Ask a business owner how things are going and the most common answer is "busy." It functions as good news. It signals demand, momentum, a business that people want. Nobody follows up. Which is convenient, because busy tells you nothing about whether the business is...
Rest gets filed under self-care, which is why owners ignore it. Self-care sounds like something you do when there's spare capacity, and there is never spare capacity. Try a different frame. Your judgement is the product. Not your hours — your judgement. Pricing,...
Most work-life balance advice was written for people with jobs. That's not a small distinction. A job comes with an external boundary — contracted hours, someone else's deadlines, a defined scope, and a moment where the building closes. The advice assumes that...
Somewhere in the last fifteen years, being exhausted became a way of signalling that you matter. "I haven't had a day off since March." "I was up until two finishing it." "I don't really sleep." These get said with a particular inflection — ostensibly complaint,...
Mental load doesn't mean being busy. It has a more precise meaning, and the precision is what makes it useful. The concept comes from work on invisible domestic labour — Arlie Hochschild's research on the "second shift" in the late 1980s, and later Emma's...
Most advice about working mothers and guilt is written for employees. It talks about negotiating with your manager, using your leave, and asking for flexible hours. If you own the business, there's no manager to negotiate with, often no leave policy at all, and the...
In the venture capital world, "lifestyle business" is mildly insulting. It means a company that will never be very large — one built by someone who, the implication runs, lacked the ambition to build something bigger. For most people reading this, a lifestyle...
A week into quarantine, my job furloughed me. Like millions of Americans, I was left wondering – what now? You are probably concerned about how you are going to fill your days since you are no longer working from home. There are family and household obligations, of course, but it is vital to keep the mind and body active.
The night that I told my husband that we were going to have a third child was the last night that I slept in the same bed as him. That night I endured the worst of all the beatings. He was trying to kill the baby I was carrying but he didn’t succeed. It was in the middle of recovering, that I realized there was no way I could save the boys and future generations from this abuse cycle continuing unless I took the boys out of that environment.
If this resonates, you don’t have to figure it out alone.
We host small, thoughtful Round Table conversations inside Women’s Entrepreneur Network where women leaders talk through exactly this kind of challenge.
You’re welcome to join us.
Rest gets filed under self-care, which is why owners ignore it. Self-care sounds like something you do when there's spare capacity, and there is never spare capacity. Try a different frame. Your judgement is the product. Not your hours — your judgement. Pricing,...
Most work-life balance advice was written for people with jobs. That's not a small distinction. A job comes with an external boundary — contracted hours, someone else's deadlines, a defined scope, and a moment where the building closes. The advice assumes that...
Somewhere in the last fifteen years, being exhausted became a way of signalling that you matter. "I haven't had a day off since March." "I was up until two finishing it." "I don't really sleep." These get said with a particular inflection — ostensibly complaint,...
Mental load doesn't mean being busy. It has a more precise meaning, and the precision is what makes it useful. The concept comes from work on invisible domestic labour — Arlie Hochschild's research on the "second shift" in the late 1980s, and later Emma's...
Most advice about working mothers and guilt is written for employees. It talks about negotiating with your manager, using your leave, and asking for flexible hours. If you own the business, there's no manager to negotiate with, often no leave policy at all, and the...
In the venture capital world, "lifestyle business" is mildly insulting. It means a company that will never be very large — one built by someone who, the implication runs, lacked the ambition to build something bigger. For most people reading this, a lifestyle...
Delegation, hiring, difficult conversations, and becoming the boss you'd want to work for.
Pricing, launching, systems, and building something that doesn't depend on you.
Negotiation, the pay gap, and what the research actually says about women who lead.
Being visible without the cringe — podcasts, content, and being remembered.
Courage, your inner critic, time, and protecting what matters most.
The loneliness of leading, and why the best owners don't solve everything alone.