Strategic Neglect

My new favorite practice

Last chance: Are you in NYC?

If you've ever been to Park Slope in Brooklyn, chances are you've noticed the awesome Superhero Supply Store on 5th Avenue. Did you know that it's actually a front for a super rad nonprofit called 826NYC, which serves thousands of New York students every year by giving them the skills, experience, and educational support to write their own stories?

If you’re in the area this Wednesday, August 13, join us for an 826 x Uplifters Service Mixer. It’s a no-cost, three-hour, come-as-you-are opportunity to lend a hand to a great cause, connect with other Uplifters, peek at the hidden classroom behind Superhero Supply, and eat pizza. We have limited space, so RSVP HERE if you're interested in joining us.

Late Bloomers! 🌸

I'm on the hunt for women whose stories will make us think, "If she can do it, so can I!" Whether it's a complete life pivot, a long-delayed passion project, or finding courage they (or you) didn't know they had—I want to hear about it. Hit reply or fill out this form to nominate someone for our Late Bloomers series.

---

This morning, I watched a seagull completely ignore a perfectly good piece of bread someone had thrown on the dock. Instead, it kept diving for something much harder to catch in the churning water. Over and over, coming up empty-beaked, then diving again.

Smart bird.

I've been thinking about this since interviewing Alex Stried for last week’s episode of the podcast. She’s kind of a rockstar in her field, and I wanted to understand what had helped her be so consistently successful in her career. As I listened to all of her responses to my questions, one clear pattern stood out to me: while most of us scatter our energy across a dozen small, manageable tasks, Alex focuses all of her energy on pulling apart the biggest, hairiest problem she can find. One strand at a time.

It made me decide to practice something I’m calling “strategic neglect.” I am deliberately letting less challenging tasks wait while I lean into what actually scares me.

The big challenges don't get smaller when we busy ourselves with email management and content calendars. They get bigger, more tangled, and the mental weight of avoiding them gets heavier.

My client Sarah discovered this when she realized she was spending hours perfecting her already-excellent workshop slides instead of reaching out to potential clients. The slides felt urgent because they had deadlines. The outreach felt optional because, well, no one was waiting for those emails.

But which one actually required more courage?

Another client, Maria, noticed she was reorganizing her business systems (again!) instead of having the scary conversation with her business partner about profit-sharing. The systems work felt productive and necessary. The conversation felt... avoidable.

Since my conversation with Alex, I've been experimenting with a morning question: what's the biggest, hairiest problem I could actually tackle today? And yes, it's meant some of the reliable stuff gets ignored for now. My inbox isn't at zero. My content calendar has gaps. But the big stuff? The book proposal, the difficult client boundary conversation, the next scary step for the podcast? Those are finally getting untangled.

This is strategic neglect at its best – not abandoning our commitments, but temporarily letting our comfortable, consistent work wait while we dive for what requires real courage.

You can listen to my full conversation with Alex below.

Interested in becoming a paid subscriber?

You’ll help us continue amplifying uplifting women’s stories and get instant access to our paid subscriber benefits, including:

• A weekly virtual co-working session to do deep work and a one-song dance party with other passionate, creative folks

• Weekly journal prompts that will help you keep working and playing bigger and braver!

• Access to our Uplifter chat

• Early access to live and virtual special events

• Our full archive of episodes and newsletters!

✨ As always, you can listen to every episode of the podcast for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Substack, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also watch new episodes on YouTube!