Sarah K Peck

"Comfort In, Dump Out." What to say when a friend is in trauma or crisis.

How to support each other during times of trauma, crisis, or grief (new essay) → sarahkpeck.substack.com/p/comfort-in...

#Substack #Writer #AmWriting #Grief #Healing

Love this. Thank you so much for sharing!

One of the things I do when I'm feeling lonely? I text people (in a specific way).

I reach out to ask how THEY are doing.

🗣️ Miss you!
🗣️ What's going on in your life lately?
🗣️ [Random meme] Thinking of you!
🗣️ How did XYZ end up?
🗣️ Phone catch up soon?

#friendship

The roughest part of parenting is when I wake up and get the Face ID block. The iPhone says, "Naw, we don't recognize that blurry, blotchy face of yours anymore, you must be an impostor." IT'S ME, PHONE. I'M JUST TIRED. #parenting

Everything around you is a past idea, a default, and is ripe for disruption. "The world wants you to consent to a life of sameness, a life of stasis. The world wants you to settle," says @sahilbloom.

We don't have to do things the way they've always been done.

Ask why. Imagine what could be.

How do you fuel yourself as an #entrepreneur? How do you keep your mindset clear, your focus high, and your work strong? I think it's one of the biggest (and most rewarding) challenges. I'd love to know you you do it!

Do you get overwhelmed or paralyzed by all there is to do?

A business coach shared this framework with me. You likely need

1. A clear priority

2. To break it down into smaller steps.

A lot of overwhelm comes from too many conflicting inputs, or trying to do too much at once.

#businesscoach

The most important work can sometimes be the hardest to do. Don’t over-think it, just get back in the ring. Start today on a small piece of the puzzle, and keep coming back to it.

If you’re trying, failing, learning, and iterating, please also remember that YOU ARE DOING IT! You are doing the thing. You’re in the ring, you’re putting in the reps, you’re learning from real-life experience. That’s more powerful than any plan or idea. I hope you are proud of yourself.

One of my favorite things are my inter-generational friendships. I’m on a local swim team with folks ranging from 25 to 65. Some of my good friends are 10+ years younger than or 20+ years older than me. There’s so much wisdom in hearing from different ages and stages.

Do you feel pulled by a calling, a reason, or a purpose? Does your work tap into something deeper? I love hearing about why people do what they do—tell me yours!

Calling all #moms who are also business owners, CEOs, consultants, founders, and leaders! I’d love to connect with more moms in business — tell me what your business is below so we can connect with each other!

Sarah K Peck | Substack A deeper look at what's really happening in today's world of business, productivity, gender, and parenting. Click to read Sarah K Peck, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.

If I haven’t mentioned it, I have a Substack! There are over 10k subscribers now. I write about leadership, culture change, gender, parenting, and business.

I send out a longer essay early in the week, and on Fridays there’s a community chat thread.

Come join me!

It's okay to keep things that are precious (or silly, or playful, or delightful) just for you. Sometimes there is a delight in knowing that there's far more to you than what the internet even knows.

We don’t need to do motherhood the way it’s been done before. To change parenting in a big way, we'll need to let go of outdated assumptions and expectations of how women perform motherhood, to ourselves and to others.

This will be uncomfortable.

It requires doing things differently than before.

“You could make a case that, along with the technological revolution, the most provocative upending destabilizing thrilling change in the course of human history is that we’re finally in it. … We're here now, women are in the world, and we will not be bullied.”
— Meryl Streep
#feminism

Instead of thinking about having kids as a career-exploding move, what if we looked at how it grows your skill set?

Motherhood & fatherhood are huge changes towards growth.

Of course they make you bonkers tired.

But you ALSO improve.

Let's talk about that.

“She didn't care that people called her a bitch. 'It's just another word for feminist,' she told me with pride.” — Gayle Forman

I’ll keep this world from dragging me down.
Gonna stand my ground.
And I won’t back down.
– Tom Petty

There will always be people who say you're too expensive or charge too much.

There will also be people who buy from you and tell you how valuable your work is.

Pay attention to people who actually buy from you, and what they have to say.

Ignore the grumps.

The tide shift in #fatherhood is remarkable — there are so many active, involved dads that love and value caretaking, equality, and raising their kids.

Is there still a gap? Yes. But I really want to celebrate and acknowledge the dads out there stepping up + changing the culture. You are awesome.

My kid is home from school and keeps coming over to my computer to ask what I’m doing. I showed him my writing document and the word counter tool I use.

Now he keeps coming over to look at the word count. “That’s not very many, mom. You’re going very slowly.”

Uh thanks, kid?

Talking to a dad and we agreed: after one, groups really need to be PARENTING groups. Yes, new moms and new dads might need special spaces. But after the first year, "Mommy & Me" programs can really be "Parent & Me.'" #Fatherhood

Kid got very sick the other week, temperature of 101.8.

As one of many #FoundersWithKids, I knew it was going to be a DAY

Texted my team:

I'm going to switch to work that's easy to do while interrupted:
— clearing email inboxes
— website admin
— chatting on socials / replying to threads

Getting out the door with kids EVERY MORNING can feel like a wrestling match.

A few years ago I put together a visual checklist.

It has helped a TON.

Now we tell the kids to "work on their checklist," instead of nagging them to do each individual thing.

#FoundersWithKids #ParentHack

Seeing what’s NOT there (aka has been taken care of) is really hard to grasp: and that’s what a lot of household grind chores are.

"Stop doing the housework when you're home alone," I read on Substack.

"Make sure other people see you doing it," they shared.

Because if it gets done invisibly, and your kids/spouse never see it, they're won't learn it's something that needs to get done.

(If you wrote this, let me know!)

Founders With Kids - Startup Parent We’re a private space for some of the smartest business founders we know to connect and support each other. It's a paid, invite-only community for founders with kids where business owners,…

Founder moms, founder dads, parents in business: you don’t have to do this alone.

Apply to join our invite-only community, #FoundersWithKids. Our next cohort will open in a couple weeks.

Apply to join →

I'm just a parent, asking the group thread if we can do dinner at 5:15pm and all go to bed by 8:30pm, and if not, no worries! #ParentLife

Just spent 90 minutes reading all the parenting forums on reddit. Now that I know we're all loosely functioning disasters, I can go to bed late and make even more mistakes tomorrow. #Parenting