When you’re a kid, June is an endless series of celebrations, awards ceremonies, graduation parties, dance recitals and more.

For parents, this month is straight up tears. Whether around forgetting to send them to school with the appropriate “theme” outfit (don’t forget rainbow colors day!) to sobbing as you witness your little one go from one phase to the next while they stand there, this person who was once (and in your brain, still is) a baby, beaming with pride over all their hard work and accomplishments.

I’m sitting at a picnic table right now watching some local kids have a middle school graduation party and I’m tearing up. I don’t know these kids. I don’t know their parents. I just know that this Thursday is my own daughter's kindergarten graduation, which means the tears I’m having right now are NOTHING compared to what will come out of my face then.

It also means it won’t be long before she is as big as these kids. Nearly my height, stealing clothes from my closet, riding the subway by herself, and it’s all really just a lot. Everyone tells you to cherish this time. And we do our best. But HOW do we really pause and enjoy it so when they’re as big as us we can look back and say, “I was truly there. I made the right choices. I didn’t miss out.”

Someone once told me they wish they could go back and hold their now adult children's kindergarten hand. I think of this every morning as she slips her little hand into mine on the walk to school. I squeeze that kindergarten hand so tight.

Meanwhile, what about us? Graduation season is also a nice moment for us fully grown folks to reflect, decompress, and even celebrate.

Let’s try this. Look back at where you were one year ago, and ask yourself the following:

• What am I most proud of?
• What would I change?
• What do I want to hold onto?
• What do I want to let go of?

Try it. And even if your answers aren’t perfectly satisfying, allow me to point out what I hope you can see in your responses:

Look how far you’ve come. Look how much you’ve grown.

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It’s been exactly one year since I was laid off.

In that year I’ve pushed myself to new levels of creativity and accomplished more than I ever thought possible. It's a jump I never would've made on my own, but I'm so grateful I was pushed to see how capable I truly am.

I had to make big decisions like how much I could reasonably take on without burning out. How to set boundaries with clients. Who to collaborate with. Who to avoid. How much to charge. How to scope out new projects. When to travel and when to stay remote.

I also had to figure out new schedules. New client dynamics. A kid in elementary school. The guilt of missing PTA meetings. Days where I scrambled to fit an entire workday in during school hours and race to pickup. Business trips that had me missing weeks of school drop-off and pickup completely.

And isn’t it ironic that in the year after being laid off, I reached the biggest professional milestone of my entire career?

It was probably the hardest year ever but also the most rewarding. Isn’t that always the case? We feel the most gratification when we put in the hard work and achieve a well-earned sense of accomplishment. Just like graduation.

(By the way, The Setback Cycle makes a GREAT graduation gift - just saying! I had to, you know I had to.)

Starting this summer, I’m reconfiguring some pieces of that carefully built business, scaling down the thought leadership and ghostwriting work - the thing that got me started on this founder journey, to I make room for where the demand is highest. Right now, that seems to be more within the work I’m doing with clients around career strategy and leadership coaching. I’ve received so many requests for coaching that reached out to a few executive coaches I trust, and with their guidance, I created two professional development packages - one for individuals and one for organizations. Thanks to the many folks who weighed in and helped me build something over the past few months that feels robust, effective and results-driven. I only have three spots left in my summer cohort, so if you or anyone you know needs a little motivation or clarity on their next career move, please feel free to connect us.

Everything has a shifting balance: careers, ambition, business building, parenthood, the list goes on. I see June as a great time to reflect on that balance - what’s working, what isn’t, and how we can reconfigure each piece in a meaningful way.

For now, as you consider everything you accomplished and look back on how far you’ve come, remember that you got through the hardest moments. You did what you needed to do, and even when you maybe felt like a failure, you were planting the seeds for what came next. Maybe you even succeeded in ways that surprised you. So in this year’s graduation season, let’s do what we can to celebrate not only our favorite students’ accomplishments but also, our own.

In the meantime here’s what I’m:

My friend and client Gwen Whiting for sharing her founder story so candidly, from her days creating and building The Laundress, which she sold to Unilever in 2019, to now with her long-anticipated launch of The Fill. So many founders see the exit as the end goal but there are all kinds of strings attached when you give up control of a brand you built. This Financial Times piece (secured by friend and frequent collaborator Courtney Forrest!) details what Whiting learned from her experience and why she’s returning to the cleaning space with a whole new perspective.

If you’ve read the community chapter of my book you know how I recommend making small daily connections a habit. Now The New York Times has created a five day friendship challenge that does exactly this.

Our friends down under! I’ve been doing some podcast interviews at odd hours in advance of The Setback Cycle’s Australian pub date which is tomorrow! So please share the news with your Aussie friends who can finally get their hands on a copy.

The continuing battle over reproductive rights. While last week’s unanimous Supreme Court decision, which prevented a ban on mifepristone marked a huge sigh of relief for women’s health advocates, as Melinda French Gates points out, this fight is far from over, especially with recent attacks on things like IVF.

I’m interviewing Emily Amick (also known as Emily in your phone) to talk about what we can do to make sure people understand the stakes and come out to vote in this fairly big and fairly daunting election year. Let me know if you have questions for her and I’ll do my best to include them in our chat.

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