Order my USA TODAY Bestselling book: toxicgrit.com TOXIC GRIT: How to have it all and (actually) love what you have. It will help you create a new approach to ambition and find space for all the diverse parts of yourself. Join 75K+ others who read my newsletter 🧩 Life's a Game at amandagoetz.com. It’s full of free tips to play the game of life at a whole new level. In 2018 I found myself at the height of my marketing career with 3 kids under the age of 4 and filing for divorce. In a world telling me to find alignment......I realized that was impossible. The work version of me didn't want to leave early to go be with the kiddos. The mom version of me didn't want to miss a moment with them. I wanted to be fiercely independent and yet also wanted to find love again. Other versions of me didn't want to feel responsible for anything or anyone. This diversity within me led to the creation of my Character Theory Framework. This framework helped me to create space for the 10 characters that make up the movie of your life:  The CEO → wants to pursue big goalsThe Partner → desires companionship  The Soloist → cares about personal growth and development The Caregiver → deep desire to take care of others and show up for themThe Goddess → wants to be desired and pursue pleasure  The Lazy One → loves to couch rot, no goals whatsoever The Socialite → values connection The Creative → desires creation and creativity The Doctor → your inner health &amp; wellness character The Explorer → craves novelty And it helped me. I was able to let go of the idea of balance and give permission for hierarchy, boundaries and the transition sequences necessary to embody these diverse characters. So I put it all in a book and it was an instant best seller!! I'm so excited for you to create space for all parts of you and to see ambition as multi-dimensional. Follow me here for advice as I build a multi-hyphenate life as a CMO, Author, Mom of 3 and getting married again. 

Amanda Goetz

I took a month from posting to really sit with myself and think about what I wanted for 2026. Here’s why….

I spent a lot of the last year in survival mode. 
After a divorce with 3 small kids I was always proving. Pushing. Needing to provide for my family. 

But now I’m on stable ground and yet my nervous system hasn’t caught up. I still feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

That I need to prove I’m worthy. 
That I need to prove I’m smart. 
That I need to prove why I’m here. 

So this year my word is ENOUGH. 

And I’m going to spend the year learning what enough looks like. 

To be enough. 
To earn enough. 
To do enough. 

I love my new CMO role. 
I have a new exciting writing project this year. 
I’m hosting season 2 of the Girlboss podcast. 
And my weekly newsletter is a constant creative outlet. 

That’s enough. 

More isn’t always better. 

So if you are also planning to drive the speed limit in 2026 - follow along here as I’ll be sharing what I’m doing and learning along th way.

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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I’ve been struggling with 2 things lately:

1) it’s clear that when I spend less time on social media, my mind is clearer and I can write from a place of curiosity and purpose. 

But then when I contribute to social media I feel like I’m feeding the beast that is stealing our curiousity and clarity. 

2) The loss of social from the media. 

The closer I got to big creators, the more I found out about the “teams” behind their posts and replies. I can also clearly tell when someone is using AI to reply to posts. 

So what are we actually doing here? 

The point is to connect and inspire. To evoke thoughts and inject nuance into conversations. To drive awareness to things that people may not see from their seat in this world. 

Anyway….if I’ve been a little MIA on here it’s because of these thoughts. 

I deeply crave meaningful conversations and I am trying to find the right medium to having them.

Another great episode of Ambition 2.0 with @girlboss and Malissa Clark 

Check it out anywhere you get your podcasts!

🗣️ Repeat after us: You can love your job and still be a workaholic.

In this episode of Ambition 2.0, Amanda Goetz sits down with Malissa Clark, a professor at the University of Georgia, Director of the Healthy Work Lab, and author of Never Not Working: Why the Always-On Culture Is Bad for Business—and How to Fix It, to break down what workaholism can look like in real life (spoiler: it’s not just about working long hours). 

They get into the sneaky “working light” tasks that we tell ourselves don’t count as work (like sending emails while watching TV or checking Slack between errands), how leaders accidentally create always-on teams, and so much more. 

🎧 Listen to the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/eKd9rtCv 

💻 Or watch the episode on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/eRqNjSN6

Continuing on my journey of “enough” - it’s important you plan your work around your life. Not the other way around. 

I approach my yearly planning the same way I approach building a marketing calendar as a CMO. 

I slice the calendar in 4 ways:

- Annual tentpoles & events
- Quarterly launches
- Monthly beats
- Weekly non-negotiables

Reminder: Use this link to get your 🧩 Life's a Game Planning calendar. ⬇️⬇️

Open article: 🧩 Life's a Game: Your 2026 Game Plan by amandagoetz.kit.com

Today’s newsletter has already gotten more replies than I normally get. I think this topic resonates…

Check it out and let me know. ⬇️

https://lnkd.in/eHCRCS4b

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Loved this convo with Alexa von Tobel - check it out and let me know what you think!

In this episode of Ambition 2.0, host Amanda Goetz sits down with Alexa von Tobel—the founder of LearnVest (where she raised $75M and successfully sold it to Northwestern Mutual) and current founder and managing partner of Inspired Capital—to unpack the resilient mindset that has shaped her successful career, from founder to venture-capital veteran.

Alexa dropped out of Harvard Business School and poured her life savings into LearnVest, a multimillion-dollar business idea—despite warnings from nearly everyone around her that she was making a big mistake. She did it in the middle of the 2008 economic recession, no less.

🎧 Watch or listen to the full episode, now live on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts! 

https://lnkd.in/eq-wEGjd

Open video: From Harvard Dropout to VC Powerhouse: How to Bet on Yourself with Alexa von Tobel | Ambition 2.0 on youtu.be

From Harvard Dropout to VC Powerhouse: How to Bet on Yourself with Alexa von Tobel | Ambition 2.0

Placing top overseas operators with pearltalent.com

Monty Ngan

I spent nine months at McKinsey & Company before leaving to start my own company. And the skill that turns consultants into Fortune 500 CEOs isn't what you think.

It's not the frameworks or the client access or the brand on your resume. It's learning to perform while feeling completely out of your depth.

One alum described it as being pushed around by the environment of a lot of other smart people. Not mentored - pushed. 

When you're 23 sitting across from a CFO twice your age, you learn real fast that the gap between what you know and what's expected doesn't shrink. You just get better at operating inside of it.

That pressure rewires how you think. You stop waiting to feel ready. You figure out how to be useful before you have the full picture.

It stuck with me when building Pearl Talent. Some of the sharpest operators I work with have never seen the inside of a consulting firm. They built that muscle in scrappier environments - got handed chaos and started fixing things before anyone told them how.

You don't need McKinsey to develop that. You need environments that push you before you feel qualified.

#startups #entrepreneurship #leanstartups #leadership #hiring #recruiting

Co-Founder @ Pearl Talent | Specializing in placing top overseas operators

A Filipino SDR just booked a $110k deal from a company that ignored them for 5 months.

The founder told me the account the whole team had given up on - marked as cold in the CRM and no one wanted to touch it. But their Pearl hire asked if he could take a swing anyway.

He rewrote the entire approach, found a different entry point, and got a reply in four weeks. A lead no one believed in just turned into their biggest win this early in the quarter.

This founder almost didn't try offshore again after his last agency sent him two people who quit within a month. Now he's already talking about scaling to twenty hires with us.

Here's what most people get wrong about hiring globally: 

They think the risk is the talent. It's not. The risk is who’s doing the finding. Most agencies cast a wide net and send whoever bites. 

At Pearl Talent, we optimize for something harder to measure: the kind of person who looks at a dead lead and sees an opportunity.

This is hire one. If he's doing this now, I can't wait to see what twenty looks like.

#startups #entrepreneurship #leanstartups #leadership #hiring #recruiting

Claude Code just helped a CTO finish a year-long project in one week.

Developers spent their holiday breaks on what they're calling "Claude benders," testing what the tool could do. Some felt awe, but others felt a strange sadness watching it replicate skills they'd spent years building.

Placing technical talent every day at Pearl Talent, here's the nuance I think people are glossing over:

The CTO who finished that project in a week? He still spent 10 hours a day directing it. The AI handled execution but he still had to know what to build and why.

That distinction matters. 

And it cuts deeper than most people realize - AI doesn't just reward good judgment. It exposes who never really had it.

For years, technical complexity was a place to hide. You could be valuable just by knowing obscure frameworks or debugging edge cases even if you never questioned whether the thing should be built at all. But that’s not enough anymore.

The best engineers we've brought on for our clients at Pearl have always been the ones who question the brief before diving in. That instinct is what keeps teams from shipping in the wrong direction faster.

AI tools don't change that. If anything, they make it more obvious who has it and who doesn't.

#startups #entrepreneurship #leanstartups #leadership #hiring #recruiting #ai

What do you do when you're asked to hit a number that’s 4x the industry average?

For Fabrizio Alcocer, the answer was simple: make a list of top priority things to fix and get to work.

Early last year, the rate by which we were placing talents with founders had never been higher than 30. We were already way ahead of the industry benchmark of 11 monthly placements, but we wanted to go much further. 

At the same time, we didn’t want to compromise on the quality and still aimed to be selective of who we match with our clients.

So when Isaac and I brought Fabz in as our Recruitment Director, we gave him a bold goal: to break the 30-per-month ceiling without breaking our standards.

He got down to business. He separated Matching and Recruitment into two focused departments, built automations to make processes faster and more reliable, and set clear quality standards and metrics for every recruiter.

Within weeks, he had already created clear accountability structures across the board and was off to break the record.

Just last December, their team hit 31 placements in a month. And fast forward to today, their team already matched 45 talents with 4 days to spare.

That's 4x the industry average – done in less than a year.

What struck me is how he took ownership this quickly. He was a new hire yet he stood up to the challenge and led the team fast.

At Pearl Talent, Isaac and I don't just find people who can do the job. We find people who see a ceiling and don't stop until they break it.

Fabz is proof that the right person breaks expectations- they redefine them.

The toughest decision every founder has to face is whether to give up on someone or help them grow.

NVIDIA's CEO has a clear answer to this tension: push them to greatness first before letting them go.

Jensen Huang believes that if he hired someone, he already believed in their potential- so firing them easily means questioning his own judgment. So when someone underperforms, he doesn't ask "who can replace them?" but rather "what's missing?"

At NVIDIA, this philosophy has created one of tech's most demanding environments- Huang believes that if someone can handle the pressure without breaking, they'll become exceptional.

Building Pearl Talent for 3+ years now, I’ve seen where Huang’s approach works and where it doesn’t.

For one, I agree that firing people is not the immediate answer. When a talent falls short, that doesn’t mean they’ve already checked out. 

Someone falling behind may just need clearer direction. Someone struggling with new skills may need better training. Someone repeating mistakes may even point to an issue with the system itself.

But I don't agree with Huang framing development as torture. You can push people to grow without burning them out.

Our best performers at Pearl didn't need crushing pressure to excel- they needed clarity on what excellence looked like, consistent feedback loops, and space to implement what they learned.

The truth is, Huang's approach has built world-class talent at NVIDIA.

But I don't think pressure is always needed to produce greatness. Sometimes, it's all about seeing what someone could become before they see it themselves.

#startups #entrepreneurship #leanstartups #leadership #hiring #recruiting #nvidia #leadership

The same person who 5x'd our newsletter open rate in 3 months also spent his free time building me a custom Lego minifigure.

This is Marc Ryan Ogalesco, one of our Growth Marketing Associates at Pearl Talent.

He's the guy who spends his days buried in data dashboards and conversion metrics. The kind of person who enjoys digging through spreadsheets to find what's not working.

But he’s also the kind of guy who crafted a miniature Lego of his boss for Christmas - and that says something about how he operates. He pays attention to the small things, whether it's a campaign detail or a random gift.

At his previous company, he built performance tracking systems that marketing and sales teams both ended up using daily. That kind of cross-functional buy-in usually takes months of convincing.

He also did desktop research on 2,000+ brands and turned raw data into reporting that sales could run with. On top of that, he led partnerships at another org and helped grow their online presence to 157,000 reach.

Now at Pearl, he's taken it even further.

In 3 months, Marc took our newsletter open rate from 10% to 50-60% and click-through rate to 30%. He turned a nice-to-have into a channel that actually converts.

There's a difference between someone who completes work and someone who builds infrastructure. Once you've worked with the latter, it changes what you look for in every hire after.

#startups #entrepreneurship #leanstartups #leadership #hiring #recruiting

Most founders don't get to choose whether they're a peacetime CEO or a wartime CEO - truth is, the market chooses for us.

When Isaac and I started Pearl, I thought the hardest part would be the actual work of building a company. Finding the right people, closing deals, keeping clients happy. The things you can see and measure.

But the real challenge has been learning how to lead when the ground keeps shifting underneath you.

We're bootstrapped, we 5x'd revenue last year, and we're pushing to do it again this year while AI reshapes our entire industry by the month. There's no neat playbook for scaling at this pace in an environment this unstable. That's wartime.

And honestly, it's forced me to confront parts of my leadership I didn't know needed work. 

I've had to get comfortable making calls before I have full buy-in. I've had to learn that small gaps in execution aren't small at all when you're moving this fast. I've had to zoom into details I used to delegate while still somehow holding the bigger picture.

The surprising part is that wartime doesn't mean being anxious all the time. It doesn't mean running on fumes or treating every day like a crisis.

It means the decisions feel heavier and the margin for error is thinner - and that's also where the growth happens.

A former xAI employee just revealed how Elon Musk motivates his team.

He said an engineer was setting up new GPU racks when Musk walked in with a challenge: finish a training run in 24 hours and take home a Cybertruck.

The engineer did it and the truck now sits outside the xAI office.

On paper, it's the kind of story that seems to deserve applause. The team member showed up, got challenged on the spot, and delivered under pressure without flinching. That's the type of person every founder wants on their team.

But where I get conflicted is their team’s fast-paced, individualistic culture.

The ex-employee shared that xAI barely has deadlines because projects are pitched and completed quickly that due dates become irrelevant. Everything was always overdue yesterday, so you’re expected to finish it as soon as possible.

Speed then is just the baseline- they’re rewarded for pursuing good ideas the same day and showing it to Musk or the intended customer.

I get the mindset: shipping fast is a competitive advantage. But pushing this to the extent of trading off your employees' well-being is where the line has to be drawn.

A Cybertruck can get someone to sprint once, but it won't make them stay.

Running Pearl Talent, the best teams I've built and worked with don't just run on adrenaline and prizes- they run on trust, ownership, and a pace that's fast but not reckless.

Urgency shouldn't require burnout. And if it does, it's already a culture problem.

This VA found 2 investor follow-ups sitting unanswered for weeks.

A founder friend reached out to us needing help with ops. His team was scaling fast and things were already piling up, so he wanted someone to manage the extra admin work.

We placed him a standout VA from the Philippines.

Just in her first week, she found missing follow-ups from two of their warm investors because of the founder's full inbox. And after flagging them, she built a priority system without being asked.

This is exactly the caliber we look for at Pearl Talent. 

She was hired for basic admin work but spotted a major gap and decided it was hers to fix. Because of her, the founder was able to keep his investor pipeline strong.

It's rare to find that kind of proactivity and ownership no matter where you're hiring from - but it's the baseline we look for in our talents.

Because many founders move fast but miss key points - and sometimes all it takes is a fresh set of eyes to catch the details that could cost you.

One piece of advice I keep giving to my founder friends: Keep a high bar for who you let into your circle.

It sounds simple but I think it’s an underrated business skill that’s real for both life and work.

In life, your day-to-day is a mirror of the people you’re around the most. You match their pace and adopt what they treat as normal, and over time that becomes your standard.

But at work, it's even more amplified. These are the people you spend most of your waking hours with. You build and solve problems with them, and their energy becomes yours too.

So when Isaac Saul Kassab and I started Pearl Talent, we were obsessed about finding team-players. More than phenomenal folks, we wanted people who made the room’s energy better.

Do they lift everyone else’s curiosity? Do they prompt the team to think more sharply? Do they raise everyone's game with their presence?

Isaac Saul Kassab and I don’t just look at hard skills- those can easily be taught. We prioritize how someone supports the people around them and helps their team deliver.

That's why I can sit in a room with our team today and genuinely want to be there- the people here just make all the hard things feel lighter.

Hiring for skills gets you output, but hiring from a team-first mindset gets you a group of people who will consistently deliver results.

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