Sourcebooks

Toxic Grit - How to have it all and (actually) love what you have 
COMING OCTOBER 21, 2025!

Author

Be Clear Communications

We help progressive organizations and their leaders build robust digital presences that reflect their values, elevate their message, and reach the audiences who matter most.

Advisor

Anonymous

Chief Marketing Officer

🧩 Life’s a Game, HLG Projects

Marketing Consultant, Brand Builder, Creator and Author of Life's A Game: An anti-hustle newsletter about building a life on your terms. Personal and professional growth tips and frameworks delivered every Thursday at 8am.

Founder

The Post

Brought on by board as Fractional CMO to grow and scale The Post: the leading community for Leaders: Built By Sport.

Shaklee Corporation

Consulting with the global leader in health & wellness supplements working on innovation & partnerships and go to market positioning of new products.

VP of Marketing - Consultant

House of Wise

Empowering women to take control of their SLEEP, SEX, STRESS and STRENGTH with trusted CBD products.

Founder, CEO

Nue Life Health

4 month contract as fractional CMO to help with brand and marketing strategy.

Teal

6 month contract to help with positioning, team building and go to market strategy.

The Knot Worldwide

Following the December 2018 merger of XO Group Inc. and WeddingWire: We are The Knot Worldwide. With the mission of helping all couples around the world plan every aspect of their unique weddings, The Knot Worldwide is positioned to innovate and accelerate growth in the global wedding industry through The Knot, WeddingWire, bodas.net, and its family of leading wedding and lifestyle brands across the globe. The Knot Worldwide will deliver leading wedding marketplaces, wedding websites, planning tools, registry services and more to over 20 million unique visitors each month internationally through our brands. We're excited for all that is ahead for our brands, our couples, and our partners.

VP of Marketing

Amanda Goetz is a 2x founder, 3x CMO, brand builder and content creator on personal and professional growth and brand building, inspiring over 150,000 people every week through her social insights and weekly newsletter, 🧩 Life's A Game.

Amanda Goetz, was the founder and visionary behind House of Wise, a wellness company focused on creating space for more sleep, hotter sex and less stress. She started House of Wise during the pandemic in her garage, raised two rounds of venture capital and sold it in 2022 all while homeschooling three young children as a single mom.  

Born and raised in a single traffic light Midwest farm town, Amanda is a first generation college grad. Her dad is the town plumber & electrician. A self proclaimed over-achiever, Amanda worked three jobs in college while maintaining a 3.9 GPA and graduating early. 

Fast forward to 2017. Amanda found herself in NYC with 3 children under the age of 5 and navigating a divorce at the height of her career. Living life by a societally-approved checklist of success left her nearly broken. She spent the next 6 years unlearning hustle culture and learning a new way to approach her ambitious life. 

Amanda was the former head of brand for The Knot - the global leader in weddings. Previously, Goetz served as a startup founder building availability software for the wedding industry after spending years analyzing companies for Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur Of The Year program. She also worked for celebrity wedding planner David Tutera as Head of Marketing developing the go-to market strategy for his brands, licensing deals and client partners.

She has built an audience of over 150,000 in the startup and business community learning to live a life of ambition and success without subscribing to today’s hustle culture. She launched a newsletter called 🧩 Life’s a Game with Amanda Goetz to help high performers learn actionable tips for living a life of intention.        

Amanda’s been featured on Access Hollywood, The Skinny Confidential, Forbes, Business Insider and more.

Amanda Goetz

I stopped bringing my whole self to work. 
And I stopped bringing my work self to home. Let me explain…..

The work version of me is assertive, cares about deadlines, financial security and being at the top. 

The home version of me is silly, soft and cares about being the best mom and caregiver possible. 

Those two versions of me don’t often see eye to eye and yet we are constantly being told to find “alignment”. 

My book is about how alignment isn’t always possible. 

It’s about:
- awareness of the character that’s leading
- prioritization 
- focus on their character’s goals 
- timeline for how long you wjlm focus 
- transition sequences to the next character 

Check out my latest op ed for The Wall Street Journal in the link below. 

And if you struggle to make space for all the diverse versions of yourself - grab a copy of Toxic Grit now!

USA TODAY Bestselling Author of Toxic Grit | 2x Founder (acquired) 5x CMO | Mom x3 | Keynote Speaker | Subscribe ➡️ 🧩 Life’s a Game Newsletter

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Popping on to say this: for every day I spend offline during this post book tour spin cycle….

the more ideas start flowing. 
the less anxiety I feel about the algorithm. 
the more clarity I have about 2026. 

If you never stop to pause and look up, you might miss the beauty of the changing landscapes on the climb.

I'm creatively tapped after my book tour so I'm running a spin cycle. 
If you are feeling the same.....steal this below 👇

Story time....I've spent the two years: 
- writing a best selling book 
- publishing a weekly newsletter for almost 80k people
- conducting interviews for the Girlboss podcast - Ambition 2.0

In Toxic Grit, I talk about “spin cycles” as intentional seasons where you wring out the heaviness that’s built up....... the pressure, the stimulation, the expectations, the constant output.

It's not quitting.
It's not laziness.

It is maintenance.

A spin cycle is a defined period of time where you reduce your RPM so you can keep going without burning out.

Here’s what my current spin cycle looks like:

1. Lower the creative bar
No “big” new projects. I’m focused on maintenance mode only: my FT CMO role and my weekly newsletter. Everything else is being held until next year. 

2. Shift from output to intake
I’m reading more, listening to conversations, and paying attention to what’s landing with people instead of trying to force new ideas. 

3. Tighten my containers
Shorter work blocks, hard stops in the evenings, more white space on the calendar. The constraint is what gives my brain room to reset. 

(and resisting the urge to use that white space for scrolling)

4. Name what can wait
I have a literal list called “Not right now” for every fun, shiny idea that pops into my head. It goes there, not on my actual plate.

5. Redefine “progress”
During a spin cycle, progress is: rested brain, clear thoughts, regulated nervous system. 

Save this for the next time you feel tapped out and ask yourself:
What would a 2–4 week spin cycle look like for me?

What can I pause, simplify, or say no to so I can actually keep going?

This is the path to sustainable ambition.

The number one complaint from employees I talk to? Lack of context + micromanaging. 

I've been silently working in a full time CMO position since July and I can't wait to share more about it soon. 

But I wanted to share the operating rhythm that I have used for 10+ years to increase context and agency across the functions of marketing. 

EVERY WEEK: 

Monday: Async priorities 

I send out an async email called "managing up monday"
This email does 2 things: 
- everyone replies with their 2 main areas of focus for the week so we know where everyone's brains are at
- allows everyone to update the dashboard with previous week's metrics

Tuesdays: 1:1s and team chat 

All of our weekly meetings happen on the same day to get aligned for the week. Since we already know what people are focused on we can use this time to either remove roadblocks or brainstorm ideas. 

Wednesdays: Hallway chat

Now that we are moving and groovin' for the week we use 1 hour on Wednesday for a "sync'd Slack hour". This mimics the hallway chat where you casually ask for the updates and things you need from someone. 

By doing this in Slack at the same time you ensure everyone gets a prompt answer AND everyone gets line of sight into other things moving forward. 

Thursdays & Fridays are open for deep work and closing out the week. 

Thoughts?! 
What do you find that works for your team?

So excited for this event!! If you are in NYC - please come by for this powerhouse event with Girlboss and Her Workplace 

See you December 15th!

✨ NYC, we’re ending 2025 with a moment. ✨

​Join Her Workplace and Girlboss on December 15th for an intimate fireside chat with Amanda Goetz—2x founder, 4x CMO, and author of Toxic Grit—as we explore how to balance drive with joy, ambition with alignment, and growth with grace.

🎤 Redefine ambition without the burnout
📚 First guests receive a signed copy of Toxic Grit
🤝 Connect with women rewriting the rules of success
🍷 Sip Juliet Wine & enjoy an evening powered by Blu Dot

Close the year in a room that fills your cup and your ambition. 💛

Register here—https://lnkd.in/eYU9Xs6V

Toxic Grit isn’t a success just because I worked hard. (I mean, I did work hard but that wouldn't have gotten it to best seller status alone....)

It’s a success because people showed up for me.

Friends who posted the book without me asking.
Podcast hosts who invited me on before they read a single word.
Former coworkers who introduced me to the right editors or hosted events at their companies.
And yes....I had to actually put myself out there and ask for help.


Me asking for help on LinkedIn.
But here's the thing...

Most of the help didn't come from cold networking connections.

These were people I've kept in touch with for years.

People who I have checked in with when I didn’t need anything. I sent voice memos when I saw they were going through something. I celebrated their wins like they were mine.

So when it was finally my turn to ask?

The trust was already there.

A lot of people get networking wrong.

Even the word itself feels transactional. “Be in my network” is just code for: “I’ll contact you when I need something.”

But community?
That’s different.

Community is built when you show up before it’s convenient. It's when you give without tracking what you’re getting back. It's when we remember that humans aren’t LinkedIn headshots...…they’re living, breathing, emotional beings (likely going through their own shit).

I believe it’s more important than ever to have a community of people supporting you through the ups and downs and life yet it’s harder than ever in this current social media landscape.

And to all of those who have been that to me along the way....as I found myself a single mom of 3 kids under the age of 4....as I found myself moving to a new city with no friends or family....or as I shifted careers....

....I'm so thankful for you.

Today's newsletter goes into how I think about networking and doing it differently. 

Read it here ➡️ https://lnkd.in/ebw89dUw

graphical user interface, text, application, email

Being a CMO of a new brand launching in Q1 while planning a wedding on a book tour. 

AMA. 

🫣

I took a week off from posting after the first leg of my book tour wrapped and I have to be honest.....I am creatively zapped. 

Every time I go to post something, my brain just......fizzles. 

Is anyone else feeling this way?

My portfolio career Black Friday wish list.....

1. Wish = Less time on social media 
Must have ➡️ Taplio 
30% off today!! 

I barely log into LinkedIn these days because I schedule all my content on 
Taplio. Use code BF30 at checkout! 

2. Wish = Less time in email & scheduling 
Must have ➡️ An EA 

I use Athena EA for my services. Get $2000 off your EA using my link below. 

3. Wish = More time back for other parts of your life 
Must have = USA Today Bestseller ➡️ Toxic Grit: How to have it all and (actually) love what you have

I wrote this book to share all the systems I use to juggle work, life and everything in between. On sale today!!

This week on Ambition 2.0: we sit down with Erika Ayers Badan, former CEO of Barstool Sports, current CEO of Food52, bestselling author of Nobody Cares About Your Career, and all-around master of building a career entirely on her own terms. 

Erika shares candid stories from her time leading one of the most controversial (and successful) media companies in the world, what she’s learned about managing men and underdogs, how to stay emotionally regulated at work, and why she advocates for not bringing your whole self to work (compartmentalization can actually enhance your authenticity). 

🎙️ Listen to Ambition 2.0 here: https://lnkd.in/gsrfr7cC 
💻 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gGTD-pT4 

Don't forget to like, subscribe, and let us know your biggest takeaway (there's lots!) ✍️🙂‍↕️ 

Amanda Goetz

Brett Goldstein

caught up with a good friend who just got a job making $700K/year

it sounds like a lot but it really doesn't feel like much when you think about it

they will be working at an elite tech company where their colleagues own equity worth orders of magnitude more

when your peer makes $2.5M/year, your boss makes $4M, their boss makes $7M, and that random guy on another team who is a level below you but joined early makes $10M....

$700K doesn't feel like much.

but its a trap to think this way.

1. money buys experiences - and oftentimes taking massive pay cuts to start a company or something else is one of the best experiences you can have.

2. there's always a bigger boat - the guy making $10M certainly wonders why he doesn't make $50M. no one is ever happy unless they pull themselves out of the rat race.

3. focusing on money is how you lose it - delivering value to customers and stakeholders precedes earning a lot of money

#founder #career

Founder/CEO/Designer @ Micro | Investor @ Launch House | micro.so

know a lot of people shutting down companies right now

the truth is that this happens to most startups

but the best founders (which includes the folks I know shutting down) are insanely positive and optimistic the whole time

the only difference between bezos and these founder's I know in my opinion is hitting the right idea at the right time

which means startups are a game of chance where the longer you stay in the game, the more likely you are to succeed

#founder #startup

words of wisdom if you're thinking about starting a company

"its like staring into the abyss and eating glass"

as musk points out, you spend most of your time focused on whats going wrong and no one can figure out themselves.

what he doesn't say is that you can have some of the highest highs of your life hours or days after your lowest lows.

that has been the hardest part for me.

#founder #startup

here comes another bubble... and you can laugh if you don't want to win

I love this video because it perfectly encapsulates this absurd moment in time.

its easy to sit on the internet and make fun of these people who seem delusional about what's going on.

but the reality is this:

the people in the arena make the money

even if this is a bubble, the experience you get chasing opportunities helps you win them later

so get off linkedin and get in the area and build something!

there are no longer any excuses now that AI has made building so easy.

#AI #startup

this video got hundreds of thousands of impressions and only cost $700

the main reason it was so cheap was because I personally wrote, directed, filmed and even did a little editing for it.

its the ultimate lesson in founder mode - I wasn't satisfied with any of the creative work I was seeing so I just did it myself

we may do the same for the next video.

also - link to our product waitlist in the comments!

#founder #content

there are dozens of billion-dollar (maybe trillion) business ideas in this video

sam altman puts it simply "there is something new to build to replace the current productivity suite that is the AI driven version"

he is alluding to a pattern that happens every single paradigm shift that the greatest entrepreneurs all know

whenever there's a major tech or cultural shift..

you can literally just rebuild existing software but for the new paradigm

so the opportunities in AI are to rebuild:

- word / docs
- outlook / gmail
- salesforce / hubspot
- excel / sheets
- powerpoint / slides

there are startups tackling each of these and there are already billion-dollar companies:

Gamma targeting powerpoint just announced a fundraise at a $2B valuation

my company, Micro is going after all of the above at the same time (minus slides). it sounds like a lot, but in a world with tool overload, our thesis is that the ultimate winner of the AI-first productivity suite will just bundle everything.

will throw some more information in the comments, but the opportunity before every entrepreneur here is the biggest I've seen in my career

#founder #startup

I finally figured out the secret for managing tons of projects

my productivity has literally 10x'd

take a look at this rundown of how many of the most successful people in the world did it.

there's one thing in common: FOCUS

paradoxically, if you stay relentlessly focused on single things at a time and say no to everything else, you get WAY more done.

here's how I do it:
- every week I figure out the most important things to do for my company in order
- I block 4 hours every morning to do those things
- I DO NOT move on to other things until they are done

most importantly, though, I've used Micro, a kind of all-in-one tool that automatically keeps everything organized.

I've also started to use AI agents in the product to automate mundane tasks like labeling emails, updating my CRM pipelines, etc.

the product is still in private beta but if you want an invite sign up for the waitlsit below and let us know you came from linkedin

#founder #productivity

what’s the lore behind choosing your career path?

I'll start... I got laid off from a job I didn't like during the pandemic. No one else was hiring, so I was basically forced to start my own company. It went pretty well and was the most fulfilling work I'd ever done, so now I just build companies for a living.

#career #jobs

notion has a lego problem

ivan describes notion as "lego for software"

which is everything you need to know what holds it back but also makes it addicting.

legos are really fun to build with, but never produce anything as good as the "real thing"

RC cars smoke lego cars every day of the week

similarly, notion is really fun to build with, but isn't comparable to real tools like linear or hubspot

the value of notion, like the value of lego, truly is the joy of building, not the end product

so what can notion do?

same thing lego did - expand the building blocks

at some point they bought a company called Technic, that has totally different pieces

and was purpose-built for creating cars that actually perform against RC

for notion to survive the AI era, it needs to do the same: overhaul their building blocks to create 10x more powerful tools

what do building blocks purpose-built (like Technic) for core use cases like CRM, project management, and more actually look like?

of course, notion is a big company and unlikely to make any big changes like these

which is why we're going after this opportunity ourselves with Micro :)

check it out in the comments

#productivity #notion

if you're going to fundraise, you should do it right now.

this analysis shows that the week of december 15th sees nearly DOUBLE the average number of funding rounds close than any other

that's because VCs want to wrap things up so they can head out for the holidays

it hints at a classic fundraising strategy that closes the biggest rounds even in slower weeks:

CREATE URGENCY

VCs like to drag their feet - they're biased to waiting and collecting more data on you.

in the worst fundraises I ran, I had VCs literally drag out conversations months only to ghost me entirely - only a few gave me a lukewarm yes or no.

this is death for startups, and the way to avoid it is to create urgency.

here's a few ways to do that:
- group all your VC meetings around the same period and remind them all how many other folks are interested
- give a clear date that you will be making allocation decisions and apply the pressure beforehand
- do your raise ahead of a big moment (launch, press story, or even a fake "fundraise") and remind VCs how much attention you'll get

#founder #fundraising

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The Battle

Amanda Goetz

Brett Goldstein

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreAmanda Goetz's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreBrett Goldstein's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Amanda Goetz

Brett Goldstein

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Amanda Goetz's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreBrett Goldstein's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreAmanda Goetz's LinkedIn Performance