“Whoever needs a fresh start, may you take it now.” 🥰 ~Lalah Delia

look out for the glimmers (#346)

I saw a post earlier this week about glimmers, which is a new term, but I love its sentiment:

With caregiving having more challenging days and trying to juggle everything, I’ve often been in a bad mood lately. I like this reminder to start paying attention to the tiny moments of joy.

There were some glimmers during this past week:

• I caught up with one brother, whom I hadn’t seen in a while, and I attended a virtual baby shower for another. Aunt Jess reporting for duty! 🫡

• Even though it seemed like the worst time, I took my scheduled days off work last week. I am so grateful to work for a company where our leadership encourages us to rest and take breaks.

• I led a Creating Your Side Hustle talk for about 35 University of Alabama students (!!) The students found it helpful and even got some excellent takeaways about prioritizing self-care (burnout is real), the importance of figuring out why you want to start your business, and not letting the judgment of others get you down.

• My Facebook memories brought up a podcast episode I did in 2020 with Tara McMullin, which focused on how I started #jesspicks. I remember sharing during that episode that I made my subscriber goal of 500 that year, the same week I published my 200th issue. I was so proud then, and #jesspicks has only continued to grow since then.

• My college professor, who connected me to this week’s speaking opportunity, introduced me during the talk and posted a lovely message about me and another student on his LinkedIn. Another growth moment. I learned from him, and now I’m teaching his students. “Student becomes the teacher,” yeah?

• To celebrate the speaking engagement, I treated myself to a solo movie date and saw the Taylor Swift concert movie. I was the only one in the theater, and it was a wonderful time. She put on a fantastic show, and it was so cool to see her growth and the personalities of her albums over the years.

• My mentor Megan shared a thoughtful post about mentorship and shared a picture of us reconnecting weeks ago:

“Mentors can be for a reason, a season, or a lifetime, and no matter how you choose to engage with mentorship, it can make an impact.”

This week had its tough times, caregiving challenges, and moments of doubt and frustration, but looking back and focusing on the good things makes it better.

What was a glimmer in your week?

On to the picks!

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#poll

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#loves 😍

• 👑. Watching: Miss Congeniality. To be clear, I have watched this movie before, but I have been craving some lighter, fun content lately. What a fun, snort-worthy old-school-romantic-Sandra-Bullock time. If you need some good feels, give it a (re)watch before it leaves Netflix on the 31st. I also watched the sequel - not as good as the first, but it still led to a few chuckles.
  

• 🎄. Reading: Twice on Christmas. This is a serial killer/crime thriller of a man who attacks women on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and sings “Silent Night.” His latest victim lives and gets pregnant from the attack. Now he has “found out he has a daughter. And that changes everything . . .” Dun dun dun. Dark, but oh so good.

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#reads

How to Say No

10 Tips for Saying an Effective "No"

The “slow your no roll” tells people that “I’ll have to think about that” and allows you to pause, take a breath, and decide if this is something you can say yes to without feeling pressure in the moment.

Also, I like the “filing under nope” - for one thing, it reminds me of my nephew saying, “I noped you” while hanging up on you without saying goodbye. 😂 This goes with Sarah’s idea of simply deleting unsolicited requests without feeling like you must respond.

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These 5 Newsletters Took A Break From Publishing. Here’s How They Did It.

Publishers have to make a lot of judgment calls about how to structure their leave — especially if it’s for a month or more — and answer questions about when to tell readers, whether to schedule sends while they’re off and how to keep growing their operation while they’re away.

Great advice here on how to take a break and ideas for communicating with your audience before you do. You’ll see a familiar name in this one! 😉

I love that this is being discussed. Some folks say you are not serious if you take a break without batching tons of content beforehand. But I believe that, like most things, if you need to take a break, do it in a way that works for you.

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#icymi

• 😍. Last issue’s top pick: 7 Ways to Find Readers and Subscribers When No One Knows You Yet
  

• 🎤. Need an awesome speaker/facilitator? Hire me.

• 🔍. Curious about my process for doing this newsletter every week? Go behind the scenes in this 1-hour training.

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#lifevibes

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