#ThirstyThursday Issue #240

📈 The leadership skills you need at every career level, from individual contributor to executive.

😴 The 10 best sleep gadgets on Amazon for finally getting a good night’s rest.

🎁 21 Father’s Day gifts he’ll actually use, and never buy for himself.

🏆 These employee rewards go way beyond pizza parties and gift cards.

Takeaways:

• Use Copilot to find the signal in meetings faster. Ask it to summarize key decisions, pull out action items with owners and due dates, or identify unanswered questions so you don’t have to rewatch recordings or dig through notes.
• Let Copilot clean up your communication. Whether you’re drafting an email, rewriting a Teams message, or reviewing the tone of an important response, Copilot can make your writing clearer, more professional, and more aligned with your voice.
• Turn long documents and presentations into actionable insights. For example, you can ask Copilot to summarize a 50-page document into 10 key takeaways, create a presentation from an existing file, or generate a list of action items from a slide deck in seconds.

See all 25 on IG.

You feel it when the stack isn’t working. Payroll lives in one place, expenses in another, the CRM somewhere else, and project updates scattered across three platforms. You end up being the one wiring it together by hand.

It gets lighter when the right systems pull their weight:

• BambooHR keeps employee records, onboarding, and reviews in one place so nothing gets lost.
• Paychex runs payroll, tax filings, and direct deposits accurately, no manual double-check.
• Xero shows invoices, transactions, and cash flow in real time (4.6 million businesses use it).
• Campaigner runs email and follow-ups based on what subscribers actually do.
• monday.com keeps complex projects, approvals, and timelines visible without a developer.
• Connecteam handles scheduling, time tracking, and team chat for teams that aren’t desk-based.

Start with the one fixing your biggest daily bottleneck, and let the rest of your day stop running through you.

👉 Find the tools for your stack.

Takeaways:

• Create visible proof of expertise. Most opportunities go to people who are easy to remember. Start documenting your work publicly through speaking events, podcast appearances, industry articles, case studies, and content that demonstrates what you know.
• Borrow credibility from established platforms. Tools like PodMatch can help you land podcast interviews, while platforms like Qwoted can connect you with journalists looking for expert sources. One podcast feature or media quote can turn into dozens of LinkedIn posts, website assets, and credibility signals.
• Package your expertise into something tangible. Create a downloadable guide, resource, template, or booking page that shows people how you help others. When someone discovers your profile, they should immediately see evidence of your expertise.

Hear the suggestions on IG.

Takeaways:

• Tools like Teal, Jobscan, and Resume Worded can help track applications, tailor your resume to job descriptions, and identify gaps that might be hurting your chances with applicant tracking systems (ATS).
• Practice interviews before the real thing. Platforms like Yoodli, Huru, Big Interview, and My Interview AI simulate interview questions and provide feedback on your answers, pacing, and communication style. Think of them as a low-pressure practice round before the actual conversation.
• Automate the repetitive parts of job hunting. For example, Simplify can autofill applications, while LoopCV and AI Job Hunter can help identify relevant openings. That frees up more time to focus on networking, customizing applications, and preparing for interviews, which are often the activities that have the biggest impact on landing a role.

Read the tips on LinkedIn.

Too many print vendors run like fulfillment machines. Files go in, product comes out, and the problems (wrong specs, off color, layout slip, missed timeline) surface only when the boxes show up at your door.

Printwell catches that before production. A real team reviews every project up front: potential issues flagged early, questions asked, details double-checked. Production stays in house, which means tighter control over quality, communication, and timeline from start to finish.

For teams producing catalogs, magazines, direct mail, brochures, lookbooks, or anything else the brand can’t afford to get wrong, that level of oversight is the difference between a confident press run and a Slack message you didn’t want to send.

👉 Start your project with Printwell.

Takeaways:

• Anchor Friends are the people you know will always be there for you. You might not talk every day, or even every month, but they’re the friends you could call in a crisis and trust to pick up. Just knowing they exist can feel like a nervous system reset.
• Last Call Friends are your processing partners. They’re the friends you end up talking to for hours, closing down restaurants, lingering in parking lots, and unpacking life with. These are the people who help you make sense of what’s happening in your world.
• Era Friends are the people living through the same stage of life as you right now. If you’re navigating a career change, dating, parenthood, or a big life transition, these friends provide understanding that only comes from walking a similar path at the same time.

See the other 2 friend types on IG.

📆 How do you design AI agents that actually help get work done? Find out at this free event on June 23.

👜 The straw tote that works at the farmers market and at dinner.

🥗 All Healthy is the 5-minute wellness read 1M+ people open for nutrition, fitness, and health news.

🌿 A soft neutral layer that works with literally everything in your closet.

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* Smart Girl Society is our private community for women who want deeper conversations, accountability, and tools that actually make life easier. Join the waitlist to get in the next round.

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