Skyjo

Age range: 7+

This is a simple to play game that allows socializing while playing. It involves a lot of luck with just a bit of skill as you try to improve an array of cards in front of you, turn by turn.

This has been the house favorite for the past three weeks for us.

Strangely not available on Amazon - but was in Target.

Just One

Age range: 7+

This is a fun and hilarious cooperative game where everyone but one person writes one word that describes a given clue. If there are any duplicates, the dupes are removed and whatever remains is used for the odd person out to guess.

For instance, last night we were playing and I got the clues “Titanic” “Plumbing” and “Water.” The answer was “sink.”

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C4BFWV2R

Don’t L.L.A.M.A.

Age range: 5+

A fun, simple “get rid of your cards first” game. It’s played out over multiple rounds with a fun mechanic of being able to reduce your score by a lot if you do well in a future round.

Plus, there are cards with llamas on them.

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07W8ZL5M7

For Sale

Age range: 10+

For slightly older kids and adults, this is a two-phase game. In phase one, you bid in an auction to collect as many high value properties as possible. In phase two, you sell your properties for the highest amount.

A bit of math. A bit of strategy. A bit of bluffing and bidding. It only takes one round of play - about 10 minutes - to get the concept, so the quick cycle time is a great feature.

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001PQLNY0

Bonus: For Even Younger Kids

While we’ve aged out of these, for the 4-6 age range it’s worth checking out Sleeping Queens, Yeti in my Spaghetti, and Skip-bo

Extra Bonus: For Adults

With friends, we’ve been playing Antiquity Quest, Listography, and Sheriff of Nottingham.

My maternal grandmother passed away last week. She was a force of nature. At 95, the matriarch of our family is survived by two daughters, four granddaughters, and eight great-grandkids. She lived a complex and full life. Born in 1930, at the age of 10, she lost her parents and sister to the Nazis while she was fortuitously vacationing in Moscow. She lost her husband to brain cancer when she was in her mid-40s, and she agreed to move to another country as an immigrant in her 60s to be with her kids and grandkids.

My grandmother taught me lessons my whole life - quietly, steadily, and stoically. Here are the ones I will remember:

1. Stand on your own two feet - she had no choice but to be self-sufficient from an early age. Her lesson to me is to know how to survive independently. She believed in education, in resourcefulness, and in hard work. She was furious that her daughters dissuaded her from getting a car in her late 60s when she moved to the US because that stifled her independence. When needing to choose if she was going to live on the East Coast or the West Coast (having daughters in both places), she chose the East Coast because public transportation was better and she did not want to be overly reliant on others.

2. Prioritize your health - going hand in hand with being self-sufficient, she always reminded me that taking care of yourself is important and no one but me will prioritize that. She was not shy to point out when she thought I wasn’t looking “good” - whether I had black circles under my eyes or gained weight or just looked tired - she always asked. I used to find that obnoxious, but I also knew that she was always watching me and she cared.

3. Always look the part - my grandma was always impeccably dressed - not flashy, but items that flattered her figure, high quality and met the moment. Her hair was always done, her manicure and pedicure in place and her closet complete (not abundant). She complimented me when I dressed well and pointed out when an outfit was not fit for the occasion.

4. Be happy to hear from people - Whenever I called or visited my grandma, she was always happy to hear and see me. No guilt trips, no exclamations of “I wish you called more” or did more. She was just happy to hear my voice. I’ll miss her big enveloping hugs and her booming voice.

5. Give memorable gifts - my grandmother believed that there is nothing more important than education. Throughout her life, she has contributed to her kids' education funds and ensured every great-grandchild had access to a musical instrument. We have a piano in our home because of her, as do the rest of her granddaughters.

6. Foster relationships that matter - She loved it when we got together as a whole family - we are a loud and boisterous bunch and we don’t always all get along. But seeing everyone together brought her joy. Over the years, the family grew and the conversation at the table got mixed - across Russian and English. And yet, she held presence at the head of the table - listening and observing.

7. Know where you come from - my family is Russian Jewish with a long history of surviving persecution as Jews, Soviet-era atrocities and immigration. She carried these things not as a burden but as knowledge of where you’ve been and where you are going. Always striving for a better life and honoring the past.

8. State your truth - my grandma said all sorts of things throughout my life that I did not want to hear. But what I always knew that she said what she meant and meant what she said. No empty platitudes, no empty promises - just things she believed to be true and that needed to be said.

9. Travel - while Soviet Russia did not really allow for travel, after my grandmother came to the US, she traveled as much as she could. Between the ages of 65 and 85, she went to Israel, Europe, China, and South America. She was bummed that she didn’t make it to Australia and New Zealand.

10. Drive your agenda - my grandma always had a goal and she was going to achieve what she wanted. Never a victim of her circumstances but a careful orchestrator of her life and a matriarch of our family. She never gave up, always looked forward to the next thing and had a why behind her actions. True to her last moments - she wanted to die in her own bed, with dignity, surrounded by her family - and that is how exactly what she did.

In the Jewish tradition, people say “may her memory be a blessing.” Her memory is the biggest blessing. I am honored to be her granddaughter and carry her lessons and spirit with me.

Thematically, in 2026, my word of the year is “believe.” I want to believe that tomorrow will be better than today, that I can grow my own business successfully, and I can be the wife, mom, friend, and daughter that I want to be in this season of my life.

I like breaking my list into categories - so this year’s categories are: solopreneurship, home life, health, & time with people.

Drive Success in Solopreneurship

1. Offer 26 goal-setting sessions to my community - As I continue to grow my business, I’m excited to use January as a way to reconnect with people in my network and help set the year up for success. Link here if you want to learn more. The greatest gift you can give me is to spread the word!

2. Invest in additional coaching training - I’m eyeing iEQ9 Integrative Enneagram Accreditation program so I can expand my offerings to leaders I coach

3. Do a professional photo shoot so that I can revamp my website and use images for social content

4. Post on LinkedIn 2-3 times a week and explore video as a medium

5. Attend 6 start-up product community events in 2026

6. Streamline my business expenses - migrate subscriptions to my business credit card, etc.

Invest in Home Improvements

7. Frame theater posters - my oldest daughter has been performing with Studio East and I’d like to help her remember these shows by framing the show posters.

8. Remodel a closet in my home office - I have been investing in my office space so that it is set up for me to work as a coach and advisor with in person as well as remote clients.

9. Buy a full-size mirror - carry over from last year

10. Update picture frames in our house - currently most of them are 7+ years old and don’t reflect what the kids look like

11. Keep 2-3 small house plants alive this year - I admire homes with living plants in them, but my plants usually die. A friend is helping me find the plants that are not too high maintenance so I can give it a try

12. Replace bath towels in our house - we’ve had the same ones for about 10 years and it’s time for a refresh

13. Get a dog trainer and improve Rainier’s recall behavior as well as get him to love his crate again

14. Schedule a regular dog walker 2-3 times a week

Prioritize Health and Hobbies

15. Take a multivitamin every day - immediately after breakfast

16. Drink ~26 oz of water before breakfast every day

17. Get a massage every 6 weeks

18. Learn to create greeting cards with my Cricut and make 6 birthday cards for my family and friends

19. Win 3 tennis matches in a league this year

20. Move at least 26 minutes a day

Spend Time with People

21. Schedule a monthly date night with Adam

22. Always have a new TV show I am watching with Adam

23. Take a trip to a new country as a family - 🇬🇷 Greece this summer!

24. Donate food, clothes, and toys monthly as a family

25. Host 2-3 game nights with friends

26. Plan a girls’ trip with my friends from my legislative fellowship days

Have a wonderful holiday season and enjoy our “drone shot” of this year’s Christmas Village:

Over the last nine months, I have completed over 50 hours of coaching and learned a methodology that has provided me with a structured approach to help people tackle their most complex challenges. The set of tools I have learned will be invaluable in my toolbox, enabling me to build on my professional and lived experiences.

Throughout the program, I have worked with dozens of clients, helping them navigate career transitions, overcome impostor syndrome, and manage complex matrixed organizations. It has been a privilege to hold space in these moments of ambiguity, which has given me an immense feeling of joy and purpose.

I would love to help more people this fall, so if you or any of your friends are interested in hearing more, please reach out to me (helen@mindthebeet.com) or visit my website: Mind the Beet Coaching

As I have been contemplating my next steps during my sabbatical, I have settled on investing in myself as a leader and pursuing an executive coaching certification via Hudson’s Institute of Coaching. In parallel, I plan to explore fractional product management to keep honing my product craft.

After researching a variety of coaching options, I settled on Hudson because it offers a clear path to the industry-recognized International Federation of Coaching certification, has an in-person weekday experience, and is a well-recognized brand in the world of corporate Learning and Development.

As a first step on this journey, I participated in a week-long LifeForward experience that helped me contemplate shifts I’d like to make as I balance my personal and professional ambitions. Below is the Vision Board that I created that will guide my next chapter.

My Vision Board

Busier than ever - As I reflected on my time since I stepped away from full-time work, I immediately filled my days with “stuff” - kids, house projects, catching up with friends, tennis, and community volunteering. I loved all the things I dove into, but this “new” work swallowed me whole. So, the question that a coach posed to me that I keep coming back to is:

“What does my busyness get in the way of?”

The busyness prevents me from being intentional in how I spend my time, as well as the quality of output that I produce.

So, as I created my board, I kept space on it. I found it uncomfortable and difficult not to fill every inch of white with quotes, pictures, and goals.

Panel 1: My Personal Vision

The board consists of three panels. The first one, on the left, is centered on my purpose and reminders that will propel me forward.

For the purpose of the exercise, I went through 50 cards and identified the key ones that I want to lean into at this phase of my life. I did a lot of work to narrow this down to a manageable number of cards that are both relevant now and I’m not engaging enough in.

• Using my abilities - This is a nod that I intend to keep honing and practicing my craft. This entails product work, coaching teams and individuals, baking, and parenting.

• Staying Healthy - I plan to continue leaning into living a healthy physical lifestyle. I have been playing tennis and lifting weights, and I need to keep working on balancing my diet appropriately, as well as not getting injured as I dive into more physical activity.

• Inner Peace - This is an area of development and a reminder for me to calm the mind, be present and grateful, and have confidence in my own knowing.

• Connecting, Caring - What gives me joy in my life is connecting with people and caring for those I love. So, I want to do more of that.

Personal Vision Statement:

I also got a chance to workshop my personal vision statement - and while I wrote the first draft myself, I found it really helpful to workshop it with a small group of peers that I spent the week

Love myself as I am by living an extraordinary life, caring deeply and unapologetically, and raising good humans.

This statement is anchored around embracing myself as I am, which was a focus of my self-work and reflection. A big premise of coaching is that the answer lies within you. What I found is that the work ahead for me is to quiet my mind enough to be able to decipher a path forward.

Positive Reinforcement

The rest of this panel is all about positive self-talk. I remember coming back to Microsoft after maternity leave and seeing the nursing rooms be covered with stickies of fellow women lifting each other up with words of encouragement.

One of the exercises that I did was to write a letter from “Helen the Sage” (my 80-year-old self) to myself today. I found myself giving so much grace and positivity that I wanted to capture the themes that came up

Panel 2: My Identity:

Panel two of the board is about the key roles that I play: Mom, Leader, Coach.

Mom: With two young kids, being a mom continues to be a central part of my working identity. My kids need me in new ways today compared to when they were younger. So I am prioritizing spending time with them processing their days and emotions, extra study and learning time, as well as helping them focus on activities that give them joy (theater, swimming, and skiing for the older girl, and gymnastics, ice skating, and Girl Scouts for the younger). This is also the area of my life that has taken over in ways I did not intend as I stepped away from work. So I am seeking to rebalance this so that I am spending time where it matters most.

Leader: I am not sure if, in my next career chapter, I will go back in-house to be a product leader in some capacity or start my own practice, but whichever way I go, I know that leading people is a key aspect of my identity. I also know that I don’t have to be in a corporate environment to be a leader - for example, I’ve enjoyed stepping up in my local Girl Scouts organization as a leader.

Coach: I love being a coach and have been formally and informally coaching and mentoring people for many years. This is the role I am actively making more space for as I pursue a coaching certification with Hudson and decide if this is my next career chapter or a set of skills I take in-house to the next organization I serve.

I chose to have only one photo in the middle here, and it’s a ChatGPT creation of our family embracing technology because technology is the thread that pulls through my three identities - whether I am building tech, teaching tech to my kids or using it for my own business and development - it is central to my life.

The Getting Ready circle on the bottom left indicates where I am - which is getting ready for my next professional adventure.

Panel 3: Full Life

The third board is about hobbies that help me live a full and purposeful life centered around 3 things: Couple goals that Adam and I have, giving back to the community and traveling to expand my horizons.

✍🏻 Mind the Beet - Adam and I started Mind the Beet in January of 2021, and it has been an outlet for writing, giving back to our community as well as spending time together as a couple on non-transactional life things.

🍞 Community Loaves and Baking - I picked up baking during the pandemic, but now I bake for our local foodbank - HopeLink, as part of the Community Loaves organization. I love having the house smell of baked goods and helping alleviate food insecurity locally in our neighborhood. This is also an activity I’m able to do with my kids, and it allows me to talk to them about the broader issues at hand.

👧🏻 Girl Scouts - My favorite part about Girl Scouts is the opportunity to mentor and support young girls. So I am leading a Brownie troop for my youngest daughter and volunteering as our Service Unit Manager, leading a growing number of troops in my neighborhood.

🌎 Travel - This is a goal that is becoming more realistic as my daughters get older. For me, travel opens up the aperture on different ways of life, experiences and builds empathy. I’m excited to do more of it and keep focused on this area both as a family and with friends.

I’m excited to be investing in myself for the next 9 months as I pursue the Hudson Coach Certification program. Whether I end up being an executive coach or a Product Leader (or some combination of both), I know that I will learn a lot in the next year and grow. Onwards!

From the Mind the Beet archive, this week delves into some of my favorite smells and the stories behind them.

Roasted Whole Coffee Beans

Inhaling the steam of hot coffee is nice, but for me, nothing beats smelling the roasted whole beans.   Doubly so after the pandemic, as many mornings during that period I lifted up the hopper in the coffee grinder to smell the beans as a sort of “Well, I probably don’t have COVID if I can smell that” test. Funny where new traditions come from.

The smell also reminds me of my coffee origin story.  Like many, it was an acquired taste born from the necessity of needing morning caffeine.  One of my first 9-5 jobs was working as a civilian on a Navy base and I remember thinking I better learn to like coffee.  Being in the Navy, it wasn’t just any coffee – it was strong, black Navy Coffee.   You could follow the tradition all the way back, I’m sure, to what kept Lord Nelson awake at the helm. No, I didn’t ask for cream or sugar.  No one offered. I still drink it black.

The Inside of a Desktop PC

The faint smell of burnt dust. The grease from the articulating CPU clip. The factory-like smell of the motherboard material. All of it brings me back. As a high school student in the United States of the 1990s, building my own desktop PC was the default hobby.   That is what I saved money for.  That is what I used the dial-up modem to do research on.   For me, getting a car was about taking a trip to Fry’s Electronics more than anything else. It was a craft, a hobby, and a social activity: the fun of LAN parties playing Doom and Quake were the fruits of the labor.

Just this past year, I built a new PC with my daughters - it was a fun experience to relive (lots more LED’s lights now a days!).

Tom Yum Soup

Nothing warms me up better than a bowl of this soup as the weather turns in Seattle. It’s one of the few foods where the smell is more distinctive than the taste.   I went down an internet rabbit hole once to find the source of the distinctive aroma, and it comes down to the root Galangal mixed with the lemongrass.

I don’t have a particularly strong relationship with Thailand – although it was the destination of my first extended trip after college before starting my professional life.   These “bookend” moments stick with us as more memorable than average as they mark a turning point in our lives.

Toasted Everything Bagels

The mix of dried onion and garlic warmed via direct heat is an almost overwhelming scent in a morning kitchen.  And it’s the breakfast of choice for my dad.  It’s one where I went from an annoyed teenager at my parents stinking up the kitchen to now something that fondly reminds me of home.  Funny how smells can age.

Baking Illustrated Chocolate Chip Cookies Straight From the Oven

Of course, a dessert cooking in the oven is an easy smell to love, and since Helen picked up baking during the pandemic, our house has been filled with such wonderful scents.

When it comes to my own baking, though, absolutely nothing beats the smell of chocolate chip cookies in the oven.  My family growing up was not a baking family, so it was a learned art after college as I started living on my own.   Chocolate chip cookies were one of the first things I ever learned to bake.  My recipe of choice was from Baking Illustrated, a book that was gifted to me by a good friend:

As an aside, this is an absolutely fantastic cookbook and a great gift.   It takes a scientific approach to cooking, including narratives on the 5-10 different experiments tried for each recipe to get at the why behind ingredient and method tradeoffs (this is where the extra egg yolk in the recipe comes from, making the cookies stay chewy longer according to their test kitchen).

Movie Theater Popcorn (with Butter)

This one seems like a guilty pleasure to add – as if I’m easily susceptible to the corporate machines.  After all, the whole point of the movie theater popcorn smell is to get you to buy something.  It’s supposed to be addicting.

Yet as I reflected on it, the local movie megaplexes were a large part of my suburban upbringing in the 1990s.  The re-release of Star Wars!  Toy Story!  American Pie!  My best friend worked as a manager at the local chain, too.

You got me right where you wanted me, Hollywood-Food-Industry Complex.

Old Academic Buildings

It’s hard to place the origins of where this smell comes from – a mix of high traffic communal spaces, brick, aged wood, old furniture, and history.   But I love that distinctive smell of an old academic building.   For me, it’s a smell of comfort, safety, and feeling in control and in charge.  My alma mater UCLA was a coming-of-age experience filled with finding out what I wanted to do and making lifelong friends.   One of the things I love about the institution is its connection to history and a sense of traditions, something I never had much of growing up. I suppose they also have a special place in our family, seeing as Helen and I were married inside one:

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Wrapping Up

Food, hobbies, family, entertainment: the nose is a gateway to a deeper conversation and history.   Next time you want to have a deep and meaningful convo – ask someone what their favorite smells are.  Who 👃 what you’ll learn. 😊

This is the first year when I am doing this during my “power pause” as I started my own business as a coach and stepped away from being a Product leader. So my progress came easier and faster on many of these then in years past.

So below is where I am!

Professional development (1-5)

🧑‍💼Become an executive and leadership coach - 🛠️ (On track) I finish my certification next month with Hudson Institute of Coaching and I plan to become an accredited coach with the International Coaching Federation by the end of the year.

Build my business website - ✅ (Check it out!)

🗄️Figure out my business-related “office” - ✅ So far, I am using Google Drive, Zoom, and FreshBooks. I plan to sign up for DocuSign soon as well, and I am exploring a light CRM system.

👩🏼‍🏫 Go to at least one professional conference - ✅

❓Bonus - I don’t know what this year will bring professionally, so leaving a blank space for growth. - (NEW) Experiment with 2-3 roundtables and group coaching sessions - 🛠️ (In progress)

Community (6-9)

🎗️Join a non-profit board - ✅ - I am going to be Co-President of Peter Kirk Elementary’s PTSA next year, and I am honored to lead this organization of amazing parents, student,s and teachers

🍞 Bake bread with Community Loaves once a month - 🛑 I have chosen to pause my efforts here since I’ve taken on other community involvement roles.

UW - Get involved with UW Foster Business School - ✅ - I am working as an Adjunct Career Coach for a few hours to help recent MBAs launch into their careers as well as have gotten more involved as an Alumni this year through various ad hoc events and advising opportunities.

🧒🏼 Host a Girl Scouts troop at our cabin - ✅

Personal (10-14)

🐶 Get a puppy - ✅ We welcomed Rainier Apollo Harmetz into our home in January. He is an Australian Labradoodle and completes our pack.

🪞 Buy a full-size stand-alone mirror - ⏳ (Not started)

📚 Read 25 minutes a day - 🛠️ (On track)

🧴Get a monthly facial - 🛠️ (On track)

🪮 Get a regular haircut - 🛠️ (On track)

Travel (15-20)

👧🏻 Go on a trip with my sister - ✅ We plan to do a Yoga retreat in Arizona this fall.

👯‍♂️ Plan a trip with my best friend - ✅ We spent an awesome week in NYC, gallivanting around.

🇳🇿 🇫🇯Make a memory book after our trip to Fiji and New Zealand - ✅

🎨 Visit a new museum - ✅ I finally visited the Museum of Modern Art in NYC

🎭 See 2-3 new theater productions this year - ✅ I saw Studio East productions of Big Fish and Seussical Kids this year, as well as &Juliet, Boop, and Gypsy (with Audra McDonald!) on Broadway!

🌎 Visit a new country - ✅ As a family, we visited Nevis and St. Kitts this year 🇰🇳

Health Habits(21-25)

🏋 Lift weights 2 times a week - 🛠️ (On track) I have found great success working out with a friend in a 2:1 personal training session 2x a week

🎾Play tennis 2 times a week - 🛠️ (On track)

🩺 Health cleanse twice throughout 2025 - 🛠️ (On track)

🛜 Less Social Media - ⏳ (Not started) - My plan was to have two 30-day periods of limited or no social media, but I have not made it a priority so far this year.

📔 Journal Daily - 🌀 (Changed) I realized this wasn’t serving me as intended and was feeling like a chore. So instead, I now own a coloring book + journal hybrid as well as some free writing notebooks. I am enjoying this approach a lot more even though it’s not a daily habit as I had intended.

Ten recommendations from our life

One type of post we do is called a Beet Salad - a mix of recommendations that has come up in our personal and work lives recently. In no particular order:

💻 BYO Computer: Frame.Work Laptops

We did a computer upgrade in our house recently and someone recommended to us Frame.Work laptops. Modular, customizable, and upgradable - they sit somewhere between do-it-yourself and a manufactured computer. It was fun to set up and teach the kids about the basics of computing innards.

💀 Fictional Podcast: Hamlet by Make Believe Association

My dad recently recommended this and it’s a high-production-quality rendition of the play’s events told through Hamlet’s inner voices. Each episode is short (10-20 mins). It’s been getting a lot of buzz in the theater community. (Apple Podcasts).

📖 Summer Read: Dungeon Crawler Carl

This is my summer addiction that I discovered after a friend dressed up as Carl for a Comic Con. It’s a 7-book fictional series and the best way to describe it is Ready Player One meets Old Man’s War meets Temeraire, written by an indie author. After an apocalypse, aliens make humans compete in a RPG-like dungeon, all televised where fan count is a key metric. It follows Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s talking cat Princess Donut. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and mixes action and mystery to keep things fast paced. The LitRPG writing style is unique, with a good dose of humor thrown in thanks to a sarcastic systems AI that controls the environment.

📖 Elementary School Read: Land of Stories

I just finished this 5-book series with our eight year old. It’s a delightful mix of adventure & world building written at just the right maturity level for “middle readers.” Random factoid: It’s written by Chris Colfer, an actor from the TV series Glee.

🎮 Puzzle Video Game: Blue Prince

This should be the Game of the Year. Other than Mario, I only play 1-2 video games per year and this one is a perfect mix of puzzles, world exploration, story, and grinding to level up. You play a young boy who has inherited a mysterious manor from your grandfather, if you can find the “46th room” of the house. Every day (a day in the game takes anywhere from 10-50 minutes), you get to lay out the rooms of your house in a 9x5 grid, solving puzzles and unlocking the path to this 46th room. (Steam).

🌳 Mobile App: iNaturalist

Take a picture of any animal, plant, and fungus and this app will identify it for you (using AI and crowdsourcing with experts if needed). I thought ChatGPT could do this - but a dedicated tool focused and tuned just for this is way better. It also has cool features like the ability to save all your identifications in an easy to recall virtual backpack. It’s part of a larger non-profit dedicated to helping people experience nature - check them out and get the app on their website.

🧑‍💻 Rapid Prototyping Tool: v0 by Vercel

Web UX prototyping tools have transformed the product discovery process. It’s never been easier go from idea to a visual UX representation and iterate on it from there. I’ve been using v0 by Vercel the most, after I had a chance to interview their CEO for an internal Microsoft PM event earlier this year.

📃 Newsletter: USAFacts.org

Care to know the hospital incident rate from firework injuries on the 4th of July vs. other days of the year? Or get non-partisan facts about bills proposed in Congress? USAFacts.org sends a weekly newsletter with timely facts based upon available government data - repackaged in an easily consumable form. Spending one minute on their website will let you know the type of factoids that you can get dropped to you, based upon what’s going on in the world right now. It’s a non-profit funded by Steve Ballmer.

👔 Men’s Clothing: Proper Cloth

Proper Cloth offers custom tailored men’s clothes with a large variety of styles and patterns. Every piece is made to order based upon your saved neck size, shoulder width, arm length, et cetera. It’s a cheat code for upleveling your dress clothes & style without having the spend a lot of time on it.

🏆Cool Swag: NYT Games Store

We are a Connections, Wordle, Strands, Mini family - our mornings proceed in that order. So when I saw they have custom stickers, hats, and mugs over at the New York Times Game’s Store, I immediately grabbed some of our favorites. A “But first, Connections” mug is out for delivery as I type this.

I write to you from a long time ago, 2025. I am in my early 40s and have just done another pivot in my career - I started my own business and leaned into non-profit work to derive more purpose in this phase of my life. I hope you read this when you are 20, which is the beginning of your first “adult” decade - no longer protected by your parents and starting to step into your own.

My 20s were a decade of searching for purpose, for love, for the right job, and the right education. It was also a decade of fun and one of infinite possibilities. I would never want to skip that decade, but I also wouldn’t want to be stuck in it forever, because my 30s built on the lessons of my 20s and have set me up for the life I live (and love) today. So with gratitude, love and optimism, here are the 20 things I wish I knew in my 20s that I am passing on to you.

1. Know yourself and find a way to see your worth - this will make you be more confident and enable you to care less about what others think of you and value they assign to you.

2. Be picky about who you listen to - Identify whose opinion matters to you and seek it actively. This should be a small list of people (fit it on a 1x1 inch square). Everyone else’s opinion is noise.

3. Eat more vegetables - really.

4. Get a good night’s sleep - it solves more problems than you think.

5. Spend the money on experiences - take that hot air balloon ride over an African Safari, even if the cost seems preposterous.

6. Take care of your body - Living with chronic pain for any prolonged period of time sucks the life out of you, so prevent it if you can.

7. Cherish and keep up with your high school and college friends.  These people know you in a way no one in your adult life will ever know you.

8. Surround yourself with people who see you and make you be the person you want to be.

9. Have great content on standby - A favorite music list, a good book to read and a tv show to watch makes commutes and evenings more fun.

10. Own your opinions, but don’t be a jerk about it. Strong opinions loosely held will take you farther than the other way around.

11. Give grace - Everyone around you is doing their best - the only person whose actions you can influence are your own.

12. Fresh air is underrated - Put your shoes on and take a walk especially when you are having a bad day.

13. Keep things in perspective - Reframe any challenge as a lesson the universe is trying to teach you.

14. Be kind to yourself - Talk to yourself the way you’d talk to your friends or loved ones.

15. Be proud of the work that you do - if you are not, try harder.

16. Show up every day with your full self - life is too short to check it in.

17. Be self-sufficient—This is a big one. It encompasses everything from earning enough money to stand on your own feet (and not depend on anyone for it) to not unnecessarily imposing on people when you visit them (e.g., bringing your own toothpaste).

18. Expand your horizons—Being curious takes work and an open mind. You were raised with a lot of support and privilege. Get out of your comfort zone and see the world, try new food, and push yourself to do the work to better understand the world around you.

19. Plan for success. Stop anticipating failure—not getting the promotion or that call from your crush. Pre-feeling bad news doesn’t make it sting any less when and if it comes, so you might as well enjoy today.

20. Believe that your best days are ahead of you, and act accordingly.

Love, Mom

In a mentor circle of women entrepreneurs I led recently, someone asked me what my top 3 most important decisions that I have made in my life are and why. As I reflected on this question and the graduation season we are in, I would like to answer this question.

I graduated from high school in 2000, and I vividly remember standing at the edge of adulthood, with the world wide open. That season of life comes with no shortage of advice: Be true to yourself. Travel. Don’t rush into marriage. Try new things. And always wear sunscreen.

Now, 25 years later, I find myself reflecting on the choices that truly shaped my life. If I zoom out, what were the decisions—my decisions—that really mattered?

Some milestones, like immigrating to the U.S. in the early ’90s, weren’t mine to make—I was ten, and that was my parents’ call. But the ones I did choose - what was the impact and how did it shape me.

🚙 Moving to Seattle from LA - 2008

Context

I landed my dream job a year after graduating from UCLA (2005). I became a political consultant, which I thought was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life (I miss the black and white clarity of my 20s). I got to do the coolest things in this job - working for an amazing manager, working in the bustle of politics in California across the country - the bedrock of American democracy.

As I was living my best life, Adam and I decided to start dating after years of friendship. However, he was living in the Pacific Northwest and thriving at Microsoft so if this relationship was going to work, someone needed to shift. So in late 2007, I got agreement from my consulting firm to move up Washington and help start an office. I packed my things, rented an apartment and drove north.

Trade-offs

On the upside, I was excited to help build an office in the Pacific Northwest, I was intrigued by Seattle as a place to live and was ready to make a change from California to try something new. I was also convinced that it was going to be too hard to make a long-distance relationship work. Professionally, I was moving away from my first manager and team that I loved working with. A strong female mentor and role model of mine questioned why I was throwing away everything I had built for a guy with no guarantees. My rationale was that this was not a one way door decision (as in if I didn’t work, I could return) and also in my core, I knew that taking risks was part of living a full life.

Why is this decision in my top 3 list

The decision fundamentally shifted my future. Adam and I got married and built a home. I began building a professional and personal network in the Pacific Northwest - building new relationships and setting me up for a career in tech. This was the first big “plunge” that I took which would serve as a building block to many future decisions.

👩🏼‍💼 Going to business school at the University of Washington, Foster School of Business - 2009

Context

When I graduated from UCLA with a BA in Political Science, I thought I would go to Law School, but quickly realized I was not interested in being a lawyer. Through my work in political consulting and public affairs, I realized that marketing was an adjacent career to what I was already doing. As my earlier conviction that I was going to be a political consultant for the rest of my life was starting to fade, I thought that my next logical career jump would be to become a marketer, however, I did not think that I could get hired as one without credentials (especially as the financial markets collapsed in 2008). So I focused on getting into an MBA program to boost my credentials and increase my option value.

Trade-offs

This was my first career transition moment (one that I would return to multiple times) and it made me start fresh and go back to square one. I stopped making money for two years and had to accept a certain amount of debt and dependence on Adam, which was not easy for me to do. As I entered business school, the 2008 financial crash had just happened so the value of the MBA was not super clear at the time and I was making a bet that the degree will be useful no matter what. I debated between going to Georgetown for my MBA or UW Foster. I have a deep love for Washington DC and at the time, I had many colleagues there (in politics), however, I decided that because I was trying to build a life in the Pacific Northwest, I needed to focus on developing a network and opening professional doors in the PNW. In that moment, in many ways, I officially said goodbye to my time in the political arena.

Why is this decision in my top 3 list

As a result of my business degree at Foster, I was able to effectively network and get into the Microsoft MBA internship program and then get a full-time offer. Adam and I got engaged during my MBA program, and I formed deep connections that have fueled my professional career since. This decision also was not a one-way door decision - it was one that I viewed as to my credentials and one that did not lock me into anything specific, but rather made certain paths easier to travel (ie, getting a job in tech, marketing, and consulting).

🤰🏼Becoming a Mom - 2014

Context

I was not one of these people who was dying to have children. In fact, I don’t think I’ve changed a diaper until I had my daughter in 2014. But in the world of many “shoulds” I knew that having kids was on the list and something I would do and probably like it. Adam and I were married in 2011 and in 2014, we welcomed our first daughter into this world. A few years later, we welcomed our second daughter and we continue to now work as a family of four (and now a dog).

Trade-offs

As a woman, the short-term professional trade-offs with either child were not positive for me. In addition to the brain fog during pregnancy and for 6 months after returning to work, there is no way that maternity leaves were accelerators to my career. Promos were delayed, professional travel was limited and my time was not my own (I had and continue to have hard stops on my work days in ways that I did not experience before kids). On the upside, having children grew my empathy for fellow parents in the workforce, made me be more resourceful with the less time I had, taught me how to ruthlessly prioritize and prepared me to become a manager.

Why is this decision in my top 3 list

Unlike the other two decisions, this one was a one-way door decision. There is no undo button for having kids. It has enriched my identity, made me a better worker, partner, daughter, friend, and sister. A friend of mine who is a few years ahead of me in the parenting journey told me at the time that there is no greater privilege in life than to raise the next generation of humans.

My Wisdom - Take the Plunge

“Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom” - Terry Pratchett

The common thread in these most meaningful life decisions is that I took a risk into the unknown. It required me to be brave and thoughtful, to recognize a door when I saw one and believe that better things lay ahead. With the optimism for the future and being open to possibilities, I was able to take the plunge and allow the momentum to carry me.

You should create a mood board for your work life. ChatGPT’s latest image generation tools make this more fun than ever and when you print it out, it will be an ongoing reminder of how you want to show up.

👋Hi there! It’s Adam here with my fourth annual Spring Mood Board. After reflecting for an hour to create visuals for how I want to show up, what’s stressing me, and what’s most important as a product maker and leader, here’s what I got:

Our recent reader survey showed that this is one of our subscribers’ favorite posts of the year, so I’ll share a few thoughts on my creation process.

Be a Builder

It’s a fun time to be in tech - never has there been more new tools to help build innovative ideas. I want to show up as a builder (vs. advisor, editor, feedback synthesizer, idea generator) and that is the first piece of artwork anchoring my board this year:

I recently had my Technical Advisor ask to return to being a Product Manager - “it is time to build, not advise” were her words and I found that so inspiring.

I’m also adding this here as a cautionary tale. Never has it been easier to critique plans or create great-looking PowerPoint visions - but my job is to go beyond idea generation and focus on delivery and outcomes.

Transforming the Organization

I had ChatGPT generate an image based upon the three words I think are required in tech leadership today:

It’s not a time for planful estate management of a tech portfolio, it’s a time to move fast and learn. In my own performance evaluation, I talked about rehiring myself as a leader focused on:

• Agility: Helping the org move fast and make quick decisions.

• Paranoia: “Only the paranoid survive” is a popular Andy Grove quote, highlighting the need for leaders to examine any potential places where the status quo isn’t good enough.

• Curiosity: Every week there is major tech news and new AI tools to try, so this is a reminder to sustainably incorporate this tsunami of inputs into my product making vs. get burned out from it.

Customer Empathy

Back in 2016, when I was working with design and research on a major UX reboot for our product, we adopted the phrase “E is for empathy” to reflect staying grounded in customer needs. So it is with a smile that I add that to this year’s mood board:

Like many, I worry about being too tech focused - and I see that a lot from the Applied Science part of the company. There is a whitespace opportunity for any product manager to be the absolute best at translating tech into human needs.

Wow, this is Hard

You can tell - there is a lot in my work life that isn’t working yet - AI is not yet mature & our organization is evolving to meet emerging needs. After 20 years in the workplace, I know my primary negative emotion - it’s not anger or despair, it’s cynicism:

This is on my board to remind me to assume the best intent from others and use optimism to generate energy.

Storytelling

I had the opportunity to interview Guillermo Rauch, the CEO of Vercel recently and one of his recent tweets inspired me: “How you present the technology matters just as much as the technology itself.” So, as a holdover from last year, I again added a storybook:

I consider myself good at enterprise product storytelling - both internally and to customers. And I like having a strength on my mood board - a balanced life focuses on leveraging strengths as well as closing weaknesses.

Welcome to the Fishbowl

This is another repeat from last year - as a VP, my words carry outsized weight, and my actions are often examined. I live in the fishbowl with other senior leaders:

I find this part of my job especially hard this year, as more frequently changing status quo is required. It’s not all about peacetime role modelling but rather being an agent of change, with mistakes magnified due to this fishbowl effect.

Work Hard, Play Hard

I replaced the graphics on my mood board from previous years that prioritized presence & savoring & play. The tech industry mood has changed to one of intensity and focus. When you are on the job, you are all in and it’s intense - and you build up barnacles just like a ship at sea:

You can agree or disagree with this industry-wide tone shift, but it’s happening, so I’m embracing it. And it’s also a reminder to prioritize vacations and use them to recharge.

My Motto

This is the only graphic that has been on all four of my mood boards: my motto for how I want to show up at work.

Do = Act, not think or talk.

Hard Things = We do what’s difficult so our customers don’t have to.

In A Calm Way = Attention, focus, and optimism.

With Me = We are in this together.

My Story Arc over the Years

Now that this is a Spring tradition, I have four years to look back on:

2022:

2023:

2024:

2025:

I’ve noticed a few things:

• My first board - 2022 - was right after my sabbatical and it was entirely self-generated and not a response to external events. I was at a peak of self-awareness and self-intentionality, but a valley in being curious about what the market needed from our products.

• My second mood board - 2023 - was at the very beginning of an industry-wide paradigm shift. A period of stability had just ended. There is a “keep calm, carry on” vibe to the whole thing that you find when you must lead without knowing what’s coming or where you are going.

• Last year, I noticed how much external stressors dominated what I wanted to put on the board. It made me reflect on if I’m being reactive and “on defense” - a good self-reflection I uncovered because of the exercise.

• This year, the focus is on speed and transformation from within a large organization - urgency picks up as the scorecard for AI is maturing.

Over the years, I’ve used a mix of Canva, Microsoft Designer, DALL-E, and ChatGPT’s image generation tools to create my mood boards. If you create one yourself, share it with me!

Welcome back to Mind the Beet! Four years ago, I (Helen) began following Gretchen Rubin’s practice of setting goals for the year. Since then, this has become my favorite practice and, therefore, a post to write. This is my version of "New Year’s resolution,” but one anchored in a menu of options to pursue that inspires me and brings me joy rather than a daunting checklist. I like sharing it with our community because it helps me with accountability and is a great conversation starter.

Thematically, in 2025, I am focused on growth. I plan to do a lot of learning and growing this year as I take on a new professional adventure while learning to find a balance in my life across professional, family, and personal interests.

To make it whimsical, here are my goals in an emoji layout of a Bingo Board!

Professional development (1-5)

🧑‍💼Become an executive and leadership coach - Last fall, I began my certification as an executive coach with Hudson Institute of Coaching. My goal is to complete the training this year and pass the Associated Certified Coach test.

👩🏼‍💻 Build my business website - I am launching my business as an executive coach! Stay tuned for the website launch.

🗄️Figure out my business-related “office” - I’ve never started a business, so I’m excited to learn about what it takes - everything from getting an LLC set up to tinkering with the right scheduling, bookkeeping and CRM applications to set up my business.

👩🏼‍🏫 Go to at least one professional conference - I’m excited to expand my human network in this new chapter of my life, so I’ve already signed up to attend the Possibility: Hudson Annual Learning Conference 2025.

❓Bonus - I don’t know what this year will bring professionally, so leaving a blank space for growth.

Community (6-9)

🎗️Join a non-profit board - I’d like to keep honing my leadership skills and give my energy to a non-profit board whose mission I deeply care about.

🍞 Bake bread with Community Loaves once a month - I started volunteering with this organization last year - you bake bread and/or cookies at home and donate to your local food bank (HopeLink in my case).

UW - Get involved with UW Foster Business School and reconnect with Foster classmates.

🧒🏼 Host a Girl Scouts troop at our cabin to foster growth and independence - this is my 3rd year being involved with the Girl Scouts of Western Washington organization and it’s been great to mentor and support young girls.

Personal (10-14)

🐶 Get a puppy - The big news in our family for 2025 is that we are getting a puppy! Stay tuned for Mind the Beet posts on puppy life!

🪞 Buy a full-size stand-alone mirror - I don’t have a full-size mirror in our house, so I want to get one for our bedroom.

📚 Read 25 minutes a day - My homage to 2025 - I will read 25 minutes a day.

🧴Get a monthly facial - For the last few months, I have been successful at keeping a regular facial schedule, and I can tell the difference in the health of my face.

🪮 Get a regular haircut - I looked back and saw that I have gotten 2 haircuts in 2024. For the health of my hair, I want to schedule a haircut every 3 months.

Travel (15-20)

👧🏻 Go on a trip with my sister - The hardest part will be picking a date, but I’m excited to spend time with her this coming year.

👯‍♂️ Plan a trip with my best friend - My bestie lives in London, so figuring out a place to meet and things to do together this year will be special!

🇳🇿 🇫🇯Make a memory book after our trip to Fiji and New Zealand - We took a once-in-a-lifetime trip to New Zealand and Fiji over the holidays, and I want to create a keepsake from it.

🎨 Visit a new museum - I plan to spend some time in New York City later this summer and can’t wait to explore a museum I haven’t been to.

🎭 See 2-3 new theater productions this year

🌎 Visit a new country - I continue to put this on the list as we get more and more into travel as a family. I’m not sure what country we’ll hit this year - the Nordics are on the list, and our kids are pushing for Greece (thanks to Percy Jackson)

Health Habits(21-25)

🏋 Lift weights 2 times a week - This is a continuation from last year, and I will keep it here for another year before I remove it from this list. What has helped me make it a habit is to go with a friend.

🎾Play tennis 2 times a week - I have enjoyed taking up tennis and playing a team sport. However, I actually played too much in September and October and learned that pacing is key. So I want to keep playing but 2-3 times a week.

🩺 Health cleanse twice throughout 2025 - I continue on a mission to figure out my weight and get to sustainable healthy eating habits. While cleanses get a bad rep, I like doing them periodically as a reset.

🛜 Less Social Media - Keep social media apps off my phone for the first 2 months of 2025. The apps I have removed are Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. I am hoping to build better habits and intentionality about my time on social media.

📔 Journal Daily - I know that I process through writing, so I plan to journal daily - anything from a photo to a sentence to an essay goes. I have been using Day One for my journaling for many years now.

This year's list has 25 items, making it a good candidate for a Bingo board. My daughter suggested that I create an incentive system for completing the board, so I will reward myself when I complete my first Bingo with a bubble waffle and a Boba tea with a friend.

As always, I’ll check in mid-year on my progress. Thanks for reading, and I wish you a happy and healthy 2025.

Have a wonderful holiday season and enjoy our “drone shot” of this year’s Christmas Village:

I remember picking up my 6-year-old from kindergarten, and the crossing guards at school waved us goodbye while holding back tears - that was March 11, 2020.  The night before, we went out to dinner at Din Tai Fung. It was empty - which has never happened before. The world felt ominous as if it was closing in.

This was the message from WA Governor on March 11, 2020.

Quickly, roadsigns all had a theme across the state:

This week, I’m talking about my memories and life during COVID. Overall, I reflect that while it was hard to imagine what life would be like - we carried on. Adam and I adapted, our kids grew, we celebrated milestones (differently), and slowly life resumed. COVID-19 never ended - it is still here with us, but the acuteness of a global pandemic has receded. Before I forget it, I thought I’d write down what I remember - the images, the stories, and the memories.

The next few weeks went by in a blur - I sent our nanny home, I canceled cleaners, and we drove to our cabin every weekend. We had gone to Costco at the beginning of the month, so we had no toilet paper crisis - I guess that was lucky. I figured we had enough until this thing was going to pass.

As a parent to two children aged 2 and 6, my job was clear - keep calm and carry on. So we went on walks, came up with science experiments in our backyard, found remote playgrounds, hung out as a family, played games online and drove back and forth between our cabin and our home.

Intellectually, I had, by now Googled the Spanish Flu and knew that pandemics last for one to two years. However, I desperately wanted to believe that everything will go back to normal in 2 weeks - just as the shutdown orders said. Two months later, when I finally stepped into a grocery store, I admitted to myself that life will forever be different.

Frontier of COVID

I worked at Microsoft in 2020 - and had a trip to China planned for middle of February. By mid January, the trip was cancelled due to a warning from the CDC of a viral outbreak abroad (COVID-19).

Kirland (where we lived in 2020) was the first place in the US with a confirmed case on February 28, 2020. This is a picture of our local market a day later where people started stocking up on food - you’d think we were preparing for a snow day.

The clip below is from the Economist on March 4, 2020 - as the world started talking about flattening the curve. In our community, we have been talking about this for at least a week before this article came out.

After the stay at home order kicked in, the playgrounds also closed - as a parent, I had a moment of panic that day because I didn’t know how we were going to stay sane. Luckily, the notion that COVID could be transferred through playgrounds was debunked quickly.

Restaurants

We also found the restaurants that adapted to COVID - our favorite one was a nearby (DERU) farm-to-table family place - overnight, it switched to a socially distanced restaurant with curbside pickup. The first time we ordered from them, there was a handwritten note wishing us well and thanking us for the business. Din Tai Fung (family favorite dim sum place), our local pizza chain (Pagliacci), and a steak house for fancy occasions, became our go-to.

Masks and Acceptance

When my colleagues from China offered us to send us some N95 masks, I got out my sewing machine and sewed Adam and I each a cloth mask. Then I made one for my parents. Humanity is a funny thing - even in the worst and most uncertain times, there was kindness and grace across the globe toward people you knew.  In August, I took the kids to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens in Bellevue, and I made them wear ill-fitting masks that I had sewn a few months prior. After that day, I went online and ordered masks in bulk - and I finally cried. I felt grief for the new reality without an end date that we were going to live in.

Zoom Life and Animal Crossing

With the extra time that we got, we gravitated to connect deeper with family and our closest friends around the country and at times the globe. We had a standing call with my family on Zoom every Sunday, Adam had one with his high school friends and we did an almost weekly call with our college crew where we played games online. Up until that moment, Adam and I had been part of a ~15 year long dinner club that met every Monday night. We converted that to a regular online call where we caught up and played games.

For Christmas right before COVID started, I got a Nintendo Switch and had just started playing Animal Crossing (a game where you tend to your island, grow fruit, and express yourself through an avatar). During COVID, I played a lot of Animal Crossing with coworkers and friends as well.

Also the learning curve on figuring out how to use online tools was real:

Baking with Grandma

I started baking - cinnamon rolls, challah and eventually made my way to my first Bundt cake. It started because I felt an acute need to connect with my older grandparents. My paternal grandmother has always been a wonderful baker and during COVID, she taught me how to bake over FaceTime. I remember when I was working on my first Yule log - I was scared of not being able to flip the cake out on my baking sheet. She sternly said into the camera  - “Do not be afraid of the dough! You are in charge.”  I’ll remember that forever.

New Normal - Now What?

We were able to better social distance at our cabin than in the city, so as restrictions loosened (restaurants opened to 50% capacity), we had visitors come through - and life continued.

We canoed in the lake, floated the river with friends, made a time capsule (we buried an N95 mask in it), and celebrated Adam’s birthday.

I remember feeling grateful for more time with family and also questioning my professional purpose. Did I have the most impact I could in a large organization as a middle manager, or was there more? It was, on one hand, scary to contemplate a change, but on the other hand, I went through an acute period where I wondered if the world was going to end...so changing jobs in that context didn’t seem as scary.

Remote Schooling 1st Graders

As summer days passed, it became clear that school was not going back in session in person.  What I knew for sure was that homeschooling a 1st grader and working full-time was not an option. There was a newly minted three-year-old in the mix, too, but I held out hope (and was correct) that private preschool would reopen. In hindsight, I’m amazed that I had the sanity and clarity of thought to not take on juggling remote learning. I credit Adam, who has always been great at naming when we need help and getting it.

So, using our Kindergarten class WhatsApp, we found 4 other like-minded families who wanted to form a pod. The parent group included a couple of product managers, parents from the real estate industry, salespeople, a lawyer, a designer, and an airplane engineer. We were all working parents and all on the same page with COVID safety and compliance and were committed to not “go it alone.”

We found a tutor, set up a weekly house rotation and we were off to the races. It was my single biggest lifeline during COVID - we stuck together as these five families. We had a weekly Friday night wine-down, celebrated every kid’s birthday together and hosted a progressive Halloween party. These became my people.  

We decorated for first day of school - since it happened at home:

Grief During the Pandemic - Holidays

The other thing I remember was how sad I was to not be spending Christmas or New Year’s with our extended families. I remember feeling an acute loss of connection time. I still have 3 living grandparents and especially in that moment, I wondered how many years we still have together and how important it was not to miss these milestones. But we made the best of it - Adam and the girls made meme videos, we opened presents on Zoom and I baked.

Christmas ornament I ordered on Etsy to remember this time:

Laughter is survival

We lived through history. And as I flipped through my pictures during this time, I saw a lot of memes, jokes, and online comedy. I am reminded of how resilient the human kind is and how much laughter eases pain and fear. Here were some of the ones I found on my phone from March to June of 2020:

There was a series of these videos, but the first one at the beginning of the pandemic is my favorite.

New Beginnings

Two things happened in 2021 - Adam and I started Mind the Beet on January 1 of 2021 and in March 2021 I left my job at Microsoft and took a remote role at Guild in Colorado. Never in a million years did I think I’d take a remote first job but in early 2021, it was apparent that we were years away from going back to being in person.

As expected, COVID didn’t really end, it became a thing we live with. When school went back in person in the spring of 2021, my oldest and I were walking, and she reflected about the good things that came out of COVID - she loved her learning pod, and we got to spend a lot more time as a family. We got lucky that we all had mild cases of COVID (not until 2022) and that no one close to us died.  

I think of these years - 2020- 2022 (ish) - as sitting on the beach and watching the waves ebb and flow. Sometimes I was able to swim and sometimes I need to sit out a big wave that it wasn’t safe to be in.  There were good moments of joy and connection balanced with immense pressure in tech to deliver and requirement to remain calm for my children.

Gratitude

What the world went through and what my family went through in 2020 was big and hopefully a once-in-a-lifetime thing. At the end of the day, my family specifically, got really lucky. To finish, here are the 5 things I’m grateful for out of this experience.

1. No one died in my immediate circle from COVID-19. I do not take that for granted.

2. Science - vaccines got developed at record speed, and life resumed.

3. My marriage survived this - I have friends whose didn’t.

4. The girls are ok - they were loved during this time, well taken care of and their academic and social development continued.

5. I finally got hobbies - I did not really have any before COVID but now I bake, and write and am a more interesting person for it.

There is a bit of a stigma on smell – maybe because it’s the one sense that is more about warnings and danger than the others – yet smells can also be associated with emotionally rich triggers and favorite times.

Anyway, it got me thinking about some of my favorite smells and the stories behind them.

Roasted Whole Coffee Beans

Inhaling the steam of hot coffee is nice, but for me, nothing beats smelling the roasted whole beans.   Doubly so after the pandemic, as many mornings I would lift the hopper in the coffee grinder to smell the beans as a sort of “Well, I probably don’t have COVID if I can smell that” test. Funny where new traditions come from.

The smell also reminds me of my coffee origin story.  Like many, it was an acquired taste born from the necessity of needing morning caffeine.  One of my first 9-5 jobs was working as a civilian on a Navy base and I remember thinking I better learn to like coffee.  Being in the Navy, it wasn’t just any coffee – it was strong, black Navy Coffee.   You could follow the tradition all the way back, I’m sure, to what kept Lord Nelson awake at the helm.   No, I didn’t ask for cream or sugar.  No one offered. I still drink it black.

The Inside of A Desktop PC

The faint smell of burnt dust. The grease from the articulating CPU clip. The factory-like smell of the motherboard material. Thermal paste. All of it brings me back. As a high school student in the United States of the 1990s, building my own desktop PC was the default hobby.   That is what I saved money for.  That is what I used the dial-up modem to do research on.   For me, getting a car was about taking a trip to Fry’s Electronics more than anything else. It was a craft, a hobby, and a social activity: the fun of LAN parties playing Doom and Quake were the fruits of the labor.

Tom Yum Soup

Nothing warms me up better than a bowl of this soup as the weather turns in Seattle. It’s one of the few foods where the smell is more distinctive than the taste.   I went down an internet rabbit hole once to find the source of the distinctive aroma, and it comes down to the root Galangal mixed with the lemongrass.

I don’t have a particularly strong relationship with Thailand or the Thai people – although it was the destination of my first extended trip after college before starting my professional life.   These “bookend” moments stick with us as more memorable than average as they mark a turning point in our lives.

Toasted Everything Bagels

The mix of dried onion and garlic warmed via direct heat is an almost overwhelming scent in a morning kitchen.  And it’s the breakfast of choice for my dad.  It’s one where I went from an annoyed teenager at my parents stinking up the kitchen to now something that fondly reminds me of home.  Funny how smells can age.

Baking Illustrated Chocolate Chip Cookies Straight From the Oven

Of course, a dessert cooking in the oven is an easy smell to love, and since Helen picked up baking during the pandemic, our house has been filled with such wonderful scents.

When it comes to my own baking, though, absolutely nothing beats the smell of chocolate chip cookies in the oven.  My family growing up was not a baking family, so it was a learned art after college as I started living on my own.   Chocolate chip cookies were one of the first things I ever learned to bake.  My recipe of choice was from Baking Illustrated, a book that was gifted to me by a good friend:

As an aside, this is an absolutely fantastic cookbook and a great gift.   It takes a scientific approach to cooking, including narratives on the 5-10 different experiments tried for each recipe to get at the why behind ingredient and method tradeoffs (this is where the extra egg yolk in the recipe comes from, making the cookies stay chewy longer according to their test kitchen).

Movie Theater Popcorn (with Butter)

This one seems like a guilty pleasure to add – as if I’m easily susceptible to the corporate machines.  After all, the whole point of the movie theater popcorn smell is to get you to buy something.  It’s supposed to be addicting.

Yet as I reflected on it, the local movie megaplexes were a large part of my suburban upbringing in the 1990s.  The re-release of Star Wars!  Toy Story!  American Pie!  My best friend worked as a manager at the local chain, too.

You got me right where you wanted me, Hollywood-Food-Industrial Complex.

Old Academic Buildings

It’s hard to place the origins of where this smell comes from – a mix of high traffic communal spaces, brick, aged wood, old furniture, and history.   But I love that distinctive smell of an old academic building.   For me, it’s a smell of comfort, safety, and feeling in control and in charge.  My alma mater UCLA was a coming-of-age experience filled with finding out what I wanted to do and making lifelong friends.   One of the things I love about the institution is its connection to history and a sense of traditions, something I never had much of growing up. I suppose they also have a special place in our family, seeing as Helen and I were married inside one:

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Wrapping Up

Food, hobbies, family, entertainment: the nose is a gateway to a deeper conversation and history.   Next time you want to have a deep and meaningful convo – ask someone what their favorite smells are.  Who 👃 what you’ll learn. 😊

After researching a variety of coaching options, I settled on Hudson because it offers a clear path to the industry recognized International Federation of Coaching certification, has an in person weekday experience and is a well recognized brand in the world of corporate Learning and Development.

As a first step on this journey, I participated in a week-long LifeForward experience that helped me contemplate shifts I’d like to make as I balance my personal and professional ambitions.

So in the spirit of sharing my lived experience as I go through this transition, I am sharing my board in this week’s post.

My Vision Board

Busier than ever - As I reflected on my time since I stepped away from full-time work, I immediately filled my days with “stuff” - kids, house projects, catching up with friends, tennis, and community volunteering. I loved all the things I dove into, but this “new” work swallowed me whole. So, the question that a coach posed to me that I keep coming back to is:

“What does my busyness get in the way of?”

The busyness prevents me from being intentional in how I spend my time as well as quality of output that I produce.

So, as I created my board, I kept space on it. I found it uncomfortable and difficult not to fill every inch of white with quotes, pictures, and goals.

Panel 1: My Personal Vision

The board consists of three panels. The first one, on the left, is centered on my purpose and reminders that will propel me forward.

For the purpose exercise, I went through 50 cards and identified the key ones that I want to lean into at this phase of my life. I did a lot of work to narrow this down to a manageable number of cards that are both relevant now and I’m not engaging enough in.

• Using my abilities - This is a nod that I intend to keep honing and practicing my craft. This entails product work, coaching teams and individuals, baking, and parenting.

• Staying Healthy - I plan to continue leaning into living a healthy physical lifestyle. I have been playing tennis and lifting weights, and I need to keep working on balancing my diet appropriately, as well as not getting injured as I dive into more physical activity.

• Inner Peace - This is an area of development and a reminder for me to calm the mind, be present and grateful, and have confidence in my own knowing.

• Connecting, Caring - What gives me joy in my life is connecting with people and caring for those I love. So, I want to do more of that.

Personal Vision Statement:

I also got a chance to workshop my personal vision statement - and while I wrote the first draft myself, I found it really helpful to workshop it with a small group of peers that I spent the week

Love myself as I am by living an extraordinary life, caring deeply and unapologetically, and raising good humans.

This statement is anchored around embracing myself as I am, which was a focus of my self-work and reflection. A big premise of coaching is that the answer lies within you. What I found is that the work ahead for me is to quiet my mind enough to be able to decipher a path forward.

Positive Reinforcement

The rest of this panel is all about positive self-talk. I remember coming back to Microsoft after maternity leave and seeing the nursing rooms be covered with stickies of fellow women lifting each other up with words of encouragement.

One of the exercises that I did was to write a letter from “Helen the Sage” (my 80-year-old self) to myself today. I found myself giving so much grace and positivity that I wanted to capture the themes that came up

Panel 2: My Identity:

Panel two of the board is about the key roles that I play: Mom, Leader, Coach.

Mom: With two young kids, being a mom continues to be a central part of my working identity. My kids need me in new ways today compared to when they were younger. So I am prioritizing spending time with them processing their days and emotions, extra study and learning time, as well as helping them focus on activities that give them joy (theater, swimming, and skiing for the older girl, and gymnastics, ice skating, and Girl Scouts for the younger). This is also the area of my life that has taken over in ways I did not intend as I stepped away from work. So I am seeking to rebalance this so that I am spending time where it matters most.

Leader: I am not sure if, in my next career chapter, I will go back in-house to be a product leader in some capacity or start my own practice, but whichever way I go, I know that leading people is a key aspect of my identity. I also know that I don’t have to be in a corporate environment to be a leader - for example, I’ve enjoyed stepping up in my local Girl Scouts organization as a leader.

Coach: I love being a coach and have been formally and informally coaching and mentoring people for many years. This is the role I am actively making more space for as I pursue a coaching certification with Hudson and decide if this is my next career chapter or a set of skills I take in-house to the next organization I serve.

I chose to have only one photo in the middle here, and it’s a ChatGPT creation of our family embracing technology because technology is the thread that pulls through my three identities - whether I am building tech, teaching tech to my kids or using it for my own business and development - it is central to my life.

The Getting Ready circle on the bottom left indicates where I am - which is getting ready for my next professional adventure.

Panel 3: Full Life

The third board is about hobbies that help me live a full and purposeful life centered around 3 things: Couple goals that Adam and I have, giving back to the community and traveling to expand my horizons.

✍🏻 Mind the Beet - Adam and I started Mind the Beet in January of 2021, and it has been an outlet for writing, giving back to our community as well as spending time together as a couple on non-transactional life things.

🍞 Community Loaves and Baking - I picked up baking during the pandemic, but now I bake for our local foodbank - HopeLink, as part of the Community Loaves organization. I love having the house smell of baked goods and helping alleviate food insecurity locally in our neighborhood. This is also an activity I’m able to do with my kids, and it allows me to talk to them about the broader issues at hand.

👧🏻 Girl Scouts - My favorite part about Girl Scouts is the opportunity to mentor and support young girls. So I am leading a Brownie troop for my youngest daughter and volunteering as our Service Unit Manager, leading a growing number of troops in my neighborhood.

🌎 Travel - This is a goal that is becoming more realistic as my daughters get older. For me, travel opens up the aperture on different ways of life, experiences and builds empathy. I’m excited to do more of it and keep focused on this area both as a family and with friends.

I’m excited to be investing in myself for the next 9 months as I pursue the Hudson Coach Certification program. Whether I end up being an executive coach or a Product Leader (or some combination of both), I know that I will learn a lot in the next year and grow. Onwards!

This tradition has helped us as a family define our approach to giving, which in turn clarifies what we value - and that’s the topic for today’s post.

Our Approach to Giving

When we graduated from college, we were both adrift when it came to donating money or time to charitable causes.   It was supposed to feel good giving money to charity – but exactly how good should it feel?  Where should the ideas on where to give come from?  How accountable should we feel for ensuring the investment achieved concrete outcomes?  

If you feel something similar, that’s perfectly natural.  Just like learning a trade, it takes time, experience, and a network to develop a philosophy and intuition.   Here are a few important things our family has learned about our charity as we intuit our way through this:

1. 🤗 Our donations say a lot about who we care about.   Often our giving is about supporting a friend or colleague.  It takes time to go through enough life to build a network and deal together with crises, but it’ll happen naturally if you are curious and open and care about your community. 

2. 🧠 + 💖 We use charity to define what we value.  Giving reflects what we value in this world.   It’s a cerebral and emotional exercise that helps us make simple statements about the world as we wish it to be.   We’ve found it helpful to separate the assessment of impact (will this gift make a difference? Is it enough?) from just the simple desired-world state (does this cause reflect the change we wish to see?).   Like the famous parable of the beach full of starfish, change starts with clarity of conviction.

3. 📢 We talk about why we give.  We used to find it hard to talk about donations, as there is a bit of a taboo when it comes to talking about things related to money.   But it doesn’t matter if you donate $5 or $5 million, 5 hours or 500.   Because our giving is a statement of what we value, when we talk about it, we do so with passion – why should we hide that?  Hearing about people’s own giving stories over the years is how we’ve forged some deep connections.

4. 💼 Non-profit boards teach valuable skills. In the past couple of years, we’ve started to experiment with donating time and energy by joining non-profit boards (Adam in the arts, Helen in Girl Scouts). It’s a way of meeting fantastic people outside our tech bubble, and it teaches valuable skills on balancing governance with board activism. We are early in our journey - our goal is for each of us to maintain one board membership at a time.

Our Biggest Causes

There is no better way to get to know our family than to learn about the causes we’ve supported this year.  The framework used here to describe this might be a useful model for your own thoughts on giving:

1. Define the area of giving

2. Pick a tentpole charity for the area based on both personal connection and what it says about the world you want

3. You’ll probably end up with a few other charities along the same theme

🩺 Health: ALS

What is it:  ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that slowly robs the body of its ability to walk, speak, swallow, and breathe. Every 90 minutes, another person in this country is diagnosed with the disease.

What it says about the world we want:  In just the past year, two treatments for ALS have been approved – that’s three in the past six years! We want to live in a world where science is supported and medical breakthroughs and research is funded to support cures.

Why it’s personal:   Earlier this month Helen participated in a walk to defeat ALS alongside with 30+ other moms in my neighborhood because one of our own has been afflicted with this awful disease.

Learn more: Walk to Defeat ALS

Other charities in this category:  

• Kick Childhood Cancer Guild at Seattle Children’s Hospital. Childhood cancer has touched the lives of some of the people we are closest to and we continue to prioritize supporting groundbreaking research in this area as Research Champions for Seattle Children’s Hospital. We are dear friends with a family who recently achieved a 4-year goal to raise over $1M to this guild.

• Pink Boat Regatta - This charity raises money to beat Women’s Breast Cancer - a cause near and dear to our hearts this year as a close friend has been re-diagnosed with breast cancer.

• Alzheimer’s, MS and Diabetes have touched the lives of some of the people we are closest to and we prioritize supporting groundbreaking research in these areas.

• Make a Wish is one of the coolest ideas for a charity ever known and even more so now that we know people who personally have been recipients of the charity

• Be the Match is a fantastic organization helping cancer patients find bone marrow donors. We not only support the cause but also ensure we renewed ourselves on their match database.

🆘 Local Safety Net: Community Loaves

What is it: After training and ingredient controls to ensure proper food safety, our family bakes bread and cookies at home that can be donated to local food banks.

What it says about the world we want: Homelessness is both a local and national issue and solutions require a mix of public and private partnership.   It is not enough to just say that our tax dollars will solve this problem.   This is less about changing the world and more about every generation finding the humanity to invest in the safety net.

Why it’s personal: This is a hands-on way of contributing to food security in our community that integrates our family’s love of cooking with our charity plans.

Learn more: Community Loaves

Other charities in this category:

• Mary’s Place, Hopelink and The Sophia Way are three medium-sized charities in this space that we support. All have a lasting impact on helping with homelessness and helping women, children, and families on their journey out of it.

• The United Way – King County has long been a strong regional partner on this problem.  We are leery often of the high overhead costs of the larger mega-charities, but this is one of our exceptions given the need for big-picture leadership and regional solutions.

👩 Women Empowerment: Girl Scouts

What is it: The Girl Scouts organization prepares girls to empower themselves and promotes compassion, courage, confidence, character, leadership, entrepreneurship, and active citizenship through activities involving camping, community service, learning first aid, and earning badges by acquiring practical skills.

What it says about the world we want: A lot of progress has been made (especially in the United States), but the work continues. As we raise two strong women in our household, we want them to help build a world where they can be anything they put their minds to and create this reality for themselves.

Why we give: Our youngest daughter got involved in Daisies a few years and we can really see how this is becoming to be a formative experience for her. This year, Helen has also stepped up to be on the board of the regional office of the Girl Scouts.

Learn more: Girls Scouts of Western Washington

Other charities in this category:

• Society of Women Engineers (swe.org) - A famous organization, especially on college campuses, for giving a voice to women engineers and a conduit for leadership opportunities.

• Girls Who Code is building a pipeline of future female engineers. 

🎓 Economic Opportunity: UCLA

What is it: A large public university that is the engine of economic opportunity for tens of thousands of people every year.  

What it says about the world we want: Public universities are one of the biggest crown jewels of the United States and their unique role in at-scale impact of economic opportunity is unparalleled.  Their function as an epicenter of culture, research, and learning only happens with continued investment and support. 

Why it’s personal: UCLA was foundational for us.   Not only is it where we met each other and some of our closest friends, but it is also where we both came of age and developed our worldviews.  It was a step-function experience for both of us.  Our giving is focused on scholarships and particular programs that we benefited from when we were students, like the Engineering Student Projects fund.  This is the most “Pay it Forward” aspect of our giving.

Learn more: Give to UCLA

Other charities in this category:

• Lake Washington School District Foundation/Local public school PTAs and Foster School of Business all have had an impact on our families.  We are byproducts of strong public education.  

⛰Conservation: Chelan County Land Trust

What is it:  This land trust champions conservation and community forests in Eastern Washington – helping protect rivers for salmon restoration or forests for hiking and recreational use. 

What it says about the world we want: As Global Warming becomes one of the defining issues of our time and more people live in the state of Washington, our forests and natural spaces will need people to stand up for them.  Local and contextual action will be key.

Why it’s personal: This land trust was involved in purchasing a piece of forest near one of our favorite State Parks (Lake Wenatchee).  The forest was about to be clear-cut and then sold.  The land trust was able to put together a local and national coalition to purchase it at a fair market value from the logging company.   While we’ve donated to more global conservation groups in the past, we’ve found a lot more meaning by going local.

Learn more: Our Land, Our Water, Our Future | Chelan-Douglas Land Trust (cdlandtrust.org)

Other charities in the category:

• Washington Trails Association has done more to create accessibility to nature in this state than any other organization.  

• Washington State Parks Foundation is a nonprofit that augments the government support for our state parks.

• The Arboretum Foundation stewards the park where we went on hundreds of walks when our kids were infants, creating a deep connection to the park.

🎭 Culture and Sports: Studio East Training for the Performing Arts

What is it: Since 1992, Studio East inspires young people to become confident, compassionate, and responsible through training in the art and craft of theater.

What it says about the world we want: Every generation needs to set the tone between art and science.  As we both get older, we’ve appreciated art as a balancing force to some of today’s biggest technological ills and an aspect of our lives that engenders introspection.

Why it’s personal: Our oldest daughter aspires to be an actress and Studio East has been an avenue for her to explore that passion.

Learn more: Studio East Training for the Performing Arts.

Other charities in this category:

• Adam has been on the board of the Bellevue Arts Museum (BAM), as supporting the arts and local artists in our community makes for a more vibrant Eastside. Unfortunately, BAM hasn’t been able to thrive after the pandemic and we made the tough decision to close the doors to the museum this year.

• Theater has been a big part of our lives - both supporting the San Diego arts and Los Angeles arts (where we grew up respectively), we now pass it on and support our local 5th Avenue Theater in Seattle.

• Wave Aquatics - A big part of our oldest child’s life is swimming so we support the program that she participates in year-round.

🌍 Global Poverty & Education: Mimis African Charities (MACONA)

What is it: This charity extends a helping hand to youth and children in need, primarily in West Africa.

What it says about the world we want: While much of our giving is local to the PNW, we also look to support friends and colleagues who take a global perspective or have a connection to another part of the world.

Why it’s personal: This charity was featured in the community lounge of a tech conference that Adam was the Co-Lead of this year. A work colleague and his spouse are deeply involved in this charity.

Learn more: Mimi's African Charities

Other charities in this category:

• Another discovery from members of Adam’s team is Pencils of Promise, supporting global education.

📰 Free Press & Information: Wikimedia Foundation

What is it: The foundation that supports Wikipedia, the internet’s crowdsourced encyclopedia.

What it says about the world we want: One of the biggest tensions of our time is the benefits vs. harms of technology on our society. Wikipedia is so clearly one of the internet’s greatest triumphs.

Why it’s personal: Out of any of the charities on this list, Wikipedia is the most used by our family.

Learn more: Wikimedia Foundation

Other charities in the category:

• We support KUOW, our local public radio

• Adam talks about his entire reading habits and approach to quality journalism in My Information Diet.

⚖ Justice: Seattle Holocaust Center for Humanity

What is it: A local organization dedicated to fighting hate in all forms and focused on educating students, teachers, and the public about the dangers of intolerance through the lens of history.

What it says about the world we want: “The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.” – MLK Jr. encapsulates the side of history we wish to be on.  Progress is key to the industry we’ve chosen but it’s equally important we make progress on social justice, tolerance, and civil society in equal step with new tech.

Why it’s personal: A few years ago, a work colleague of ours was taking a civic leave of absence to work with this organization and a few others.  We thought it was so cool to see someone in our network lean in deeply to causes, interrupting his busy life in a meaningful way.

Learn more: Holocaust Center for Humanity

Other charities in this category:

• This year, we’ve also prioritized the ACLU as we feel the need to ensure important battles being fought in U.S. courts land towards the arc of justice.

• The Obama Foundation has a focus on providing support for young changemakers in America.

• Trevor Project focuses on suicide prevention for LGBT youth and a coworker of Adam is connected to this cause.

One More Potential Path to Epic: A DAF

For those later in their career who are looking for a more lasting and bigger way of having an impact, we wanted to share one thing that we did as a family a couple years ago: we established the Harmetz Family’s Donor Advised Fund (DAF).

DAF’s can be used for many reasons but our DAF’s purpose is to put money away every year with the goal of being able to make a single, large donation to a charity upon our retirement.   We don’t know the organization or cause we wish to support yet, but we were intrigued by the notion of being able to have a singularly large impact vs. ongoing yearly support.

DAF’s can be set up with most financial advisors.   Think of it as an investment account where proceeds can only be used for charitable causes.  While there is a management fee on the money, there are several advantages to a DAF:

• You can transfer unsold stock into them to avoid paying capital gains on profits.

• You get to deduct the funds when you put them into the account, not when you spend.  So you can add funds during high tax rate years or otherwise arbitrage over the years.  

• Profits from investments in the account grow tax-free, although can only be used to donate.

For those with matching gift programs via their work, you get matched by your company upon withdrawal/donation, not when you put the money into the DAF.

Wrapping Up

Hopefully this posts helps you get to know us a little better as you learn about what we value and some of the awesome people we’ve met in this world.   The point here is to inspire – feel free to leverage this framework for your own plan even if you support different causes or worldviews.  

This framework can be used no matter how much you have or want to give and we aren’t nearly so formal as this write-up implies (indeed, the act of writing this post was 10x more organization and synthesis to our giving than we’ve had before).   Just get started. 

We average ~8K reads a month (mostly from our network with email and LinkedIn, but with 1K/month from Google Search), a 40% email open rate, and a slow but steady subscriber growth rate that reflects our organic growth from word of mouth:

A common question we get from our readers is how do we write “together” so here is a behind the scenes peek on how Mind the Beet runs.

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What is the product?

Mind the Beet newsletter is about our life - life as leaders, as product people, as a couple and as parents. As a marketer and a product maker, I know firsthand that the best product is one that is focused - so we contemplated only focusing on parenting or only focusing on product leadership - but it did not resonate or ring true for us. So we write about the key facets of our life because you can’t beat the truth.

So our marketing mix is pretty simple:

• Product: Helen and Adam’s life as leaders, product people, couple and parents

• Price: Free

• Place: Substack

• Promotion: Sporadic LinkedIn, Threads and Instagram

Where do post ideas come from?

Our ideas are made up of things we’ve learned where personal experience would add something a search engine or ChatGPT couldn’t. Examples of those posts were how to write a career reel, how to hire a nanny, how to deal with mom guilt while traveling. Long car rides are perfect for our brainstorm sessions.

We were worried that we’d end up writing a lot of “lists” posts - top 5 tips to do X - and while some of our posts are that (My 10 Favorite Productisms, Our Picks: Top 5 Children’s Books in Our Household Library) most actually are not. What surprised me in our creation process is how natural it was to incorporate interviewing other people (Interview: First Year as a Product Manager).

What hasn’t worked super well yet is having guest writers - we’ve had one (How to Empower a Friend to Make a Career Decision) and we’d definitely love to have more guests come on and share their lived experiences.

Since the “product” of our newsletter is us, we double down on content that is timely. Adam and I have both reflected on our work anniversaries/transitions (Celebrating 19 Years at Microsoft with 19 Lessons, and Mega-corp to growth stage start-up), our wedding milestone, back to school - we both try to find the nuggets in there that would be worth reflecting on and sharing.

Lastly, we also give ourselves permission to update and repost our newsletters - our life and lessons learned are not static. So sometimes our points of view, lessons learned or perspectives change. As that happens, we take an old post, update it with latest thinking and repost it.

How do you actually write together?

Despite common tropes of couples working together being a terrible idea, for us, it’s been a great way to have non-transactional conversations. The average American couple talks to each other for around 20 minutes per week - and this is our way to create additional space.

What are the characteristics of our best post?

• 1000- 1200 words or less helps our readers get through the content; anything longer and people start skimming and less than 1000 words feels too fluffy

• Scannability is key - Breaking up the posts with imagery and headlines makes it be more accessible

• Personal experiences resonate a lot more than esoteric or industry specific commentary

• Our most commented posts are those that make people feel seen for the struggles they face (Burnout & Boredom: A Manager’s Pandemic Retrospective on Mental Health)

How do you make the time for this?

We have two kids and busy lives so to make something like this work on a regular basis, we are very explicit about Mind the Beet being a priority for both of us. We each aim to have one solid post a month and accept that the other week may be an update or a repost.

Support comes in many ways - the transactional support of managing the kids on one of the weekend mornings, help with making the social cover for the post or stopping to review and provide feedback on the post.

Another form of support is acknowledging and not judging each other for our different approach to workback schedule of a post. I don’t mind the stress of a deadline and often will start with an empty page on a Saturday morning and get to a draft for Sunday publish. Adam prefers to work incrementally throughout the week, marinating and iterating on a post. Interestingly, over the last 3 years, we have periodically flipped our approaches and both learned something from that experience as well.

What’s your actual writing workback?

T - 2 weeks - Adam starts thinking about his post; Helen does life things

T-7 days - Adam finalizes his topic and the hook in his head; Helen does life things

T-3 days - Adam writes his first draft; Helen starts thinking about her post

T-1 days - Adam submits for peer review after multiple edits; Helen writes her first draft and submits for peer review

Publish day - Adam pre-posts for a 7am publish time 90% of the time; Helen puts the finishing touches and publishes by 10pm 90% of the time

How do you give each other feedback?

A key part of our writing process is a “peer review” - we do it on every post and we are better writers for it. Over the years, we’ve both learned how to provide it in ways that resonate with us.

For example, Adam prefers to hear observations or issues with the post, but doesn’t want a solve to be offered. He often seeks to know how something made me feel and where he needs to get more personal. On the other hand, I appreciate feedback that helps me organize my posts better. I sometimes bury my most impactful story at the end and Adam helps me re-order and amplify key points.

We also remind each other that our feedback is just that - one person’s observation and it is ok to take what you like and leave behind what isn’t helpful.

I love our collaboration because of how much better my writing is once it is reviewed by someone I trust.

Mind the Beet Trivia:

1. The title “Mind the Beet” came from a quote that resonated from Tom Robbin’s Jitterbug Perfume - read more about the origin here

2. We almost went with “Midlife Pro Tips” as a name.

3. A post about Adam’s love of Vessi’s shoes got thousands of views when we had less than 100 subscribers - and we still don’t really know why.

4. While both Adam and Helen are listed on the Hidden Gems for PM's Inside Taylor Swift Lyrics, Adam was the mastermind behind it and it is our most popular post with 23.5K views.

5. My mom categorizes all of our Mind the Beet writing into war or peace posts. Our war posts are the detailed posts on work best practices and the peace posts are the ones on life and parenting and things that spark joy.

Thank you all for being a part of our community and journey. We love getting comments, notes and post ideas from you. So please keep them coming!

Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari [Non-fiction]

Releasing this week, this book by the author of Sapiens examines information networks throughout history - how they have shaped events, how they have been used as weapons, and the relationship between information networks and truth. As someone who works on productivity and content management - building information systems for organizations large and small - I’m especially interested in this one as it applies to the new Era of AI.

Hum by Helen Phillips [Creepy speculative fiction]

This book is set in a dystopian big city of the future where the air is eye-stingingly polluted by the smoke from distant fires and many people are unemployed by a new class of intelligent robots called “hums.” Tapping into the worst fears of our future, it uses this backdrop to explore what it means to be a human, a parent, and a spouse.

Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki [Unique modern-day fiction]

Set in modern-day Los Angeles, this book mashes together demons, space aliens, the youth classical musical performance circuit, and Asian American culture to explore the lived experience - the covering, anxiety, seeking of safety - of transgender youths. It’s a book that reminds you we all have something to learn about fitting in, finding family, and experiencing life deeply.

The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart [Fantasy]

Andrea Stewart has a new series coming out this month, but since I’ve never read her work and it was highly recommended to me, I plan to start with her previous breakout fantasy series. Epic worldbuilding, palace intrigue, high-tension drama between characters - it checks all the boxes to enable me to disappear into another world.

So, while I now have more time to achieve all of my goals on my 24 for 2024 list, I am choosing to re-examine this list and remove items that don’t make sense for me right now and add ones that are more fulfilling and rewarding for where I am today. So with that, read on to see where I’m at.

Foster a Sense of Community (1-4)

👩‍🍳 Join Community Loaves as a volunteer baker - Done. I struggled to get going on this while I was working, but I have successfully joined and started contributing cookies about a month ago!

☕️ Host a mom’s party - Not started

🩸Donate blood 2x - Not started

✅ Compile holiday cards into a binder -Done

Build Healthy Habits (5-14)

🚶‍♀️Walk 7k steps a day - On track

🏋️‍♀️ Weight training 2x a week - On track. A friend and I workout with a trainer 2x a week and it has been both fun and helped me with accountability

🥗 Track food 5x a week - Not started. I cannot get myself into this habit so will cut my losses on this one

⚕️ Get a mammogram - Done

💧Drink 80 oz of water a day - On track

🏃‍♀️Do 2-4 5ks with a friend -0 done so far but I have hope that I’ll at least get 1 in this year

👩‍❤️‍👨Monthly date night with Adam - On track

🔐 Set up and use a password management- Done

👚Organize sweaters in my closet - On track. This project has expanded to a remodel of our main clothing closet in our bedroom.

📝 Write for 2-4 minutes every day - On track. I have been journaling everyday as part of my sabbatical using Day One.

Travel (15-18)

🌎 Visit a new country as a family - Done. We went to Mexico as a family and have made plans for Fiji and New Zealand!

👩‍👧Do a trip with each of my daughters - On track. The oldest and I have done a trip and I am working on a plan with my younger daughter as well.

🗽Trip to NYC as a family - Done!

🌄 Visit the Grand Canyon -Done! We also did a sunset family photoshoot in the Grand Canyon, and that was incredible!

Professional Development and Learning (19-23)

💡Consult as a Product Manager for a start-up - Done! I worked with an AI art start-up, Suited Canvas, for 3 months

📚 Complete two more coach training courses - On track and evolving. I’m going to evolve this with the goal of obtaining a full-on executive coaching certification. I likely won’t finish it this year, but I’ll be happy as long as I start and have a plan to finish. Stay tuned for more on this!

💬 Get to 4,800 followers on LinkedIn - Not started and not really a focus anymore for this year.

🎊 Play with 2 new products a month and write about it - Not started - While I am playing with new products, I have not found inspiration or motivation to write about them

📖 Complete 1 Reforge module a week to advance PM craft - Not started - I will do some continued development but no longer have a goal of doing this weekly

Spontaneity (24)

I left one empty to fill in once I had a better idea of the year, but here is a list of a few things that I am adding in:

🎤 Take a trip with my dad - I have never done a 1:1 trip with my dad and we both love country music, so we are going to explore Nashville together in the fall.

☕️ Do a face-to-face coffee/walk a week - I have been reconnecting with friends and colleagues and have been getting a lot of energy from this

🍽️ Host an outdoor dinner party - I am craving to entertain more, so planning to host a few dinner parties to keep fostering connection

Thanks for reading and helping me stay accountable to myself! If you are new to our Substack, here is a list of some of our top posts by genre:

🏄🏻‍♀️ Career:

Three Key Lessons from a Growth Stage Start-Up by Helen

💎 Advancing from Product Manager to Product Leader by Adam

How does a product leader manage their time? by Adam

🛠️ Product:

💎 Hidden Gems for PM's Inside Taylor Swift Lyrics by Helen and Adam

💯 How to Thrive as a GPM at Microsoft by Adam

Honing my skills as a product manager by Helen

🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒 Parenting:

Work Travel and Mom Guilt by Helen

10 Lessons in 10 Years of Parenting by Helen

👨‍🍼My First Year of Fatherhood: Polished Memories by Adam

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