Being the Good As*hole

You are the most capable person on your team. You are also the most stuck.

Sarah and Scott started on the same day, at the same salary. Five years later, Scott is a director making eighty thousand dollars more than Sarah, and he got there by saying no roughly forty times. Sarah had the exact same opportunities, but she absorbed the late-night decks, the unassigned projects, and the "quick favors." While Sarah was praised as "the glue of the team," Scott was promoted into leadership.

The Good As*hole's Playbook: Scripts and Strategies for Workplace Survival is not a manual for becoming cruel, manipulative, or toxic. It is a field-tested blueprint for understanding that your agreeableness has been treated as a free resource by your organization, and giving you the psychological tools and exact sentences to charge for your value instead.

Rooted in decades of empirical behavioral research from Wharton, Berkeley, Columbia, and Rutgers-not corporate cliches or empty motivational pep talks-this book dismantles the myth that pure compliance leads to promotion. Groundbreaking research proves that while toxic bullies eventually face organizational backlash, pure people-pleasers finish at the bottom of the compensation ladder. The highest-earning, most respected professionals occupy a distinct quadrant: assertive and formidable in defending their boundaries, yet ethical, reliable, and decent.

Across four structured parts-The Mindset Shift, Defense, Offense, and The Long Game-you will learn:

Whether you are an overworked individual contributor, an exhausted mid-career professional, or a leader tired of paying the hidden career tax of being "too nice," this book provides the definitive roadmap to stop paying for the privilege of being used.