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Bethenny Frankel has some weird business advice: “You can’t ask a dog to be a cat.”
Which is to say: Don’t try to be something you’re not in business. Instead, maximize your strengths — even if they may seem a little unorthodox.
For example, many people say to write a business plan and plot strategically. This is great if you’re a careful, strategic thinker. But what if that’s not you? What if, instead, you are the kind of person with a high tolerance for risk and experimentation?
Frankel has a hypothesis, proven out from her own experience — as a former Real Housewife of New York who leveraged that attention into a string of business successes, including the Skinnygirl brand (whose shapewear, salad dressings, popcorn and coffee officially hit $1 billion in retail sales in 2025) and who now moves $2 million worth of product per month as an influencer. She believes that if you try to conform to someone else’s standards in business, you’ll just end up being a weakened version of yourself.
This is certainly true for her.
“I don’t do things just haphazardly,” Frankel says. “That being said, there’s no big endgame. I didn’t plan any of this. I had no idea this was going to happen. But trust and believe, if there’s money or fish, I’m going to get the net.”
Here’s how she does it.
First, she’s clear on her mental strengths.
Frankel may not have a “big endgame,” but she does view the world through a particular strategic lens. She describes it as “just being logical about it” — breaking down complex situations into likely outcomes, where she can imagine: If I do this, that will happen, and then that will happen…
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