Brene Brown just launched her new podcast, Unlocking Us. Her first episode was about FFT’s — Fucking First Times — how everything is so much harder the first time you do it. Guess what? We are all going through one big giant FFT with this whole homeschooling while WFH fiasco. Here are her tips to make FFT’s a little less painful Name it. Just recognizing that this is a FFT (and will suck) helps. Name all the feelings. That gives you power over them. Gain perspective. This cr

Sometimes I need something to just get myself out of my head. Interesting enough to distract me from worries or that looming todo list, but not hard enough that I’m drained. So this week, I tried Gretchen Rubin’s idea of writing a haiku. (As a refresher, a three-line poem with has 5 syllables in the first, 7 in the second, and 5 in the last.) I was surprised at how much it calmed me and was fun. Here is mine: Kids wake before dawn TV Chromecasted from bed Grateful for Netflix

One day I was having a bad day and cried in front of Chloe. She looked at me and said, “Mom, we all have buckets on top of our heads. Somedays our buckets get filled up when things are all going well. Other days, the world scoops out all your water.” Shocked at how wise my six-year-old was being, I asked, “What happens when your bucket is empty?” She paused for a few minutes, thinking. Then she said, “You go to bed, and when you wake up, there is more water in it.” She’s righ

Inspired by Cal Newport’s new book, Digital Minimalism, I’m seven days into a 30-day digital detox of no podcasts, social media or blogs. It’s amazing. I even have started going on evening or morning walks—by myself, sans headphones. These 30-minute sessions with just my thoughts made me recognize how rarely I just think. Guess what? Thinking is good. I’m finding myself making better decisions and being less stressed overall. So today, risk being bored a bit. Put away you

Inspired by Cal Newport's new book, Digital Minimalism, I'm doing a 30-day digital detox. I've found myself tightly wound recently and want to gauge the effect of detaching from my phone. Here are my rules: No podcasts. Audiobooks are OK No blog research (huge time suck for me!) No Facebook or Instagram (except for work, accessed on my computer) No Whatsapp (except for work) I'm 24 hours in. I've found that I've checked off all the annoying things on my todo list just to

I've started raising my friends and family pre-seed round for Uplift. Whenever I dive into something new, I try to talk to as many smart people on the subject as possible to jump-start my learning curve. Unfortunately, all the advice is contradicting each other. I'm reminded of when I was a new mom. Cry it out. Co-sleep. Breastfeed. Don't. My head is swirling by the end of each day. A simple spreadsheet has helped: One column has the name of each person, the next has t

Starting a business is harder than I ever expected. (I know everyone warns about this.) I am growing and learning more than I have ever in my life. The most significant positive change for me has been "facing the suck." When I'm really anxious about something, I can no longer hide or push it off to someone else. Instead, I take a deep breath and block off an hour to just face it. I map out what I'm afraid of, what is unknown, and then develop a plan. I'm shocked at the impact