Life-altering Lessons (from the Introduction: Welcome To the Era of the Six-Figure Woman)

Above all, I learned that it's entirely possible for any one of us, with average intelligence, to increase her income without selling her soul. No matter how difficult your circumstances or how discouraged you feel, climbing the salary scale is entirely within your grasp.

While not all jobs can turn into six-figure ones, there are many ways to raise your standard of living without sacrificing, but rather enhancing, your quality of life.

Hefty incomes don't guarantee a happy life, or even peace of mind. Some six-figure women feel neither satisfied nor secure, but they are a decided minority. The majority are contented, and these successful high earners have the most to teach us.

There are certain requisites every successful high earner possesses that are available to everyone.

When you deliberately hone or rigorously fine-tune these requisite traits, you automatically set in motion a process that will increase your income.

The Phenomenon of Underearning (from Chapter Two: The Lowdown On Low Earners)

Simply put, an underearner is anyone who earns below her potential. Andrea fits the profile perfectly. She works hard to succeed, yet barely makes enough to get by, even though she has the ability and ambition to do better. Underearners aren't all poorly paid, however. You can make decent money and still fall into this category. What distinguishes an underearner is that she could bring in more, and genuinely wants to, but for whatever reason, she doesn't.

It's estimated that one out of every three workers is an underearner, most of them women. Yet, despite the fact that this condition is so widespread, it is rarely discussed, little understood, and often unrecognized. I find it quite curious and distressing that the wage gap—the disparity between what men and women make—captures so much attention, when the far more insidious problem is our own proclivity to settle for less.

Underearning is not to be confused with voluntary simplicity, a conscious choice to live with less. Deliberately reducing our consumption along with our cash flow is a calculated move to a saner, more peaceful way of life. The lives of underearners are anything but sane and peaceful. They are often overworked and financially strapped. They commonly live paycheck to paycheck, habitually scrambling to cover expenses, forced to go without in order to live on less.

Nor is underearning logically calculated or freely chosen—though we may try to convince ourselves otherwise. There's a big difference between an underearner scraping to get by, and someone who knowingly, voluntarily does what she loves, even if it pays less, because in some very deep way it nourishes her soul, but still affords her an adequate livelihood.

Click here for more excerpts.