2025 was a year of reckoning for me both personally and professionally. I got to experience the joy that is perimenopause, continue navigating my ADHD, and I got to witness women standing up to weaponized incompetence at home and systemic bias at work. My Top 5 from 2025 are the themes I couldn’t stop thinking […]
I have the phrase “find comfort in the uncomfortable” tattooed on my arm; it’s a reminder that growth happens in the uncomfortable, and while this is true, it’s also my trauma response. I sought out hard things, not to grow, but to punish myself. My comfort came from the chaos; if it didn’t exist, I […]
“Bode, you seem angry. You should take a break.” I’m not angry, I’m f*cking nuclear. I’ve spent my career fighting for small businesses, standing up for vulnerable populations, and building a community where people look out for each other. Now, I spend my days talking with business owners who are shuttering their doors, laying off […]
(If I hear this one more time, I’m gonna throat punch someone.) If I had a dollar for every time a technical or contracting company said, “We don’t do marketing*,” I could fund my own tradeshow booth next to Lockheed Martin at AUSA. With lighting. And carpet padding (and actual comfy chairs). Every time, I […]
“Can a person live on iced, shaken espressos only?” I texted my best friend, Sue. “Yes,” she responded. That, right there, is why Sue is my best friend. The past two+ years have been the hardest of my life. I was diagnosed with ADHD (at 45). I faced a situation that tested everything I had […]
It was standing room only. Business owners packed into a room to talk about something most of us avoid like the plague: ourselves. Not our services.Not our logos.Not our team’s credentials or the client list we’re proud of. Us. Because here’s the truth: people don’t buy from logos—they buy from people. And if you’re not […]
Imposter syndrome won this past weekend. I think I spent most of Sunday staring at a wall, contemplating all of my failures. What a great time. Highly recommend spending your day like this. I don’t typically sit around and feel sorry for myself, but these past two years have been absolutely brutal. It caught up […]
Travel is stressful enough without dealing with complete and utter...people who apparently forgot how to act in public the second they stepped into an airport.
Look, I travel a lot. Like, a LOT lot. And after years of trial and error (and some spectacularly bad packing decisions), I’ve got my travel game semi-down. Some of my most recent travels had me scratching my head at other travelers, so I turned to the women who know best: my friends. These women […]
“What on earth are you watching?” I ask Josh as I crawl onto the bed in our motorhome (in our driveway) and lie down next to Frank*, the office dog (picture below). *We brought Frank to our house for the weekend so he could run around the yard and sleep in a real bed. Josh […]
