What if 100 of you published a book in the next year?
That’s incredibly exciting to think about, isn’t it? Publishing a book is something so many people dream of doing, but everyone acts like it’s a foolish wish, hopelessly out of reach, or only something “real writers” get to do.
On Wednesday night, we hosted an incredible conversation with my partner Paul Carr about why self-publishing has finally come of age, and if done well, is completely stigma-free for the first time ever.
It was the throes of the #MeToo movement, and I was smack in the middle of it. Not only was I a noted whistleblower on bro culture and a journalist telling many of those stories, but I hosted a monthly dinner party at my home, where many women debated in a safe space whether or not to come forward.
Speaking up isn’t easy. It can feel empowering, but it isn’t necessarily fun. And it can be scary and isolating. The community between these women was vital.
But I’ll tell you something that weighed on them: The hundreds of women who reached out to them asking for advice on coming forward, wanting to tell someone their own story. All of these women were grateful for the people who had been there for them. They wanted to give back. But the requests were overwhelming. When you are already going through it, going through it again with hundreds of strangers can feel like more than you can bear. Every single one of them wanted a better way to share what they’d learned the hard way with other women in a trusted, intimate setting, but without reliving their own trauma again and again.
Newsletter editor Lily here.
Right about now, a lot of folks I know are starting to realize just how much they missed very specific aspects of their pre-pandemic lives.
We all know that we miss the big stuff: Seeing friends and family without panic and anxiety, going to big events like concerts, the works.
But it wasn’t until recently that I made a huge realization: I’m 100% a gym person.
Ever since the pandemic started, I’ve spent most of the last year walking outside and occasionally running for exercise. I’ve done some bodyweight exercises and even procured some of my own free weights. But it’s just not the same.
Newsletter editor Lily here.
As I noted a few months back, I watched the Netflix docuseries Drive to Survive on a whim one day, and I fell head over heels in love with Formula 1. I’m now in two separate group chats about it, I check the subreddit three to four times a day, and I don’t even want to know how much money I’ve spent on merch in recent weeks. (I’m a Lando Norris gal! And I love McLaren!)
However, along with this newfound passion for Formula 1, I realized something: There weren’t a lot of spaces to discuss the very idiosyncratic cultural elements of the sport or it’s wild fandom. I kept looking around and reading and waiting, but I wasn’t seeing anything.
I am so uncomfortable right now.
I am dealing with so many things that feel out of my depth: From scaling marketing at Chairman Mom to trying and failing to train a puppy to carnage in my personal life.
Something strange has happened: The more out of my depth I get, the more focused I am getting on just plowing through my to-do list. I am so far beyond my depth on so many things right now that there’s no place for the critic in my head to get a foothold, for me to procrastinate on something hard and spend time instead on something fun and easy. No oxygen for me to doubt myself, because it’s all doubt. Self-doubt has to be in contrast to something right?
We have three incredible free Zoom events this week and they all center on one theme: Following your dreams. So often, we are the ones standing in our own way.
Is opening a restaurant or a bookstore, becoming a screenwriter, or writing a novel hard? So hard it’s a cliche? Yep. But millions of people still successfully do it all the time.
Why not you??? Especially because we are here to help you every step of the way!
From freelancer to founder: Join superstar small business coach Amanda Munday tomorrow night about when the “decision” to start a company isn’t actually yours. Minda Harts referenced this last week in her incredible talk on being The Only at work. So often Black women are congratulated and lauded for starting their own businesses, when in reality, the business world didn’t give them much of a choice. Getting edged out? Not nearly supported enough? Being forced to start coming back into the office everyday? This is the Zoom for you. Let’s turn those horrible patriarchal lemons into delicious feminist lemonade! Sign up here!
Earlier this week, I was up in San Francisco with some friends and definitely saw summer off with a bang during Labor Day weekend.
Now I’m back in Palm Springs, the kids are back in school, and I am focused for what I hope will be a huge, huge quarter for us in making more of your dreams come true than ever before.
We have so much going on!
We have NINE courses launching before the end of the year and we spent all summer lovingly building them just for you.
We’ve got Sisterhood starting next week. Sisterhood is our most popular course, and it’s the second time we’ve offered it. Going forward, we are only going to offer it once per year, so if you are a tire kicker, now is your chance! Come see why one participant said that “the Sisterhood Project was the catalyst for what became the most transformative year of my life” and why a dozen people who took it once have already signed up to take it again. It’s the cost of a really nice dinner, and it’s a five-month dinner party where you’ll form long-lasting friendships. “Turns out you can buy friends,” one person said in our Sisterhood Zoom last week.
Regular readers know that my ten-year-old, Eli, has long had a talent for catchphrases.
Usually it’s a phrase or word that she just ever so slightly shifts the meaning of or uses in such a surprising context that it’s just brilliant.
When she was younger “Famous” was a big one. She meant some mix of “fabulous,” “renown,” “popular,” and “trendy” when she said it.
Example: What’s so famous about going camping anyway?
“Expensive” was another one. She used it as an adjective of how things presented, not what they actually cost.
As a parent who survived the pandemic, I get truly delighted seeing my friends’ kids in back-to-school photos on social media. These kids will never take the ability to go to school for granted again. They fought so hard for an education, for friendships, for school lunches, for the ability to hug their teachers. My kids went to a performing arts school last year and they weren’t allowed to sing most of the year.
I am a sucker for kids in a uniform, but I love seeing the ones who picked out their clothes especially for that day. I love their thrilled but trying to be cool expressions.
Newsletter editor Lily here.
On September 7, 2017, I published the first-ever issue of Chairman Mom’s Mama Bear newsletter. While I don’t have an exact count for how many newsletters I’ve created since then, rough estimates put it at around 1,000 emails. WHEW.
Whether you’ve received all 1,000 of those messages or you just subscribed today, I want to say a gigantic THANK YOU to you for being part of this journey with me and the entire Chairman Mom team. I think I speak for all of us (readers included!) when I say that it feels like we’ve lived a million lives in the past four years since that inaugural email.