The Thread: A Women's Leadership Collective

Enrollment is as easy as 1,2,3...
1. Submit your application here!
2. Connect via zoom with us to ask all your questions! 3. Reserve your spot with payment, complete our onboarding form and YOU'RE IN!

There are still 10 days left to apply for cohort eight!
apply here: https://www.thethreadwichita.com/apply

TB to last year's Ignite Conference with Shelby Reynolds, editor in chief of and Cohort 4 alumnae!

2024 Ignite ICT Women's Conference is happening this Thursday 9/5 and we hope to see you there!

Register Here
https://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/event/169980/2024/2024-ignite-ict-womens-conference

Back to school in Kristen's home is all about three key targets:

1. Logistics
2. Feelings
3. Schedule

Swipe through the post to dive into each area and see how Kristen Selby is handling the transition!

How's the back-to-school season going in your home? What strategies are you using to make it smoother?

Raise your hand if you've started a fitness journey and it didn't quite stick✋well maybe your perfect routine just hadn't found you yet!

Enjoy this read from Whitney Jensen on her new fitness routine at Orangetheory Fitness Downtown Wichita!

August brings so many transitions within our lives so this week we've decided to feature the new transitions happening in the lives of our Thread community!

First up, .rue with her transition into a new role!

Cohort Eight is just around the corner and we have 10 seats left. Will one of them be yours?!? 🩷

Throwback to our Thread Alumnae Playground Workshop .workshop led by Jill Luton

We host one alumnae happening each month, building on themes learned & relationships gained during the cohorts. We’re always looking for creative ways to connect ladies from different cohorts in a way that goes below surface level. 🩷

It is so important to us that after the cohort experience, The Thread can remain a connection point and resource for growing in relationships and career. 🔥

Ever wonder what type of content our program consists of?

While no cohort has ever been exactly the same, we have always used an “inside out” method when building our cohort curriculum.

What’s always been important to us is that we design the topics to reflect a method that starts with the work that is inside of ourselves, slowly working towards efforts that others may notice more readily.

Internal: There are parts of us that aren’t visible to the outside, but so often, we don’t slow down enough to understand them ourselves. We dig into purpose, values, strengths, and more.

Mid: Several topics that we cover are considered (by us) to be something that is internal work (doesn’t often involve others) but is noticeable to those in our lives if they are looking closely. Examples of these include growth mindset and emotional intelligence.

External: We end by building on skills that are more easily visible to the outside world such as executive presence, crucial conversations, negotiation, and leadership.

Who we are is who we are - at work, at home, in the community. We all want to thrive. We all want to grow. We’re proud to offer a curriculum and community that supports this work!

Ever wonder what type of content our program consists of?

While no cohort has ever been exactly the same, we have always used an “inside out” method when building our cohort curriculum.

What's always been important to us is that we design the topics to reflect a method that starts with the work that is inside of ourselves, slowly working towards efforts that others may notice more readily.

Internal: There are parts of us that aren't visible to the outside, but so often, we don't slow down enough to understand them ourselves. We dig into purpose, values, strengths, and more.

Mid: Several topics that we cover are considered (by us) to be something that is internal work (doesn't often involve others) but is noticeable to those in our lives if they are looking closely. Examples of these include growth mindset and emotional intelligence.

External: We end by building on skills that are more easily visible to the outside world such as executive presence, crucial conversations, negotiation, and leadership.

Who we are is who we are - at work, at home, in the community. We all want to thrive. We all want to grow. We're proud to offer a curriculum and community that supports this work!

Hey friends!

Today my husband and I are celebrating our 14th wedding anniversary and I wanted to share an exercise from Brene Brown’s book, The Gifts of Imperfection, that recently did together.

Step One: Ask yourself (and your partner, if you have one): “When things are going really well for us, what does that look like?” The answers to these questions make up your Joy & Meaning list!

Step Two: Make a dream list, if you don’t have one already.

Step Three: Cross-check those two lists before you create goals for yourself. The thought here is that some of the things we think we want won’t actually fill our Joy & Meaning buckets. And if they don’t, letting those things go will allow us to be more present in the life we’re already living in, making it the real dream!

If you do this, would love to hear your findings.

Audra

"Play can bring back the excitement and newness to our jobs. It helps us deal with difficulties, provides a sense of expansiveness, promotes mastery of our craft and is an essential part of the creative process. In the long run, work does not work without play."
- Dr. Stuart Brown, Founder of the National Institute for Play

One thing we see on repeat?

Women coming into The Thread as strangers and leaving with authentic, life-giving friendships!

Making friends at this stage of life can be a challenge. You may not have as much in common with your friends from school as you used to. Your neighbors may be great humans, but they don’t always feel like “your people”. Work friends give you life, but you also need some space away from everything that comes with work friendships.

Many women come to The Thread to find their people. If you’re in a season of craving deeper connection with women who get you, we would love to hear from you. Check out the link in our bio for information on Cohort Eight!

Our team absolutely cherishes the culture that we have created. We get to do work that we love while prioritizing our families. Speaking of work we love, we would LOVE to have YOU in Cohort Eight, which starts this fall.

Comment EIGHT & we'll send you a link with the details!

We 🩷 Wichita Habitat for Humanity!

“Play is the highest form of research.” - Albert Einstein

We’ve all heard the motto “Work Hard, Play Hard”...but for many of us, we have the “work hard” part down, but playing feels foreign. PLAY is important! Five of our cohort members (and alum) tell us why:

“It’s very important to me to remain an active, healthy mom for my family. I knew I needed to do something intentional to offset the stress and mental load of my career. I also needed to invest in my physical health.” - Raechel

“Having a hobby has also challenged me in ways that I might not get at work or as a mother. I’ve planted a lot of seeds and sometimes the end result is not what I wanted but it’s a journey and a learning experience.” - Tawny

“It's so easy to get caught up in the "busy" of life — work, kids, life. For me, this hobby is how I pour into myself, how I refill my cup, and how I prioritize myself among the hustle-and-bustle of this stage.” - Beth

“I love having things to look forward to and concerts are such an easy date night. Or a fun excuse to travel!” - Brittany

“When most of life is tied to a device, getting out in nature for me is the greatest feeling. I may be sleeping with the wildlife, but I love that there are no schedules, no screens and no reason to shower (which is why you always plan around a water feature.) - Jordan

What is the way YOU plan to play this summer? Any unique hobbies? Share with us in the comments!

Cohort Seven Happy Hour turned into the ultimate hype squad shopping experience! 🛍️

No better way to celebrate the work these ladies have put in so far now that we are at the halfway mark of their cohort. 🥂

Huge thank you to 2 Beatz Boutique for hosting and Savour The Graze for the amazing charcuterie!

No offense to last year’s interns (second pic), but we got a MAJOR upgrade with Sierra Brown this summer!! ☀️ Please help us welcome her to the team!

Our favorite quote from last week’s Womens Leadership Breakfast with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas came from Sheree Utash:

“Women are great disrupters.”

We couldn’t agree more, Sheree. Thanks to Ari Gross and the BCBS team for a beautiful morning!

“Elevate” is a Thread Program for Women at Spirit AeroSystems, Inc. and yesterday we held a Growth Mindset workshop for Cohort Two. Jennifer Person did an amazing job of leading us through the concept and practical steps to develop this skill, including utilizing the “power of yet”.

You see, much of growth mindset is believing that you CAN develop the skills you seek. It’s looking at your skills not as a fixed, stagnant part of you, but a fluid and ever-evolving part of you.

So…how could you make the “power of yet” work for you?

“What that means is…”

The next time you encounter a challenge, try using that phrase.

Example: You didn’t get the promotion you wanted .

Reframe: I didn’t get the promotion I wanted and what that means is…I have the opportunity to ask for specific feedback on the skills I need to grow in order to be more highly considered next time. Once I have this information, I can make a plan!

We’re not talking toxic positivity here. We’re talking about using this phrase as a tool to unstick our brains aka growth mindset work.

As our speaker, Nikki Beyrle, Chief Human Resources Officer at LDF Kansas shared with us during this teaching, “Adversity is a gift.”

Happy 2nd anniversary!

Congratulations to Cohort Three alum, Alissa Huibsch!!

Wichita manufacturing company now has a female president, co-owner

We're so excited to partner with Cohort Six alum, Bridgett Combes to offer our Thread alum & cohort members a pre-opening class!

Saturday, June 22nd at 10 am

Email [email protected] to sign up - space is limited!

Today was our last lunch time book club for our alum! Here are some of our favorite thoughts from our current Alum Book Club pick, Hidden Potential by Adam Grant

Which one resonates with you most - 1, 2, 3 or 4?

Today our Thread team had the opportunity to partner with Tanganyika Wildlife Park 🦒 where we were able to apply a concept we’re learning about in Adam Grant’s latest book, Hidden Potential. 📖

Our mission: Build an environment of curiosity 🧐 and candor with The Thread community at large in order to generate ideas that support Tanganyika’s organizational goal.

Applied learning: “Extensive evidence show that when we generate ideas together, we fail to maximize collective intelligence. To unearth the hidden potential in teams, instead of brainstorming, we’re better off shifting to a process called ‘brainwriting’. The initial steps are solo. You start by asking everyone to generate ideas separately. Next, you pool them and share them anonymously among the group. To preserve independent judgement, each member evaluates them on their own. Only then does a team come together to select and refine the most promising options.”

It’s one thing to learn about new concepts, but trying to (imperfectly) put them into action is where the real growth comes in. Thank you to LynnLee and her Tanganyika team for engaging us!

Share in the comments if you have ever tried this method within your teams or projects!