Kate Northrup

We thought we were playing with dolls.

My sister and I sewed clothes for ours from patterns we ordered out of the catalog. We acted out plays from scripts the company published. I subscribed to the magazine, mailed in a response to a reader question, and nearly lost my mind when it got published.

I even found a pen pal through that magazine. We’re still friends on Facebook today.

When I saw a photo of the original Pleasant Company catalog this weekend, I was instantly back on my couch — exactly like the girl on the cover — flipping pages and being transported into possibility.

And that’s when it hit me.

We weren’t just playing with dolls. An entire generation of girls was being told our lives mattered — not for who we’d become someday, but for who we already were, exactly as we were.

Now we’re the ones buying the dolls for our daughters. And crying in the store.

That’s what happens when one woman makes her values tangible through where she puts her time, energy, and money. The returns keep compounding in lives she’ll never know about.

If you were as fully ensconced in the world of American Girl Dolls as I was, tell me which doll you had below.

I write about this kind of wealth every Wednesday in Notes of Plenty. Comment NOTES and I’ll send it to you.

*Being a mother is by far my most important and beloved vocation and there’s nothing about this post that intends to devalue motherhood. But the role Pleasant played in giving a generation of girls something to spark their imagination that celebrated who they already were, not just as future mothers, cannot be underestimated.

My family lost a legend this week.

My Uncle Phil always had time to tell a story, lend a listening ear, give great advice, or share a laugh.

met Phil and his wife, my aunt (our oldest Penelope’s name sake), before Mike and and I had even met.

Without Penny and Phil there would be no Kate and Mike.

He and Penny mentored Mike and I in business and in marriage. We colored outside the lines because they modeled how beautiful marching to the beat of your own drum can be. Our devotion to health and freedom is because of Penny and Phil

Phil’s indelible mark is evident all over our life from Mike’s love of cappuccinos to our unconventional world views (and Penny’s continues to be.)

Phil was an amazing father of 3 incredible sons who I’m so grateful to have as cousins.

His love for Penny, my mom’s sister, was so deep and so constant. They had 53 incredible years together. Their love inspired our love.

Phil, I miss you so much already. I was setting the table outside for dinner on Monday and burst into tears realizing you’d never come visit us in our new home in TN.

But I know you’ll visit me in my heart anytime I call. Just like you’d pick up the phone anytime I’d call.

Sending buckets of love to Penny and my cousins, , , and , through whom Phil lives on.

Just a reminder to hold your people close and tell them you love them. Every moment is precious beyond measure.

Quote shared via in our family text thread because it so perfectly epitomizes who Phil Kirk was. ❤️🪽

Are online courses dead? Is our entire industry dissolving in front of us — algorithms, AI, all of it?

In February I sat in a mastermind with a room of multi-seven-figure business owners. Several of them were freaking out. I listened, and a few months later, we crossed $2 million in our launch.

We did it by doing a lot of things opposite to what everyone else is doing.

Here’s what I won’t do in this debrief: hand you the numbers and pretend the feelings underneath them don’t exist. Because every number has a feeling associated with it.

The conversion rate has a feeling, the ad spend has a feeling, the middle-of-the-night spin-out has a feeling.

This episode is the full behind-the-curtain breakdown of what we did, what worked, what surprised us, and what I’d change moving forward.

Told in numbers and feelings — the way money actually works.

Comment 161 and I’ll send you the episode 🩶