We’re celebrating a milestone at Steady Parade today.
Welcome to Newsletter #10 🎉

Is it just me, or is there a lot going on this week? Every digital marketer I follow is having a webinar or a launch this week, and FIFA is in full force. It seems like everyone’s trying to squeeze something in before the 4th.

A previous version of me would have been overwhelmed to the point of inaction, but CEO Molly is rolling with it. Call me Hannah Montana, but I’m getting a lot more comfortable with the dualities in my life.

There’s this idea of masculine versus feminine energy that I learned at a sales retreat last weekend, and now I can’t unsee it. Regardless of gender identity, we’re always toggling between these two energies. The masculine is this energy of trying to achieve a result within a certain time frame, and the feminine is about experiencing the result.

I’ve seen it play out everywhere I go. It was most noticeable at a concert over the weekend. The headliner is playing and people are weaving through the crowd trying to get closer and closer to the front. There’s this competitive nature of “how close can I get before the show’s over?” Meanwhile, most of the crowd is standing in place and enjoying the show.

These energies are something I’m still learning to toggle between in my everyday life, from how I structure my day, to how I handle a sales call with a prospective client.

I’ve definitely been in a kind of go mode, especially since taking on a new client. I’ve been working more hours and just kind of always thinking about work. Even with this newsletter, I was up writing past 10 pm last night.

And at the same time, I’ve also been doing fun things: going to watch a World Cup game on a weeknight, making a trip up to LA to see a show. There have very much been these elements of work hard, play hard, and that feels like a good way to sum up this season.

A lot of people ease up in the summer, and I knew heading into this season that I wouldn’t be taking a ton of time off. We don’t have any big vacations planned. This season is really about doubling down, buckling down, and working hard, but the surprising thing I’ve experienced is that the work feels like play. I’ve been solving problems for clients and just doing work because I enjoy it. And that’s something really new for me: work as play.

On the flip side, there’s also play as work. With most outings, there’s this element of: I expended energy, we had a lot of fun, and it also took a lot out of me. (I’ll show a screenshot of the steps and calorie count from the show I went to on Friday to illustrate exactly what I mean.)

This is actually the topic I feel the most conflicted about. I have built my business around time freedom— being able to work and take vacation when I want. And because my workload has increased, I’m finding that my boundaries around my free time are a lot stronger.

I used to feel a lot of charge around the word “busy.” It not really a word I like to use because I feel like it’s reductive. But I also feel like I’m at the stage where I don’t have the same freedom to say yes to everything.

I’m in a place where I want to make time to spend with my spouse, and with people I’m currently close with. I have a little bit less leeway to have catch-up calls with people from a really long time ago, or to have get-to-know-you calls with people I just met. And I’m grappling with not having a lot of space or flexibility to agree to every invitation.

There is an element of scarcity that I’m reconciling with. I value my time in a different way now. And it means that I really value spending time away from work with loved ones. People who I don’t have to perform for, people who love me regardless of how business is going.

You probably have things on your to-do list that feel like “just work” and things that feel like fun. Let’s unpack that a little bit.

The line we draw between work and play is mostly a story we tell ourselves. If you’re spending most of your waking life working, what can you do to make it more fun?

I often have to remind myself on this entrepreneurial journey, if I’m not having fun, what’s the point?

I’m coming to you today not with books, but a couple app recs that have been saving my life and frankly, blowing my mind. I don’t like gatekeeping, especially when it comes to low-cost or free time savers.

(and yes I’m sharing affiliate links, only because I use these apps every single day and I love them)

Okay, if you’re someone who copies and pastes meeting transcripts into Claude or ChatGPT, then you NEED Granola. I just started using it last week, and it’s blown me away. There are probably a bunch of use cases that I haven’t even discovered yet, but here are the two that have been most useful so far.

This week, I had a call with a prospective client, and opened the app a few minutes before the Zoom meeting started. Without me even prompting it, Granola had prepared a brief on the business owners I’d be speaking with. It even found one of their Instagram accounts that I completely missed. I stepped into the meeting already knowing their story and able to match faces to names.

My other favorite feature: asking the transcript questions. I’m building a custom proposal for another client and I literally asked the AI, “What does she really need?” and “How would I structure an offer that puts boundaries around the time I spend on this?” based on the transcript of our sales call.

It feels so good to have an assistant that already has the context, no copying and pasting needed.

I’m using the free trial of Business Pro. Try 2 months free here: https://join.granola.ai/t/phytg59vj5

This is for anyone who’s ever been done dirty by Apple autocorrect or is tired of saying “comma” and “period” out loud just to get a normal sentence from voice-to-text.

WisprFlow actually understands punctuation and learns your vocabulary as you edit its transcriptions. Their other brag is that it can understand when you whisper. This is great if you work in an office and don’t want to disturb your cube neighbor, or if you share a bed and have midnight thoughts that need to to be memorialized.

We talk way faster than we type, so this app can be a HUGE timesaver. I’m using the free version right now, mainly for AI prompting.

You can get 1 month of Pro for free here: https://wisprflow.ai/r?MOLLY312

Living a double life sounds intense until you realize that it just means navigating the dualities. Chasing a result and sitting in it. Working hard and allowing it to feel like play. Wanting time freedom and drawing harder lines around your time. It doesn’t always feel tidy or polite, but it helps you get comfortable with the in-between.

Stay Steady,
Molly

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