Foreword

Greetings & Felicitations
I’m starting a new blog, called “Leveling Up with Mina: A girl’s guide to thriving at work and play,” which you may find here:
https://mmoldham.wordpress.com

I hope you’re as curious about what we’ll discuss as I’m delighted to share these topics with you!
(The current plan is that I’ll do Leveling Up alongside Library Girl, and I’ve got a fistful of Library Girl ideas to share with you as well, but that’s another story.)

In this post, we’ll go over the release plan for Leveling Up, then I’ll share the list of dates and titles for our first seven months of posts, and we’ll wrap-up with summaries of these first seventeen topics.

Ready?
Let’s dive into things!

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A Simple Plan

I’ll share the first post at Leveling Up with you on Tuesday, April 4th.
After that, I should publish posts every-other Tuesday.
Simple, right?

The List

Here’s a list of upcoming posts, with the order, date, and title of each post.
As I’ve worked on them, I’ve become excited and a bit impatient to share them with you.

Post Order	Publishing Date	Post Title
1	4/4/2023	Starting at the End
2	4/18/2023	1x1s & Check-Ins
3	5/2/2023	Leadership Communication
4	5/16/2023	Mentoring
5	5/30/2023	Mina’s No-Guilt Guide to Ditching Meetings
6	6/13/2023	Leveling Up: A Conversation on Career Growth
7	6/27/2023	Welcome (Please Start Here) #1
8	7/11/2023	One Thing in One Month
9	7/25/2023	Book Recommendation: Harley Quinn: Reckoning
10	8/8/2023	Interviewing: Keep Your Skills and CV Fresh
11	8/22/2023	A Girl’s Guide
12	9/5/2023	The Subtextual Purpose of an Interview
13	9/19/2023	Welcome (Please Start Here) #2
14	10/3/2023	Prelude to National Coming Out Day
15	10/11/2023	National Coming Out Day
16	10/17/2023	The Mina Letters
17	10/31/2023	Lessons for a Young Witch

Posts two through six were originally written as notes for discussions, and I hope that they will continue to prompt conversations; both between us, and between you and your friends/coworkers.
(In truth, I hope that all of what I share with you will tickle your brain and incite chats.)

Preview of Coming Attractions

A title can be a vague tease; it hints at the topic, but doesn’t give you details.
So, here’s a summary of upcoming posts at Leveling Up:

1. Starting at the End: We begin with a gentle introduction. The heart of this first post is an open letter I wrote to team mates. I’m sharing it with you, as I believe it illustrates my character and tone well.
2. 1x1s & Check-Ins: The first of five posts in a set I call “Mina’s Leadership Sessions.” We’ll use these posts to build a foundation for Leveling Up. In this one, we’ll go over how I do private conversations with people I mentor, and I introduce an initiative that’s key to my mentoring.
3. Leadership Communication: In work and play, communication matters; particularly if you are (or want to be) a mentor/leader. The set of topics in this post were picked for their practical application to my team.
4. Mentoring: We explore mentoring, from the role of both a mentee and a mentor. This post includes tips, and links to articles and videos, to help you grow (and help you help others grow).
5. Mina’s No-Guilt Guide to Ditching Meetings: The tone of this post is light, but the subtext is vital; each of us has limited resources of time and attention, so don’t let monster meetings eat away at you!
6. Leveling Up: A Conversation on Career Growth: The post that gave my new blog its name, and the final of our five “Mina’s Leadership Sessions.” I wrote this to compliment, and not repeat, the previous posts. We’ll discuss several things, including “the power of yes” and career growth via a D&D metaphor.
7. Welcome (Please Start Here) #1: Why am I waiting until our seventh outing for a welcome post? Because a key feature of our welcome posts will be a section called “The Story So Far” which will summarize all of the posts from the previous quarter. The most-recent welcome post should be pinned to the top of Leveling Up, so that a visitor may read it and quickly get up-to-speed. I want to make it easy for you to explore Leveling Up and find things of value to you in it, and the welcome posts will be part of that.
8. One Thing in One Month: I believe that continuous incremental growth is a good way to work on our leveling up; and “One Thing in One Month” is the initiative I developed to help people with their growth. This is a topic I’m passionate about, and it’s key to the mentoring I do.
9. Book Recommendation: Harley Quinn: Reckoning: The previous posts laid a foundation for Leveling Up, and after all the discussion, reflection and work that came out of them, I thought it was time to take a pause. Play is as important to life as work, so I’ve got a recommendation for you, of a book I adored.
10. Interviewing: Keep Your Skills and CV Fresh: Interviewing is a skill, and so is revising a CV (resume); yet, many of us don’t regularly exercise them. We’ll work on these skills, and I’ll share perspective on CVs that changed how I think of (and write) mine.
11. A Girl’s Guide: What do I mean when I say that Leveling Up is “a girl’s guide to thriving at work and play?” (Here’s a hint: I do not mean that it’s only for girls.) A lighter post, put here as a breather between our two posts about interviewing.
12. The Subtextual Purpose of an Interview: I apologize for the overwrought title of this post. We all know what The Purpose of an interview is; to find a job or to find a new team member. But if that’s the textual purpose, then what is the subtextual purpose? I think it’s to answer three simple questions, and we’ll discuss these three questions in this post.
13. Welcome (Please Start Here) #2: When we get here, we’ll have made it through a half-year of Leveling Up posts! Thank you for walking this journey with me. So, another quarter, and another opportunity for me to introduce myself and catch people up on what’s recently happened at Leveling Up.
14. Prelude to National Coming Out Day: An open letter to allies of the LGBTQIA+ community. I wrote this specifically to prepare those of you who may have someone come out to you (and it’s also the note that I would’ve like someone to give to my parents, once upon a time).
15. National Coming Out Day: An open letter to my fellow members of the queer community. I particularly focused on those who aren’t yet out, to remind you that you are validly part of our community and you are loved.
16. The Mina Letters: We get personal. This is a collection of open letters I wrote, mainly to help family and friends understand me; a girl who is multiple kinds of queer. I’m offering them here, to give you the opportunity to know me, too. I saved this post for October, as it’s a companion of the two previous posts.
17. Lessons for a Young Witch: What are the four ingredients of a witch’s spell? On Halloween, we’ll explore a letter I wrote to a young witch, as its themes may help us with our growth. (And I’ll answer my cheeky question about ingredients; promise.)

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Afterword

And after this first array of posts?
I’ve got over three years of ideas to share with you (at the rate of a post every-other week).
Some of these, I’ve already put in-sequence for us to discuss.
While I’m thrilled to begin this journey with you, it’s also important to me that it’s sustainable, so that we may continue these conversations for a long time to come.

Again, you may find “Leveling Up with Mina: A girl’s guide to thriving at work and play” here:
https://mmoldham.wordpress.com

Leveling Up Blog: https://mmoldham.wordpress.com
Mina’s Linktree: https://linktr.ee/minaoldham