5SR - July 20, 2023

Hitha on redefining leadership & ambition, the Sun, and Swiftynomics

Author

Hitha Palepu
July 20, 2023

Today’s curator is the founder of #5SmartReads, Hitha Palepu. She’s a consummate multihyphenate - CEO of Rhoshan Pharmaceuticals, author of WE’RE SPEAKING: The Life Lessons of Kamala Harris and How to Pack: Travel Smart for Any Trip, and professional speaker. Hitha is an unabashed fan of Taco Bell, Philadelphia sports teams & F1, romance novels, and is a mediocre crafter. She lives in NYC with her husband and two sons.

Minnesota had one of the most productive and transformative legislative sessions this year - reproductive healthcare access, legalization of cannabis.

One achievement that’s making an immediate impact is free school breakfasts and lunches for all of Minnesota’s K-12 students. And it wasn’t an easy one to get passed and signed into law.

Something I value from The 19th*’s reporting is how they present underreported elements from an issue and put them into context clearly. In this case, I appreciated learning about how free breakfast and lunch are requested and the challenges in changing qualifications, paperwork, or school transfers.

Given the increasingly negative reporting in political news, it makes uplifting, positive stories all the more necessary. Minnesota - you’ve been a bright spot this year.

Thao Thai’s Banyan Moon is everywhere (I can’t wait to pick it up, as friends have been raving about it). And among the well-deserved accolades and reception is Thai’s incredibly relatable journey to becoming an author while juggling motherhood and life in general.

I too love a crunchy, savory snack while I’m writing and have also been sucked into Fourth Wing because of social media. And the prospect of a writing mini-retreat is genius (though I may do one to read the third Crescent City book uninterrupted).

I love these peeks at other authors’ processes and how they work. If you’re the same, you’ll enjoy this interview with Thai.

As if climate change wasn’t challenging our lives enough, we need to also consider space weather - specifically the sun.

We’re approaching the peak of the sun’s 11-year solar cycle (originally expected in 2025, but could happen next year itself). This peak means more solar flares and sunspots, which in turn could shorten satellite lifespans, affect radio activity, and could even bring down a power grid in extreme scenarios.

And you know how I feel about the precarious state of our current grid.

I’m a space nerd so I found this interesting (and also slightly aggrevating, as the billionaires who keep going to space should invest more money to study sunspots, solar flares, and sustainable climate investments).

On Soft Ambition (Marie Claire)

Ambition - especially women’s ambition - has taken its own journey and narratives, and has largely been impacted by the behavior and actions of the men that hold the power.

Only recently have we begun to define it on our own terms - and soft ambition is beginning to launch that new narrative.

“Ambition is about taking up space with your dreams and choices, hopefully to make the world better than how you found it,” says Simmons. “You can do that in any context that matters to you. Starting a family is ambitious, as is trying to build a healthy romantic relationship for the first time. So is getting sober.”

Investing in friendships, investing in community, investing in the role you have right now because it’s meaningful work—that is ambition. “It’s fascinating because those things aren’t normally clocked as ambitious,” says Stauffer. “But they take just as much care and drive as anything else.”

By redefining ambition to be about more than power and money, it gives us agency over our ambition and the freedom to make the choices we want—something we’ve been socialized to believe that we do not have.

It’s been a privilege to watch my friends define ambition on their own terms: Neha in redefining career pauses and redefining stay-at-home parenthood, Becca in becoming a full-time author and podcaster after a major career in marketing, Lydia in following her bliss and working in the sport that was her COVID hobby, Neeti in moving on from finance to educate about and teach yoga in a beautiful, approachable, authentic style.

Soft ambition is just as, if not more, ambitious than the traditional definition of the word. And I’m here for it.

Swiftynomics is real - and it’s made quite the impact on our economy.

Not only are Swift and Beyoncé’s tours expected to gross over $1B each (damn!), they also helped boost the host cities’ tourism revenue to pre-pandemic levels - and in some cases, exceeding them.

Forget anti-hero - Swift and Beyonce are macroeconomic juggernauts. And now I’m feeling FOMO on not having bought tickets for either show, but I will be the first to watch the inevitable concert documentaries if and when they air.

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