. For me, this is an important revelation as I think back on some of the frustrations I've experienced with power structures in the last two years - I realize that much of it was my own fault, and that I didn't do my part to change the situations I disliked. I wish I had realized this earlier, but I am grateful that I now have this knowledge for future work/social situations that I find unjust.

Overall, I enjoyed the perspectives given from many high-ranking professionals (women and men). However, this is certainly more like a journalism piece than a piece of non-fiction, or even a how-to / self-help book. (I think I was expecting either of the latter.) So read this as you would read a magazine article and not as a piece of rigorous scholarship.

This is a collection of conversations and stories, all centered around Mika's own story of not getting paid what she deserved. (When Morning Joe started, she made 1/14 of what her co-host made!)
I loved the advice, but didn't love how it was organized.
Since I'm self-employed, valuing my worth is more about setting the right prices than negotiating a raise, but I still found bits of this useful, especially as I helped one of my clients raise her rates (double them!) with her current clients. Mika hit on a LOT of the points I see women struggle with in setting their prices: apologizing, over-explaining, talking about your reasons instead of the benefits to the payer/employer.
If you work in a corporate setting, I'd definitely recommend it. If you work for yourself and need to raise your rates, you might find it helpful (at least, emotionally).

Ohhh my goodness! Such a great read. There are so many helpful things in here that I need to keep reminding myself of. I have made so many of the same mistakes that are listed in here and Im happy to know that Im not alone :)

BUY THE BOOK

BUY THE BOOK

While I'm a Mika and Morning Joe fan, I was disappointed by the book's lack of depth. I already knew that women don't speak up for themselves enough in the workplace and that we say things like, "I'm just lucky to have gotten to this position." And, it's obvious that you should be prepared to walk if you've drawn a "salary line" in the sand. Really nothing new here except for a little insight into Mika's personal life.

A friend who was going through a rough time at work read this then passed it on to me. It changed my life. I knew I was being taken advantage of, but this book showed me just how much. I got a new job & never looked back. Since then I must have purchased 10-15 copies and given them to my girlfriends having a rough time in the workplace.

Concise and well written. If you are a female professional and you suspect you are under compensated, then you probably are. This book gives real world examples to illustrate male female compensation inequality and supports it with a variety of tips and strategies to help you build your own case for a promotion. It worked for me and I hope it works for you too!

Heard Mika speak at a Women's Leadership event through work, and was intrigued by her story and perspective. Looking forward to reading this book, especially as I think through where I want my career trajectory to go.

A really good follow up to the conversations brought up in Lean In. Women need to know their value and be able to negotiate it. The conversation for the gender gap continues.

Useful. Could have done without the Donald Trump interviewettes, though...

Pretty empowering book. Many credible interviews with female high flyers that show us the possibilities of balancing life with power.

I listened to this book and I enjoyed the points of motivation. As a woman, I understood some of the opportunities Mika recommended to go after. As a Black woman, I see the limitations in those opportunities. Overall, I intend to take some of these gems and apply them in my career journey.

I read the revised 2018 edition, and I really liked it! Loved the distinction between a mentor and a sponsor. I didn't know much about the author before reading this, but loved learning about her and hearing her stories. Will read more by her.

This had quite a bit that was useful to me and I appreciated that it didn’t take the boo hoo women are victims approach. It was more identifying reasons for difficulties women have interfacing in the business world and some strategies for gracefully overcoming those obstacles. I thought it reinforced the concept that it’s possible to be powerful/successful/tough without forfeiting the softness and emotional intuition that makes women so unique and valuable. The one caution is that she does wax political frequently. So, if it’s a complete turnoff for you, this may not be a favorite.

'At some point of your life, you have got to know your value. It is your job to feel it and communicate it effectively'

Knowing your value at a job market is not something very popular where I am from. Some people do, but there is a lot to do about it. I still hear a lot of voices that a place of a woman is in the kitchen, or giving birth. Not at universities, especially not in technology (quote by a female teacher). Ot is also not in a good thone to talk about money.

This book was recommended to me at one of the courses I participated. It was a tough read. Especially for a woman. In this book you can see how many of successful women are underpaid, underestimated, and do not know how to solve this.

Then you can read following chapters of how many overcame it. Meanwhile you can see the exact same schemas around you, when you are entering the job market. I was one of the scared ones to always agree, not feeling worthy of more. With time, and some advice from this book I am trying to not follow this path anymore. It is difficult. Anyways this is a book worth your time to be read. And afterwards, when you feel brave enough, it might help you change something.

My grandma gave me this book for Christmas! I didn't think much of it at first, but this week I looked at it and thought "actually, this could be exactly the information I need." So I read it.

It was a quick, fairly easy read. Though it was repetitive at times and touched on a few topics I (fortunately) haven't had to deal with yet, I now feel better prepared to negotiate for a higher salary or promotion.

I wish I would have read this years ago, when I spent three years insisting to a group of male superiors that my successors and I deserved pay equal or greater than that of our predecessors. (This was after Obamacare left university administration blaming politics for their inability to pay student workers anything without breaking the bank.) After bringing this up at every meeting--timidly, at first, then with all the confidence and data of one whose value was proven after numerous awards and successful projects, I finally started getting paid. Even if the resolution was only decided after one of my supervisors acted as though the solution was all his idea--not an avenue I'd pointed out months before. (True story--You can't make this up.) And I only got to see one year of that money before leaving the organization, but at least I was able to pass on my wisdom to my female successor. I told her, "If they don't pay you what you want, quit." If the organization dies because the superiors don't see the value in it, it's their loss.

This book includes valuable negotiation tactics for woman who have to work from a carefully constructed strong feminine brand to show their value to both male and female superiors. The book pushes its own brand pretty hard, but that's kind of the point, so I can't fault it for that!