elletwo

There is no substantial difference from my day-to-day activities now to a year ago.   And yet, everything is different. Not because the activities are different but because the understanding of what all of it means is. A year ago, I was happily running telehealth programs. I was writing daily for elletwo. I was working with clients in the telehealth and behavioral health spaces. I was building Medicare strategies for companies across the country. But I was still searching. I still spent Saturday afternoons with this distinct feeling that I had not figured it out. I would feel like I was running circles around myself trying to figure out why I had so many individual pieces that made me happy but no big picture to put them all into. I don’t know why I felt like I needed a big picture, but I did. I was desperate for the thing that would make everything come into focus. Life felt fuzzy, even if I loved it. I would amble around feeling like I was on the brink of something all the time. I was so close to figuring it out and never got there. We have all of these hard conversations calling BS on what we’ve been told about working while being a woman, but are those enough? We wrote about burnout and mental health, but was that enough? We offered telehealth services and built programs for other people, but was that enough? It wasn’t. And then, after a particularly tough experience, it all came into focus. I was building all of this to go back in time. I wanted to run my clinic again. In a matter of hours, I knew what we were building. LBee Health was born. The founding leadership team was signed on. And I knew what enough was. And now . . . we’re here. Nothing is certain, but I am at least certain that I’m moving in the right direction. No more searching. No more spinning. No more restless anxiety about what’s on the other side. That’s priceless. #thehighrise #elletwo #teamdifficult #womenintechnology #judgementfreezone

I never imagined a day where elletwo wasn’t the end game. We built other things at the same time, but they were always there to keep the coffers full while we built the thing that would be the forever plan. The big dream. The persona, the company, the reach, the network, all of it. Is it possible to have two end games? I have been wrestling with that a lot lately. The answer is, yes, it is. You can have more than one big dream. If you know me and my history, having more than one dream is absolutely wild. Indescribably wild. Unfathomably wild. I spent years and years of my life without a single plan or goals. We were just surviving. We were just getting through the best that we could. There was no other option at all. The world was varying shades of gray without a spot of sunshine or color. When you’re just surviving, you can’t dream. There was nothing I wanted to do other than get to bed that night and make sure my bills were paid. Then, I decided that better had to be out there. And I set out to find it without any idea what it could possibly look like because I hadn’t even had the strength to imagine it. Now, not only do I dream, I can’t turn that part of my brain off. I know I’m in a rough patch if I don’t spend any time daydreaming or scheming. So yes, we can have two dreams, and we will nurture them both with the help of an amazing team that keeps me on track while deliberately letting me go off the rails when it matters. We are focusing on building The High Rise as the place it has always been, the safest place on the internet for women with big mouths and fewer effs to give about how it’s supposed to be done. For those who need more than just a friendly ear, LBee Health will be there. We can build them both and do them together. #thehighrise #elletwo #teamdifficult #dreambigdreams #entrepreneurwoman

Pivots are not failures. Pivots are the end result of learning and identifying where the need is. It’s easy to feel like you have failed if you didn’t do what you set out to do, but every one of those exercises is based on assumptions. And you know what they say about assuming. When our elletwo projects were forced to the back burner due to other competing priorities, I thought I had failed. The company has my name on it. How could it not be my main priority? It was supposed to be my legacy. A dear friend smacked me in the head and reminded me that that’s still the case. And we’re not giving up. We’re just shuffling the order of operations. The reality is that everything we have built in the last three years leads to what we’re growing now. We can’t have one without the other. We have the medical side and the social side, and the two need each other to grow and thrive. Similarly, if I want to continue to grow and thrive, I need to give myself a break for the times that things don’t go as planned. So, like, every time. I don’t know why I forget that my plans almost never work out as I envisioned them, and that’s not a complaint. They’re always better. I’m giving myself grace because, as much as this community is my whole heart, my whole soul is in the intersection of this and something new. The two together are the legacy. #thehighrise #elletwo #teamdifficult #womeninbusinessrock #judgementfreezone

New on the blog - thank you Sharon Hurley Hall (she/her) for sharing your insights. 💜 Check out Sharon's post below! #elletwo #thehighrise #teamdifficult #community

I had big dreams. Giant ones. We were going to get our community, The High Rise, to 500 members. We were going to become a global media empire. I was going to get used to putting my face everywhere and be less self-conscious and lose 100 pounds so we can take over the world for all of the women who are fed up with all the things . . . Those are not the dreams anymore. They weren’t bad dreams. They weren’t the wrong dreams. But they changed because I learned more things about myself and what I actually want. The attention? That ain’t it. I struggled a lot with the idea of changing what we were building because it felt like a failure. The idea of a media empire and a giant community was the first thing we were going to build. But things change, and I feel so at home in what we’re doing. Transitions are natural. Changing plans does not mean that the previous attempts were failures. We learned so much from what we tried, and it’s all still here, living and nearly breathing, to be consumed. From here, we will continue to grow The High Rise and post content on elletwo, but I’m not sure we need to be the global media empire that I planned on being. I think we just need to help the people in our orbit with one or many of the various and sundry tools that we have put together. We need to keep writing. We need to keep saying that things are wrong when they are wrong. I would still love 500 people in our community, but I would also love for the people who are there to feel nurtured, safe, and supported. This transition feels good. It feels natural. It feels easy. It feels like consolidation and growth all at the same time. And it is right. So very right. #thehighrise #elletwo #teamdifficult #dreambigdreams #womeninbusiness

New on the blog: The Allure of Dreamcrushing by Hannah Kanfer. #elletwo #TheHighRise #TeamDifficult #elletwoBlog

“No offense, but this client is as bad at making decisions as my wife is at deciding what she wants for dinner.” laughs in corporate (IYKYK) I was sitting in a Zoom meeting when a senior colleague made the above comment. Of course, every other person in the Zoom room was a cis man, and while some looked visibly uncomfortable, most chuckled or smiled at the “joke”. Why didn’t I just say something out loud? In hindsight, I really wanted to say: “REALLY, [insert generic white guy name]?! First off, if you have to preface your thought with ‘no offense,’ JUST DON’T SAY IT. Second, your wife probably cannot decide about dinner because she makes TEN THOUSAND DECISIONS A MINUTE AND HAS DECISION FATIGUE. Seriously, do you even make your own haircut appointments and pack your luggage yourself? Do you know your kids’ homeroom teachers’ names? No? Then sit the f*ck down.” But even with how outspoken I am, I was still afraid to say anything at that moment. Aside from the awkwardness of this being a virtual meeting (I’d like to think I would have had more gumption in person), I was the only woman in the room, and I was also one of the only non-senior-level members of the group. I felt like a grub—a worm who was afraid to stand up for herself and other women. And I know I am not alone in this. Let me explain: [want more? check out my elletwo blog post, "Breaking Bread, Breaking Barriers: A Refusal to Eat Alone at My Desk"-- https://lnkd.in/g_DMNF9N] #ElleTwo #TeamDifficult #RedefiningProfessionalism #ThisAintYourFathersProfessionalism [gif description: "we are worms! worthless worms" scene from Hercules] _____________________ Don't miss a post from me ----> ring my bell 🔔 and follow my hashtags hashtag #TheRealDrBatGuy🦇💜 & hashtag #RedefiningProfessionalism "My Feminism will be Intersectional or it will be Bullshit" - Flavia Dzodan *My views are my own and do not reflect those of my employer* ~I do not condemn anyone’s right to protect their peace and safety through silence. Being outspoken can be dangerous for many people— your safety is paramount.~ All the links: https://linktr.ee/ShevaGuy

Come join us in our community, The High Rise! #thehighrise #elletwo #teamdifficult #community #womenineverything

On the blog: Competition Is a Myth: https://lnkd.in/e9RNWsXi #elletwo #teamdifficult #elletwoblog #redefiningprofessionalism