Friends,
Does anyone else feel a bit overwhelmed right now by summer returning in full force?
Plans! Weddings! Drinks! Trips! (oof.)
It’s been very fun, but I’m certainly feeling a bit disoriented - I feel some combination of excitement to see friends, exhaustion from the sudden explosion of in-person activities; and a persistent, mild undercurrent of anxiety that things could get very bad again very soon as the Delta variant of the virus ramps up 😕. Who’s with me?
This week of the newsletter is going to look a little different. Instead of a dedicated topic, I thought I’d take the time to round up the topics I’ve written on to date so that you have a quick guide on navigating the archives. I’ve written each week on a whim, or based on my conversations that week, so there isn’t an obvious pattern.
I think I’ll consider doing this once in a while, just to reorient readers, and make recent topics easier to access.
I wish I could say this was a very proactive, well-planned move, and that I always planned to have every nth post be a summary, but tbh.. I’m winging this whole thing, I’ve been traveling lately, and I did not have the energy to write a whole dedicated newsletter this week.
So, yes, maybe every… 17th? (lol) newsletter will be a roundup, or a summary, or just a wordless presentation of GIFs, because the beautiful thing about writing my own newsletter is…
I feel like Jennifer Lopez (hear me out)… who posted on her Instagram a few weeks ago how much she loved making her “On the 6” album. Which was weird, because the album was released in 1999, meaning her post was celebrating its… 22nd (?) anniversary.. Not exactly a milestone at all. Of course, we all know now, she was posting it because she was really posting a shout out to the “Jenny From The Block” era of her life, otherwise known as the BENNIFER era, which we are now all fortunate to live in the second coming of…)
Your takeaway here should be that I, like J Lo, do not need to play by the rules of societally accepted milestone numbers, and can post/publish whatever I want because GIRL POWER.
Another ‘faux-rationale’ I gave myself for doing a roundup this week is that I started the newsletter in March, and as of July, it’s pretty close to being on a quarterly cadence. So let’s just call it that:
Your Quarterly Guide to the “To-Woo” List:
Quitting 🚫
“Should I Stay or Should I Go” - Quitting for the “right reasons”
Asking for more 💲
“Inequitable Equity” - How much of this invisible pie do I deserve?
“What’s In a Name?” - Asking for a different title
Working hard and feeling burnt out 😩
People/Team Tings 👩🏽🤝👩🏻
“Friends in Pro(fessional) Places” - Work Besties
“Let’s Make Networking Less Awkward” - You Schmooze, You Lose
“Teach Me How to Dougie Pt. 1, and Pt. 2" - Mentorship
“I’d Like to Speak to the Manager” - Thoughts for First Time Managers
“Managers: Friendly or Fearsome” - Managers as Friends (sometimes)
Self Tings 🧘♂️
“Do I Need to Be Good at Everything” - No. Own Your Weaknesses
“I Want to Change the World” and “Let’s Change the World” - Having impact at work and in life
“Before and After, Back to Before” - “Reverse transformations” and why paths to success aren’t all identical
Happy reading/catching up! If you know someone that would appreciate this quick guide to the newsletter, would love if you’d share:
Just one link this week:
Cool Ladies Doing Cool Things: Everyone keeps talking about how a couple of absurdly rich white men are going to space, but I’d like to remind y’all that a very deserving 82-year-old woman (Wally Funk, what a NAME), who is a well-experienced pilot and lobbied six decades ago to be included in the NASA astronaut program, is also finally getting the chance to go. “'I've waited a lifetime, honey,' she said, 'I'm going up for all of us.'" (Space.com)