Spill the Tea is an ah.mi interview series where we ask 7 quick, thoughtful, and sometimes spicy personal wellness questions to experts, thought leaders, and people we find interesting. These convos are meant to inspire, ground, and remind you that there are a million ways to do this thing called wellness.
Let’s get into it…
Volume 13: Spill The Tea with Caroline Dell
Meet super connector, Caroline Dell. She’s the Co-Founder and CEO of Goodword, a tech and networking platform that consolidates every contact you've ever made into one place and saves the context you'd otherwise forget.
Caroline was employee number five at Chief, helping the network for women executives on its journey to 20,000 members while pivoting through the pandemic. Now that she is deep in building her own start-up, she is transparent on the highs and lows of building and what it takes to stay in the game both mentally and physically.
Let’s spill it with 7 questions…
1. How do you personally define "feeling good" in this season of your life?
Feeling good right now means having enough clarity to make the best possible decisions I can. Being a founder is a constant exercise in making calls with incomplete, imperfect information — that’s just the job. Some days the boulder feels heavy. Other days there’s this momentum, this spark, where things are just rocking and rolling. Clarity is what lets me keep moving, whatever kind of day it is.
2. In a world that feels increasingly digital, what does real connection actually look like to you?
I was at the Human Attention Summit recently and Esther Perel said something that stopped me cold: loneliness is a lack of depth, not a lack of people. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. Real connection isn’t about how many people you know or how often you’re in touch. It’s about whether there’s actually something real underneath. Depth. Presence. The kind of conversation where you leave having said something true.
3. When building relationships, what's a subtle sign that someone is good for your energy?
My coach talks about how we all have a battery — and some days yours is just completely dead. The best relationships are a jolt. You come in running on empty and leave with something restored. That's my signal. It's not about how fun someone is or how impressive; it's whether spending time with them actually charges you back up. Those people are rare. I protect them fiercely.
4. What is something you do for your mental health that costs zero dollars?
Two things. I citibike to work every day — rain, snow, sleet, ice. My office is under two miles from my apartment in Brooklyn and the bike is just the fastest way to get there. For a founder, speed is everything, and there’s something about moving through the city at that pace that clears my head before the day even starts.
And then there’s Lily — my three-year-old shelter mutt, part Australian Shepherd, part Chow-Chow. I empathize deeply with parents because being a dog mom is no joke. But walking her forces me outside, off my phone, and into the world. She has absolutely no interest in my to-do list.
5. What does rest look like to you right now?
Tea, and Shabbat. I’ve started observing Shabbat with my husband and it’s been quietly transformative — one day a week where the whole point is to just be. No forcing momentum, no optimizing. I’ve had to learn that the best ideas don’t come from the frantic days anyway. Rest isn’t the opposite of building. It’s what makes the building possible.
6. A wellness trend you don't buy into?
The 5am cult. I am not an early bird, I will never be an early bird, and I avoid flights before 9am at all costs. The idea that waking up before sunrise is somehow the secret to success feels like a very specific kind of propaganda. Some of us do our best thinking at 10pm. We’re fine.
7. A current non-negotiable in your daily routine?
Reading fiction every night. Not business books. Not self-help. An actual novel — anything from a New York Times bestseller to a full-on beach read. In a world that constantly tells founders what to optimize and consume and learn, choosing to just disappear into a human story every night feels almost radical. It’s how I fully switch off. Non-negotiable.
Thanks, Caroline!
P.S. We’re getting strong together this summer, and there’s still time to join us!
Every year, we do some variation of a “Summer of Strength” challenge together as an ah.mi community. This year, we’ve partnered with Fit with Coco to do her 6-week Summer Shred and ah.mi paid subscribers get access to our exclusive discount ($42 in savings — more than our subscription costs!). The challenge runs until July 5. Join us by becoming a paid subscriber and access our private ah.mi chat for alllll the accountability!
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I am a quality over quantity human connection person as well. I never had the desire to be surrounded by tons of people or in the mix- I am perfectly content being on my own.
And as someone in recovery, I get enough self-help stuff thrown at me, I also love reading fiction. I lay with my daughter every night and read, its my favorite time of day
I love the reading novels at night! Very nice but you won’t catch me on a city bike in the snow #hardcore