IN THIS EDITION:
The first official mastermind write-up is here with wins & requests from members, and a stunning summary from Simone on the two hot seat topics from this month:
1) Networking & selling yourself
2) Context switching, capacity and focus
MEMBER HIGHLIGHTS FROM OCTOBER:
The Big Wins: Celebrating Our Members!
We kicked things off by sharing our wins, and there was so much to celebrate:
🎙️ A New Voice is Launching! A massive round of applause for Roxanne, who is launching her brand-new podcast, "Two Girls Strong," with her wife this Wednesday! After years of talking about it, they are finally doing it – give it a listen on your favourite channels here!
👏 A Brilliant Business Pivot: Emma shared her brave and brilliant strategic shift. Bonsai is officially repositioning to become "the agency for other agencies," aligning with the 80% of revenue that already comes from agency partners. Even better? They are completely booked out for the rest of 2025!
🤝 Services That Resonate: Simone has been upgrading her service offering, moving from task management to a fascinating, holistic "human integration" service based on ontological design (the idea that what we design, designs us).
🥇 Incredible Feedback: Tess "wowed" her client, GSB, with a recent facilitated session and received really incredible feedback, which is already paving the way for more business in 2026.
🤗 Community Building Success: Candice saw a huge response to her upcoming Notion masterclass, with almost 400 people on LinkedIn RSVPing for the event!
27th OCTOBER MASTERMIND WRITE-UP:
Our October Mastermind was a perfect example of this group's magic.
We had a wonderfully intimate session, and the energy was pure "She the Change": honest, supportive, and powerfully practical.
It’s that time of year, again – as Tess perfectly named it, the "end-of-the-year squish".
We’re all feeling the intensity, managing burnout, and trying to find capacity where there just seems to be none left. It’s a challenge we all share, and in our meeting, we collectively turned that shared vulnerability into strategic, actionable support.
💡 INSIGHT #1:
Getting "Into the Room”
One of the most powerful discussions was sparked by Roxanne's challenge: trusting herself to network and sell her new, powerfully clear offering of people and culture consulting for VCs and startups. As she put it:
I'm very confident once I am in the room... But right now, the challenge is to get myself into the room.
This really resonated with everyone, and allowed the magic of support to flow.
TAKEAWAYS:
On Networking and Selling Yourself
▶ Make it a Challenge (Not a Chore): Emma’s fantastic advice was to gamify getting out there. She challenged herself to attend one networking event every week, almost as a form of quest to complete, and it’s changing her business trajectory.
▶ Demonstrate, Don't Pitch: Candice shared insights from her networking talk, reminding us that the easiest way to "sell" is to stop pitching and start asking good questions. You demonstrate your competency by diagnosing problems and offering value in the conversation itself.
▶ Niche Your Crowd: Tess pointed out that not all events are equal. Find your people. If you work with tech, go to tech meetups. If you support female founders, go where they are.
▶ Build a Workflow: Simone added a systems-level reminder to have a networking workflow. Use a QR code for seamless contact exchange and make sure to track the follow-ups and conversions.
The group immediately put this into practice, with Emma inviting Roxanne to two upcoming events!
SWIPE FILES:
Emma’s Questions for Networking Events
How would you sum up the most valuable lesson you’ve learned in your career so far?
If there was one trait of yours you could magic into all your employees or colleagues, what would it be?
If you had to start your career again at the beginning, what skills would you invest in first and why?
Besides email, what’s one digital tool your agency relies on that you consider essential for operational success?
What’s been the best hire for your business to date and why?
What’s the top characteristic you attribute to your success?
What’s one mistake you’ve made in your career and what did you learn from it?
Have you been working on anything exciting recently?
💡 INSIGHT #2:
Taming the "Context Switching" Monster
The second major theme was the "end-of-year squish" itself. Emma voiced the challenge of being at capacity, feeling burnt out, and, most importantly, the massive cognitive drain of context switching. This is where Simone’s shone.
TAKEAWAYS:
On Capacity and Focus
▶ The 23-Minute Cost: Simone shared a powerful stat: researchers say it costs 23 minutes to get back into a task after being interrupted. That's a real, measurable cost to our productivity.
▶ Design Your "Lag Time": Simone introduced the concept of "lag time" – the essential human pause between an event and our response. Unlike AI, we need this time to make high-value decisions. We need to design this space into our workflows, like planning for meeting prep and post-meeting debriefs, not just the meeting itself.
▶ Workflows Need Reinforcement: Candice added a crucial management insight: you can't just create a workflow and expect it to stick. It takes reinforcement and clear, explicit communication to truly establish a new habit or process on a team.
▶ The Deeper Problem: The conversation led to an "aha!" moment: the problem often isn't just "capacity"; it's a lack of defined core responsibilities. When roles are too fluid, context switching becomes unavoidable.
Requests for Support
▶ Listen to Roxanne’s new podcast, Two Girls Strong to redefine how you see long-term success.
Thank you all for another session filled with honesty, brilliant insights, and genuine support. This is what it's all about!
Until next time!
