"Surround yourself with people who are rooting for your rise." 🙌🏾~Lucy Coutinho
Shout out to Hannah Werman and Chris Tung for buying me a coffee! Hannah is an amazing software engineer I had the honor to coach and is living the life of a digital nomad. Chris is a Product Marketing Manager at Google and as a side hustle (!!), he created a virtual coffee chat site where I just signed up to be a beta user. ☕️
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My last newsletter had the most replies of any issue and that was amazing to see. Thank you so much for reaching out, learning, listening, and taking action. ✊🏾
It is a challenging time for all of us in different ways. Anti-racism, standing up for Black lives, being Black isn't a one-day or one-week event. It's making intentional decisions and acting continuously and consistently every day. It won't be easy, but I truly believe that we will come out of this experience better, stronger and more empathetic.
This week I started to ease back into day job work which was hard. Mostly because my energy is so up and down (mostly down). And it's forcing me to work differently and rest a ton. Simply because healing from this injury will take time. And baby steps. So I need to listen to my body and prioritize rest as much as possible. I'm so blessed and grateful that both of my day jobs are extremely supportive about that. This takes a huge weight off my mind so I can focus on doing what I can but also taking it easy at the same time.
Of course I want to do more. It's my nature. But the universe keeps sending me signs that the best thing I can do for myself and the resistance right now is rest and recover.
Speaking of recovery, I had my two-week post surgery followup this week and good news, is that I'm healing quite nicely. It was really hard to see my poor ankle though but bruising is a sign of a progress and recovery so I'm trying to remember that. No weight on it just yet, but I can start some conditioning exercises to help restore my range of motion.
Side hustle wise, the pandemic and the injury has made me do a lot of thinking. Not much has changed for me. I still want to help people with side hustles but I'm getting clearer on the what (with the overwhelm, figuring out those first steps) and the how (through pick my brain sessions, workshops, and sharing resources and tools). I also want to make sure I'm doing it in a way that makes sense for me and this new now we find ourselves in. So I'm continuing to brainstorm what that looks like and will keep you posted.
On to the picks!
Note: This email may contain affiliate links. If you click through my link and make a purchase that means I may receive "thank you money" at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products that I use and love.
#loves 😍
📺 Watching: Lizzo! I think at least once a month, Lizzo is trending on Twitter. This awesome inspiring video about why she works out was the reason this week.
🎧 Listening: I Love Me. I love Demi Lovato's song. Once I listened to the lyrics, I realized how powerful it is as a personal self-love anthem. This acoustic cover by Cimorelli is also powerful.
📷 Tool: relatedwords.org. My Lighthouse Squadmate Saya mentioned this during our meeting as another website you can check out to look for other words you can use in your writing. Like a Thesaurus but better and simpler.
#sponsor: Saya's Virtual Storytelling Class
Mac & Cheese Productions is doing a virtual 8-week storytelling class starting next month. She had a white person reach out to her saying,
“I’m interested in providing a scholarship to a Black participant. I feel like your storytelling class has done a great job at helping people find their stories and tell them to the world, and I think now is the time to elevate Black voices.”
And then a few more offered to provide scholarships! 🙌🏾
Get more deets and self-nominate yourself for a scholarship here.
Deadline to self-nominate is 6/17!
#watch
Reimagining Small Business Town Hall — helloseven.co
Rachel Rodgers hosted a town hall earlier this week on building anti-racist organizations. I was not able to attend live so plan to watch the replay here. May be of interest!
#reads
17 Reasons Why Your Blog is not Making Money — straycurls.com
If you are getting traffic to your blog but not seeing any results, it might be one of these reasons.
Love what she says about ads (#2), focusing on more than a few monetization strategies at a time (#11), and losing motivation which I can totally understand (#15).
What's Your Mental Health Language? — advice.shinetext.com
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” — Audre Lorde
I've never really thought of my mental health language in different forms: sound, movement, touch, and sight. After thinking about the ways I tend to relax and feel better, it's movement. Going for a walk, dancing, getting outside. How about you?
The 21 Best Content Marketing Tools in 2020 (Best of the Best) — smartblogger.com
This roundup of content marketing tools is awesome. Definitely saving it to read through a bit more later.
From a quick glance, here are a few of the tools I'm already using for Tech Biz Gurl: Google Docs, Grammarly, Buffer and Google Analytics.
#icymi
😍 Last issue’s most clicked pick was: 3 Things You Should Not Say To Your Black Colleagues Right Now
#lifevibes
#supporters ☕️
Thank you Hannah, Chris, Brandy, Mea, Kristian, Maria, Avery, Adam, Monale, Barbara, Shenee, Desiree, Lisa, Kandice, L'Oreal, and LaVerne for being #jesspicks supporters!! ❤️ Want to help support this newsletter? Buy me a coffee.
