Hello, fellow tinkerer 👋 -

Happy Wednesday. My kids only have 8 days left in the school year, which is wild to me. On top of that, my oldest will be in high school in the fall. 😭

I've heard the saying, "The days are long, but the years are short" and it is TOTALLY true. If you're a parent with older kiddos, I'm sure you'd tell me that in another blink of an eye, my son will be graduating from high school.

1) Reflection:

The more I think about my kids going off into the world, the more I think about my own journey. The choices I've made may influence the way they think about their own lives and careers.

I hope that some of the career choices I've made have modeled different options. I stayed with one company for a long time (15 years!). I pivoted to an entirely new career. And now I'm self-employed.

I think it's important to talk to kids about work because it's such a big part of our lives. I interviewed Brooklin and Rebecca Nash, co-founders of Beam Content, about their work and its impact on their family. A lot of what they said really resonated with me. You can check out the interview here.

2) Tip:

Recently, I got the following DM on LinkedIn:

I’ve been grappling with a question. I know I have value to add, but I don't know when it's time to leave my current job and go all in with freelancing.

I get this question regularly, and I don’t have a good answer because I decided to freelance after I lost my full-time job. Though I’d been thinking about it for months, the timing was decided for me. Honestly, I’d been waffling over the “right time” to make such a huge career change. After I have a certain number of clients? After my youngest child starts kindergarten?

If you’ve been asking yourself the same question, or thinking about any other big life decision, you can work with Nell Wulfhart, The Decision Coach. Nell is a former journalist (love that!) turned professional decision-maker. In one session, she’ll help you make one big decision and feel confident about it. You can click here to book your coaching call with Nell.

3) Product:

I've been working on a rebrand for several months and am starting to roll out the results across my online presence (!). As part of that, I wanted new headshots.

I did a session with a professional photographer a few years ago. While I'll still use those photos, they weren't quite right for some of my needs.

I used Secta Labs to generate new headshots using AI. Hundreds of photos to choose from, all created from selfies I uploaded. I selected a few that I'll be able to use in different ways.

You can check out Secta Labs here and use the code ANNAY0196 during checkout to get 50% off. This code can only be used 5 times, so act fast!

That's it for this issue of Tinkering! See you again in two weeks.

Cheers,
Anna

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Want more ideas?

→ My friend Sarah Duran is hosting a free workshop about turning your side hustle into a sustainable business. Sign up here.

→ Abha Malpani Naismith recently interviewed me for her newsletter, Working Mums Club. You can check out the interview — and video recording! — here.

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