Newsletter editor Lily here popping my head in again.
Life is so hard and strange for everybody right now, and that’s why I think it’s important to celebrate the small wins in life where you can find them.
For July, my victory was food-related.
Over the past several years, I’ve discussed the fact that I never really learned to cook as a kid, and in particular, I never really ate vegetables or learned how to properly make vegetable dishes that I wanted to consume; it’s one of those oddly specific insecurities that’s followed me into my twenties. Being that I’m now a grown adult old enough to be off of my parents’ health insurance and I’m starting to realize that my family’s medical history will catch up to me at some point, it’s become important to me that I actually make a serious effort to eat my veggies.
My goal this month was simple: Start eating the recommended two and a half cups of vegetables that women my age are supposed to have every day. I didn’t worry about making Instagram-worthy salads or necessarily diversifying those veggies all the time; I just wanted to start with focusing on really incorporating larger amounts of vegetables into my routine.
I’m now happy to report that for the first time in probably my entire life, I’ve consistently had the recommended two and a half cups of veggies every day for the past two weeks. While that might seem trivial to some people, this is a huge deal for me personally, and it’s felt nice to put my attention and energy into something that feels productive and contributes to my overall health, however small.
Lots of things aren’t going my way in quarantine. My focus is totally shot and my work isn’t getting done. Several friends of mine have left the city permanently. I’ve lost a few gigs here and there due to companies’ financial strain, and obviously that causes more stress. But one thing I can control and feel good about is the fact that consistent vegetable consumption is finally happening.
I’ll take that W today.
Author: Lily Herman (page 2 of 46)
Newsletter editor Lily here.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Amanda Munday’s beautiful newsletter introduction from yesterday about feeling lonely even when you’re in a house full of people and craving real intimacy in a variety of ways we just aren’t getting right now.
A few weeks ago, my roommate Kaitlyn and I went on our first socially distanced outing with friends, where we met up in Central Park with two other people who’ve also been responsibly quarantining. Normally if I were hanging out with friends, we’d all sit on the same couple of blankets and I’d bring wine, cheese, and jam for all of us to share. This time though, we all brought our own food and drinks and sat on our own blankets or beach towels a few feet away from one another. It was still a lovely afternoon, but there was something so odd about knowing that this underlying forcefield existed that we couldn’t cross. I’m absolutely not a physically affectionate person, but it was sad not to hug those friends when we were leaving, both of whom I hadn’t seen since the first half of March.
Today’s intro is from our contributor Amanda Munday, who’s the founder and CEO of The Workaround and author of Day Nine: A Postpartum Depression Memoir.
Dear reader, how can it be that during a pandemic, I, a working parent of two kids under six, and an entrepreneur of a newly reopened co-working space, possibly feel lonely?
Why is it that when I get home at the end of the day, I feel a deep longing for more connection, even while standing in the kitchen chopping herbs for dinner while listening to my kids regale me of their day’s activities and exciting rocks found while out on a walk?
A HUGE thank you to all of you who filled out our member survey last week. (Last chance to do so is today!) We haven’t done one in 18 months and a lot has changed for us and the world in that time!
I wanted to share some of the findings, which were pretty remarkable, and update you on some of the things that you asked for that were either already in the works or are now!
First off, anyone who has run a company knows how vital this kind of feedback is. I will never not fill out an NPS score question, because I know now there’s an investor or board member somewhere asking for it!
There are so many forces that keep women from achieving equality. They interrelate, they compound, and they conflict sometimes, but when you start to dig into questions like, for instance, “Why does 98% of venture capital go to men?” you find a lot of complexity. This complexity is one of the things that makes real change feel so unattainable.
But in recent weeks, I’ve had a moment of clarity when it comes to the patriarchy: It’s almost all about the value of time. How do we value time, and more importantly, how should we value time?
Today’s intro comes from CM contributor Adimika Arthur, a public health expert, hospital executive, and founder of Health Tech for Medicaid (HT4M). She fiercely advocates for vulnerable populations and loves to help people better understand health equity, healthcare, and health technology through storytelling, connection, and sisterhood.
Over the last few weeks, I have been listening deeply to the stories of what is happening with entrepreneurs in the heath tech space as they juggle business pivots and continual mental gymnastics of PPP and SBA loans, staffing and investor stress, war stories within safety net clinics and hospitals trying to care for people (and themselves) during the pandemic, and tragic stories of how COVID-19 has impacted the livelihoods, killed dreams, and disrupted the lives of people from all walks of life.
Editor’s Note: Hi Mama Bear readers! Quick reminder that we’d love it if you could take this quick five-minute survey to help us make Chairman Mom even more awesome. Thank you!
Last night during Avery Swartz’s EPIC workshop on how to get people to pay you to speak, long-time Chairman Mom member and newsletter contributor Amanda Munday was talking about the uneven state of online events. “I mean, last week we got to hang out for two hours on a Zoom with Jessica Grose from The New York Times for $10? That’s insane,” she laughed at the absurd value of Chairman Mom events.
Editor’s Note: Hey there, Mama Bear readers! We’d love it if you could take this quick five-minute survey to help us make Chairman Mom even better. Thanks!
Today’s intro is written by Rebekah Bastian, co-founder and CEO of OwnTrail, where womxn can share their life journeys and find inspiration and solidarity from the unique paths of others to then blaze their own trail and inspire others.
As a mom of two elementary-aged kids and CEO of a startup, I’ve been feeling a lot of anxiety about the coming school year. The spring school shutdown and “remote learning” (definitely remote but not a lot of learning) was what I can only refer to as a sh*t show. By no fault of our amazing public school teachers that were trying to figure out the sudden, unplanned online classroom, we struggled through incorrect passwords, broken links, frozen Zoom calls, and plenty of tears. All of that was squeezed in between my own meetings and—because I’m a complete masochist—a fundraising round!
A year ago—after so much research and work—I bought a once-in-a-lifetime dream purchase: An 1973 Airstream Argosy. It’s 100% mint condition with all original everything. It’s adorable. We are roughly the same age. And I’m only the third person to ever own it. I named it Gladys after my maternal grandmother. My kids weren’t really sold on the name, but you know what? It’s my Airstream, kids. Work your a** off for 40 years and get your own to name.
Here’s the sad thing, though: I have never taken it anywhere and I have only slept in it once. The Airstream itself has made it from Cupertino to Oakland to Pulga to Palm Springs and then to an RV storage facility where it has sat for six months. But I had to rely on friends and friends of friends for that.
Newsletter editor Lily here.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this article we shared a little while ago about how we now have to have “the COVID talk” with everybody we come into contact with nowadays. It’s actually wild how much our social circles have been altered by the fact that some people just refuse to follow basic guidances and even mock those who do. It’s also made me realize how lucky I am that pretty much everybody in my inner circle up here in the city is taking precautions seriously.