In episode one I said the Women Who Code talk hadn't started. June 2nd, I'm on a stage in New York City. This episode is what happened in between, how I built the talk, what prep actually looks like when the tech you're talking about won't sit still, and why getting selected still felt like a scam at first.

You know the feeling. Everything's overwhelming. Everything's harsher than it should be. You can't explain it, you just know something's off — and by 3-4pm you're done.

It has a name: cognitive overhead. And the reason your system keeps failing isn't you.

This episode I'm breaking down the difference between overhead and overload, why most productivity frameworks weren't built for a variable brain, and the specific things I actually use, including a morning check-in that offloads the connective thinking before my day starts.

Two speaking gigs. One podcast. Zero prior experience with any of it. In this first episode I'm talking about what it actually looked like to say yes before I was ready — HomerCon, Women Who Code, and what prep looks like when you're building the plane while you fly it.