The Mama Bear by Chairman Mom

Our Burnout Opt-Out course with Nataly Kogan ended this week, and I’m so grateful for the impact it had on those who took it. A lot shifted for me. 

The biggest aha! in the course was the module on acceptance. Acceptance can get a bad rap. It isn’t shrugging and giving up and saying “oh well…” It’s actually the opposite. Accepting the reality of the moment without judgement, without all the stories our brain tells us — This always happens to me! I am so alone! They did this to me on purpose! —allows us to shortcut allllllll of that emotional labor and just focus our energy on solving the problem.  Read more...

My life changed the day our child was born. I remember looking into their sweet face and understanding LOVE in its fullness. I also remember the look of worry and love that settled on my husband’s face as he held our child for the first time. The reality sinking in that our whole life would never be the same, and that this tiny person relied on us to protect, provide for, and love them. I mean, we were now responsible for shaping the life of a human being…what a gift — and responsibility! That gravity of responsibility is why Jose and I fight so hard for him today. Read more...

Newsletter editor Lily here.

There’s been lots said about Hot Girl Summer in the preceding few months, especially with the weather warming up and more and more people getting vaccinated every day.

As I’ve mentioned in previous newsletters, I’m really trying to work on pacing myself right now with everything opening back up. Tangentially related to that is the notion of self-care, not necessarily the form of retail therapy or material excess but in doing what I need to do to feel my best and be ready to fight another day. Read more...

Ready Set Write is the first course we have re-run, and it’s fascinating to experience from my POV. One-third of the cohort is taking the course for the second time,which is astounding given the asynchronous content is largely the same. 

This is what is already SO DIFFERENT about our course business just six months in or so. Most asynchronous courses have a 5% completion rate. Not only is ours somewhere north of 80%, but already dozens of people have actually signed up to take the same course again.  Read more...

You know that reentry moment?  It happens when you leave a conference or workshop that’s immersed you completely; it happens when you go for a long vacation and get home. It feels like a plane landing, like touching the earth for the first time in hours. Familiar. Disorienting. A little bit of a letdown.

It’s that thing where you notice the gearshift back, which means you notice which gears shifted to get in, which means you notice in sharp relief the difference between This and That.  Sometimes people call it ConDrop when you realize you’re back in the so-called real world. (Although really, why is this world any more real than that one, and why can’t we bring the best things back with us?) Read more...

Hi! 

Happy Monday. I am writing this from my new favorite writing spot, an orange Adirondack chair on a tiny little balcony overlooking my backyard in San Francisco. 

I have so many feels in this chair. I like that I can look down at my awesome yard that I love and have spent years investing in. I love that there is ONLY BARELY room for this one chair. As proven yesterday, a child can squeeze in on my lap, but mostly it is a solo-serving situation. I love that there’s a hidden built-in bottle cap opener under the arm. I don’t drink beer, but it’s handy for my endless cases of Topo Chico.  Read more...

All month long we’re amplifying the voices from the LGBTQIA community. Today’s intro is from Femily Howe, Founder of the Future Thought Leader program.

Happy Pride Month, all — especially you super-allies and queer/trans/non-binary fam:

I’m Femily, Silicon Valley’s Gender/Inclusion Consultant (meaning, I help well-meaning tech leaders make their companies more inclusive for women and/or the LBGTQAI+ community). 

To me, Pride means sharing my whole flamboyant, free self — especially in my work and home life, where I spend most of my time. Read more...

Last week, in our last (!!!) Sisterhood office hours, Tricia mentioned she was using the “Story or Die” format to convince people to stop feeding bears in the Georgia mountains. 

WAIT…what!? The course hasn’t even started yet! 

Tricia got a copy of Lisa Cron’s book ‘Story or Die’ when she took the “Ready Set Write” course and she’s already working ahead! 

As someone who has spent months living inside this material building our “Unlocking Aha” course with Lisa — all about using brain science to become a better leader, marketer, founder — I was so excited to discuss tactics!  Read more...

You know my family and our side hustles. 

Eli and Evie started a small side business during the pandemic: Decorating laptops with stickers. They did both of their laptops, and they did such an artful job that Paul ordered a bunch of stickers for his laptop and “hired” them to do his. 

I’ve been slowly amassing sticker packs and finally set them loose on mine. Fortunately (for their business) I have two laptops. 

I really enjoyed finding the sticker packs and deciding what I wanted. I went with RVs/hiking/outdoors stuff + Gilmore Girls + cats + California stuff + agro feminism. Paul went with Dr. Who + reading + Hitchcock + Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The girls went with We Bare Bears + Mario.  Read more...

Last month, we hosted an event on understanding the dramatic and dangerous landscape of more than 100 anti-trans bills making their way through more than 25 states right now. This is a vast overreach well beyond what we saw with bathroom bills a few years ago. 

Lizette Trujillo was one of the co-hosts, and she said something brilliant about the fight she and so many of her fellow Gen-X friends have been in when it comes to gay and transgender rights. I didn’t write it down, so I won’t have it verbatim. But she said those of us who are straight watched our gay friends coming out of the closet in our most formative years in Gen-X.  Read more...