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There’s an old saying we’ve all been told: don’t put the cart before the horse.

Don’t get ahead of yourself. Don’t commit before you’re ready. Don’t say yes until you have a plan. We’ve been taught over and over to have it all figured out and then act.

But what if we flip it?

This article was my husband’s idea.

We were sitting in our kitchen one morning and he said: “I have an idea for your next article.” I was intrigued and even more than intrigued.. I was flattered.

There’s something so surreal about having a life partner that’s in your corner like this. Someone who sees you more clearly than you even see yourself. Where they get a front row seat to your life. You’re so busy in production mode: doing, being, living. That it’s hard to see from the inside out sometimes. But from where he’s sitting? He’s got a front row seat with popcorn in hand watching it all unfold. So when he has an idea that I can’t see, I get really excited to hear his vantage point.

He said: “Put the cart before the horse.”

I knew right away what he meant.

The birth story theory

We have this joke about our birth stories and how we believe, somehow someway, they define how we move through the world as adults.

For example: I tried to make my debut at 26 weeks. Ready for life to start regardless of timeline or the rules of waiting. That is very much how I live my life today: full steam ahead in every way. A hint of a vacation bug? Booking the flights. A brief idea of a potential move? Zillow app opened. New business idea? Create the LLC. My entire operating system is: decide on the end goal and trust that I’ll figure out how to get there.

My husband, on the other hand, was a full 40-week, full-term baby. Cozy in his environment with no plans of going anywhere until he was quite literally forced out by induction. So you can imagine how we balance each other out in vacation planning or knee-jerk life events.

He knows my patterns better than I know them myself. He watches me bet on endings before I know the full story. He sees me say yes and then build along the way. So when he suggested the topic, he not just giving me writing advice, he’s coming alongside of who I am.

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What he was really saying

When he said “put the cart before the horse” he was referring to my entire life.

He was asking me to share the stories that have been building blocks and the moments where I’ve bet on the destination before I knew the full story. Where I’ve said yes and then built along the way. Because yes, these stories can inspire others. But they’ve shaped who I am. They’ve been some of the key decisions that have gotten me to where I am.

Put the cart before the horse is more than storylines. It’s a mindset. A belief that you will figure it out regardless of the roadblocks, the circumstances, the unknown obstacles. It’s a mindset of knowing what you want as the end goal so clearly that you’re willing to step into the unknown to go get it.

That’s it.

Not willpower, strategy, or even courage.. honestly. Just clarity and excitement about the destination paired with the faith that you’re capable of navigating whatever comes.

So let’s go back

The year was 2010. The era of ruffled peplum tops, ultra skinny pastel colored jeans, and the now dreaded lark filter. I was just out of college, life was good, the world was my oyster, and I had my eyes set on moving to the big city: Minneapolis. Because….well… that’s where all my girlfriends were.

I was so set on it that I said yes before I had any of it figured out. No full-time job lined up. No real plan. Just the end goal: to live where my friends lived.

And like most post-college kids I barely had a dollar to my name. So I convinced my folks to cosign on a lease with me for a two-bedroom apartment just outside the city. I didn’t have a roommate yet so my parents said they’d give me a little runway. Two months of the second bedroom rent while I found one. But once those two months were up…I was on my own. I signed the lease on the spot.

Cart before the horse.

At the time I was so annoyed with them for putting a deadline on me like that. But looking back it was the best thing they could have done for me. They put me in a position where I had to figure it out.

This was my goal…. to live here… in this city.. in this apartment. And in order to do it, I needed a roommate.

So I did the next thing the deadline required. I posted on Craigslist (crazy. I know.. But keep in mind it was 2010). So I’d meet these “applicants” at a local coffee shop and I quite literally conducted interviews with total strangers for a roommate before my folks cut me off.

I found the roommate on time: Ashley. A strawberry blonde blue-eyed girl from a small town in Minnesota. She worked out fine outside of an unforeseen quirk of writing her initials on every single eggshell in the carton even though I never ate one of her eggs.

Then life did as life does. I eventually got the right job. And that job gave me the greatest gift of all: my husband. Then a promotion, a relocation to San Francisco, and an entirely new chapter neither of us saw coming that changed our lives for the better.

All of it traces back to one yes I said before I had any business saying it.

And here’s the part I still can’t quite believe: once I committed, my brain had no choice but to figure out the how. The yes came first. The roadmap came after. And the roadmap I built under pressure was clearer than anything I could have planned from the security of not having decided yet.

I signed that lease before I had a roommate and it became the bedrock for every big decision I’ve made since.

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Now back to 2025

Then there was the retreat. Less than a year ago, my co-founder, + our incredible team members and , booked the property for our very first BONDE retreat. A thirty room buy-out at a venue I’d never set foot in with a team that had never worked together this way. And here’s the real kicker: we had zero identified members. Most of us had never even attended a retreat, let alone hosted one.

But we booked it anyway. 120 days out.

Cart before the horse.

People could have thought we were reckless. But we didn’t. Because we had a clear end goal and we were confident in our ability to get there.

So here’s what happened instead: everything. Because the deadline existed, roles got identified fast and clear lanes were made. Decisions that would have taken months in a “let’s plan this carefully” world got made in hours. We didn’t have the luxury of overthinking, which turned out to be the greatest gift we could have given ourselves.

We learned quickly when you commit to the outcome before you know the path, the path reveals itself with a kind of urgency that planning can never manufacture. You stop asking should we? and start asking how will we? Those are very different questions. One keeps you still. The other moves you forward.

We filled all 30 rooms and had the retreat of a lifetime. Since then we’re retreat hosting bandits.

All because we said yes before we had the answers.

[Read more about how the retreat unfolded here]

Before they teach you to wait

My three-year-old cart before the horse’s all the time without overthinking it.

He lines up couch cushions and announces: “Jump in everyone! Climb aboard the train. We’re heading to California!”

The train is cushions. The tickets are invisible.. though he’s absolutely collecting them upon entry. There are no tracks and no schedule. But none of that matters to him because he has already committed. We are going to California.

From there he starts to build the trip in real time. He assigns me a seat, then his dad, then his little brother. Tells us to hold on tight and announces the stops along the way. Thirsty? he’ll stop the entire operation to serve drinks before starting up again. He solves every problem in real time because the destination is that real to him.

He didn’t wait until he had a train to commit to the trip. He said yes to California and then he built everything else around his yes.

Cart before the horse.

Kids do this all the time because they haven’t been taught to wait yet. To plan the steps first in order to get to the final outcome. He still lives in the world as it actually works.

But somewhere along the way, most of us learn to reverse the order: have the answer before you speak, prove you can do the thing before you do it.

It starts in school where the right answer matters more than the attempt. Gets reinforced in job applications that ask you to prove you’ve already done the thing before they’ll let you do it. And shows up again in performance reviews that reward the person who didn’t take unnecessary risks.

Society calls this wisdom or maturity or being realistic.

But the cost shows up later.. in the version of us we never met. The city we never moved to. The business idea that hid in the notes app for years. The life that was always imagined but never lived.

Waiting feels like safety but it’s not. It’s just postponing the moment you find out what you’re actually capable of.

So here’s our invitation

We know the people who build lives the rest of us only think about are the ones willing to bet on the ending before they know the middle.

Not recklessly but with so much clarity on what they wanted that the unknown didn’t matter more than the destination itself.

So if you’re sitting in the maybe stage. If you’re waiting for the plan to arrive fully formed. If you’re one “yes” away from the life you actually want but you’re still calculating the risks..

Know this: you will figure it out. Because once you’ve committed, your brain has no choice. The clarity of the destination becomes a force and the roadmap builds itself because it has to.

So say yes to the thing you want so clearly.

Book the flights. Sign the lease. Send the email. Tell someone out loud. Do the thing that makes the outcome feel inevitable. Then build the train.

It might not unfold like you pictured. But you’ll be further. And each time you do it, the next one gets easier.

Until eventually you’re living a life that simply wouldn’t exist if you’d waited to be ready.

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Meg is the Co-Founder & CEO of BONDE, a private professional club for accomplished women. If it’s for you, apply here.

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June 1st it’s coming to an inbox near you and I can already imagine some of the best Reformation copy out there yet.

Courtney Grow x Reformation.

If you don’t know her yet, let me paint the picture. And if you do, you already know why this is exciting.

The Courtney Grow effect

is your host of the afterparty chat on IG with 22k people following along in real-time. She’s leaving voice notes while driving in her car just unpacking her day, giving fashion advice, processing moments with her kids, and being completely utterly herself.

She’s relatable because she’s perfected the art of being messy and put together all at the same time. And it works. Nothing is ever the same, but everything flows.

One photo heavy edited. The next raw. In the same outfit one piece is thrifted from eBay, the other The Row and Dorsey, all finished with $6 CVS lipgloss. Sequins for school drop-off, vintage band tees with runway pieces, things that shouldn’t make sense together but somehow do because they’re real. What she wants to wear.

Why we like her

There’s a part of her you can tell just doesn’t give a rats and everyone can feel it.

That’s the magic for her. Courtney just shows up as herself. Her casual connection with her audience across all channels feels genuine because it is genuine. These aren’t calculated moments. They’re actual life shared with zero apology.

She’s giving people permission to just like what they like because they like it.

No aesthetic justification needed. No need to fit into a lane. Just: does this make me feel good? Then it’s in.

Reformation needed this

Let’s be honest: Reformation needed a bit of love after the influx of negative reviews about product quality following the acquisition by you-know-what out of London. The brand needed someone to remind us why we fell in love in the first place. Someone likeable, relatable, and carefree.

Someone who makes you feel like getting dressed isn’t about proving something but adding fun back into your life.

Enter: Courtney.

@reformationSequins to school drop-off. 6/1. @Courtney Grow

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A match made in consumer heaven

Courtney is a brand. She has a genuine aesthetic and voice that’s completely unmistakable. the mix of these two brand personalities is exactly what consumer heaven looks like.

Because they’re hinting at adding fun back into your life. Which appears to be Courtney’s whole life motto. They’re suggesting that Reformation can be sequins for school drop-off. That it can be thrifted and luxury mixed together. That it can be thoughtful and chaotic.

That’s Courtney’s whole thing. And Reformation? Reformation just figured out that’s exactly what they need to be right now too.

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Here for the copy

When Courtney touches something, the copy gets good. It’s less about sustainability points or brand values with her but about the feeling of life while doing it. Getting dressed like you’re writing your own story instead of following someone else’s script. It’s about permission.. pure permission.

And maybe Reformation’s products could use that energy right now.

June 1st

So mark your calendar, ladies, and flag your inbox. Because next week these two brand personalities are going to shake hands, and I have a feeling we’re about to be reminded that fashion is supposed to be fun. That there’s no one way to do this. That you can be lived in, playful, and have it all together at the exact same time.

Courtney Grow gets it. And somehow right now so does Reformation

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Meg is the Co-Founder & CEO of BONDE, a private professional club for accomplished women. If it’s for you, apply here.

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A few weeks ago, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley announced a new brand: Mémoire. Luxury goods shaped by an appreciation for craft, tradition, and the quiet rituals that give life texture. Think the classics: leather, glass, paper. Objects designed to hold meaning and beauty at the same time.

Before you read any more, it’s worth taking a quick look at their site to understand just how beautiful the brand and products really are. Fair warning: you’ll want everything.

The announcement was refreshingly restrained. No crazy algorithm strategy or desperation for engagement. Just: here’s what we made. And we’re going to throw an intimate dinner party in NYC with those who knew about it from the start to celebrate.

Most people see Rosie’s name attached to the brand and follow. Which is exactly why she’s front and center. Rosie’s whole vibe is beautiful, recognizable, timeless. And timeless is what the brand is selling.

But in my opinion, there’s a notable story here and an important face to the brand in addition to Rosie’s. It’s Meaghan Cox, co-founder of Mémoire.

Over the last decade, Meaghan has quietly become one of the most interesting taste architects working in brand and culture. And when something this thoughtfully executed arrives, she’s usually the reason why.

Let me explain why this matters and why you should be watching her.

The arc that makes sense in retrospect

Let’s go back to Jenni Kayne circa 2018. At the time it was successful founder-led brand, the kind of company that existed in a very clear lane, spoke to a specific audience, and had lots of potential.

This is right around the time I first came across Meaghan on Instagram. Her grid was curated, you could tell, but in a I’m not trying for it be kind of way. She had a mix of lifestyle and business long before instagram was that. Little to no filters when filters were everywhere. Basically everything that’s ‘in’ now, Meaghan was doing close to a decade ago — naturally. So of course I gave her a follow and have been watching ever since.

At that time, she held strategic roles on the brand team. And eventually she worked her way to Chief Brand Officer. Her work in the role didn't go unnoticed outside of JK. In 2023, she made PR Net's Marcomms Most Influential list for the way she reshaped the brand and its growth strategy.

Since then, Jenni Kayne’s exploded. The brand expanded into home, essentials, even an eye-swooning hospitality project called The Jenni Kayne Ranch.

The genius to promote all of this was in the restraint.

Thoughtfully chosen tastemakers, like (Instagram), shared the brand but didn't overly evangelize it. Desperation and taste don’t mix. And Ashley is the best at this. She’s simply: here’s my life, beautifully lived. Follow along if you want. Meaghan knew this and she built a strategy around it. Good taste looks like someone who doesn't need you to care. Just offering. Take it or don't. And it worked.

But here’s my favorite part:

She did all of this during a moment that doesn’t make sense. The height of her brand career at Jenni Kayne, and the significant growth the company saw with her leading from the front, was in 2020. When everyone was locked at home, when the idea of buying luxury comfort pieces felt frivolous, and the entire consumer behavior equation quite literally broke. Meaghan found a way to make Jenni Kayne feel necessary.

She saw what most brands missed: people weren’t buying clothes to wear, they were buying a sense of self at a moment when no one knew what was happening anymore.

Jenni Kayne’s linen, the cashmere, the structured ease of it. It wasn’t even about getting dressed then, but about maintaining a sense of self when everything else had collapsed. There was something about putting on the cable cocoon cardigan (RIP) and feeling good about ‘getting ready for work’ while you navigated what WFH meant for you. It was luxury comfort for professionals who were suddenly professional-ing from their bedroom with a blurred Zoom background.

Meaghan successfully played the role of a taste architect who understood the psyche of her customer. She knew the difference between what people say they want and what they actually need in a time when even the company had question marks.

When she left Jenni Kayne, most people thought it was a natural departure.

But the move she made next is the one that reveals what she actually understood about where culture lives.

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The next best move isn’t always linear

She became a Managing Partner at Westview Ventures alongside Julia Hunter, Hanna Paison, and Jackie Beyer McCabe.

Westview describes itself as “powering the brands that shape culture.” But that’s the PR version. The actual version is: a group of people with taste and strategic acumen who are essentially curating what comes next in luxury, beauty, design, and consumer culture.

They’re not venture capitalists in the traditional sense. They don’t just write checks and wait. They have a point of view about what matters, what’s becoming, and what deserves a seat at the table.

Brands they work with: Violet Grey, Literary Sport, Frankies Bikinis, OMMAGE, Khy. These are brands that have cultural force. They’re not trying to be everything to everyone. They’re building for meaning.

And Meaghan’s helps architects/founders/creators figure out how to build for that.

Think about what that actually means. She went from running the brand-building machine at Jenni Kayne: high velocity, high scale, responsive to moment — like every brand needed to be. To having a seat in rooms with founders and designers and strategists. Helping them think about what their brand should be at the deepest level.

She strategically made the move from executing to architecting. From responding to the market to shaping it.

Some people might consider this an unconventional move. But anyone paying attention knows it’s actually where the real power is.

Because here’s the reality of culture: the people who shape it are almost never the ones with the biggest platform. They’re the people in the rooms where decisions get made. The people who know what comes next. The people with taste so trusted that when they say “this matters” everyone else pays attention.

And then she launched something

The timing of Mémoire makes total sense. It’s the full picture of what Meaghan understands about brand building in this moment.

She spent seven years scaling a clothing and home brand during the hardest cultural moment to scale anything. She spent the last few years shaping how other brands think about their own cultural role. And now she’s putting all of that into Mémoire along with the remainder of the co-founder team at Westview.

Mémoire is what happens when someone who actually understands taste gets to build something from the ground up.

Heirlooms in waiting: that’s the language they’re using. Not “luxury goods” .. not “collectibles.” Heirlooms in waiting. Objects designed to become meaningful over time. Custom calligraphy, Murano handblown glass, delicious italian leather that makes you want to go analog. The kind of TLC that tells you someone spent months or years thinking about where each element comes from and why it matters.

The price point is premium, but not the premium of exclusivity for exclusivity’s sake. It’s the premium of: we spent time on this, sourced it properly, and we designed it to last. You’re paying for the object to matter.

That’s the taste architecture showing up in the product itself.

And Rosie as the face of the brand isn’t just a celebrity endorsement. She’s been building a personal brand around taste and thoughtful pieces for years. She has an eye and an actual point of view about what’s beautiful and why. So attaching her name and aesthetic to Mémoire says that this brand was built by people who genuinely care about those things.

Why all this matters

We’re in a weird cultural moment where luxury is trying to figure out authenticity. Every brand is claiming craftsmanship and every founder is talking sustainability.

But taste can’t be performed. It either exists or it doesn’t.

’s trajectory shows what real taste looks like. Not the broadcast version or some social media strategy. The actual thinking that shapes how a brand lands.

She moved from Jenni Kayne to Westview Ventures to Mémoire. Not necessarily to chase titles or paychecks. But to follow taste.

So here’s what I’m watching: the brands Westview takes on next. How Mémoire evolves as it lands. And whether people buy it for what it stands for and not just for whose name is on it.

If Mémoire becomes the kind of brand that makes people want to build a life worth passing down, it says something important about where luxury actually lives in culture right now.

Not in scale or in visibility. But in taste.

And if someone has figured out how to build that architecture at this moment, it’s someone most of us have never heard of.

Until now.

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Meg is the Co-Founder & CEO of BONDE, a private professional club for accomplished women. If it’s for you, apply here.

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In case you missed it: SHEIN bought Everlane for approx 100 million.

The brand that once made you feel elevated for spending $110 on a white t-shirt is now owned by the company responsible for the $4 top your friend pretends she thrifted. The brand that showed you the ins and outs of the factory and made you care about it. Just sold to a company that has ~zero factories it wants to talk about.

The whiplash is real and the group chats are unhinged. And honestly.. the eye-rolling from the fashion crowd has been fully earned.

First, let’s talk about the era we’re actually grieving

Because this isn’t just about Everlane. It’s about a whole chapter.

Around 2011, something shifted in how a certain kind of person (definitely me, and probably you if you’re reading this) wanted to shop. The millennial/zillennial (think of you now when I write that word !!), the savvy online shopper, city dweller, newly employed, and newly guilty about fast fashion.

This was the same generation that grew up on Limited Too as tweens and Forever 21 “going-out tops” in college. Only now we had bigger paychecks, slightly more self-awareness, and a growing desire to prove we were making better choices than before.

And right on cue.. a wave of brands arrived with the same quiet promise: buy less, but buy better.

Everlane with a single transparency-forward t-shirt and a waitlist of 60,000 people. Do you remember the waitlist?! Reformation making sustainable fashion feel sexy instead of crunchy. Cuyana (a fav) with their tagline “fewer, better things.” Allbirds selling you sneakers made from merino wool so clean you didn’t even need to wear socks with them. Warby Parker making you feel good about your glasses. And Glossier making you feel good about your face.

It was a wild time. These brands were selling products while selling a collective identity. It was the comeback for the small brick and mortar era. You'd walk into one of their stores on a Sunday afternoon just to peruse, because it was the first out-of-mall experience that felt genuinely enjoyable instead of just expensive.

And for millennials, and the elder zillennials right behind them, this was their grown consumer era. The idea of having arrived somewhere more thoughtful: the rise of the capsule wardrobe. The version of yourself who had finally figured it out.

It was a whole worldview shift dressed up as an entire generations adopted shopping habit.

And then the years when on and it got a little weird, right?

Like.. you couldn’t put your finger on it but something shifted. The quality felt different. The prices kept going up but the justification got harder to find. You’d still buy things but you’d stopped really talking about it the way you used to. Stopped recommending it to people with that particular kind of energy. The era wasn’t necessarily over. But it had fizzled a little. And none of us really ever acknowledged it.

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But what if Everlane isn’t that different from SHEIN?

Wild timing… I was talking to someone last week at dinner who worked at one of these “conscious fashion” brands in the height of the era. I’m not naming the brand because that wouldn’t be nice (but it’s one of the ones mentioned above for context).

She said she watched it happen in real time —- the shift.

And it didn’t start with some dramatic pivot or a new CEO coming in hot. It started with a zipper.

“What if we cut corners here with this zipper? It can still be considered quality, timeless… better.”

One zipper. Fine…. Reasonable even.

And then another small thing. Then another. Each one individually defensible. Until the finish line kept moving and the quality meant something totally different from where they started.

So here’s the question that’s been sitting with me: is that why the Shein sale made sense from the inside?

Because from in there, they already knew how far the finish line had moved. And the people out here are the ones totally shocked because we never got the memo.

We thought this whole time we were buying one thing and they knew they were selling another.

In hindsight the ending makes sense.

They started as an invite only clothing brand with a 60,000-person waitlist and an overpriced t-shirt and ended here. Purchased by SHEIN. But realistically was it ever going to end any other way?

Because here’s what the full picture looks like…

Reformation sold a majority stake to London private equity. Quietly in 2019 while we were still buying the slip dress and feeling great about it. Did you hear about it then? I didn’t. But sure enough, if you’ve bought anything from them recently, you know the quality isn’t what it was. The story is still good. The fabric is not. The finish line moved there too. We just didn’t make it a news story.

We know it’s PE-backed now, because we experienced the quality shift and we started asking questions and looking. So that’s exactly why we’re aware now of the Shein purchase in real time this time.

I did some digging on how these 2012ish conscious brands are during because now I’m INVESTED. Here’s more:

Allbirds went public at a $2.1 billion valuation and sold its brand assets earlier this year for $39 million. That’s not a typo. Ninety-nine percent gone. And don’t even get me started on their AI pivot. Outdoor Voices burned through $50 million, collapsed from the inside, and got acquired. Glossier was at one point valued at $2 billion and now it’s closing most of its stores.

The whole era is unwinding in real time.

And what’s showing itself is that the business model and the brand promise were always in tension with each other. You can’t raise hundreds of millions in venture capital, promise infinite growth, and also stay small and considered and intentional. The math just doesn’t math. And when demand and culture inevitably catch up. When the cool wears off. When the customer gets pickier. Or when the economy shows it’s stripes. The exit looks like private equity, or a fire sale… Or SHEIN.

It was always going to end somewhere. I just don’t think as consumers and believers in these brands we ever thought it would end here.

We the people are disturbed and should be

So here we are. The era that promised us better is being absorbed by the machine it claimed to be different from. One zipper at a time and one acquisition at a time.

And honestly, I think we get to be annoyed for a minute. Because it is annoying.

I’ll close with a readers comment and a question.

BONDE member and someone I deeply admire, and who dedicates her 9-5 and beyond to fostering mission-driven ethical brands , had this to say about the Everlane acq:

“Have been thinking about this a lot and what it takes to fully integrate values and protect a “mission driven” business (aka my day job). Without values embedded in structures (legal docs etc), this acquisition feels like the rule, not the exception.”

So here’s the question: Is this actually surprising for a VC-backed company? Or is this just what eventually happens when a brand built on values collides with the pressure to scale? Can a venture backed company with values to start sustain them to the end?

Meg is the Co-Founder & CEO of BONDE, a private professional club for accomplished women. If it’s for you, apply here.

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There are certain people who have “it”. That thing that’s impossible to miss. Accomplished, polished, and somehow at the same time…. fun?!

I must have been living under a rock, because I just discovered . And surprisingly not on Instagram despite her 1.5 million followers.. Instead it was here, on Substack.

Which, if you’ve read my article on the shift from following to knowing, makes sense. Substack has introduced something Instagram never quite could: the ability to actually know someone, rather than just ‘scroll past them’. A grid tells you what someone wants you to see. Surface level. A newsletter tells you how they think.

And Hannah’s List on wellness, business, and the life of a founder, with tens of thousands of subscribers signals something simple: there is real intellectual depth there. Which is what makes her even more interesting.

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Why relatability is winning culturally.

The thing that pulled me in most recently wasn’t a brand deal or a panel clip. It was the Mother’s Day reel her husband Brendan posted. Their toddlers talking about what they love about her, what her job is, how she makes them feel. My three year old did the same thing for me on a piece of paper at preschool. Turns out I am five years old and my job is “cleaning things and work.” Incredible.

But watching Hannah’s version it had everything to do with the realness and relatability. And for a woman with over a million people watching her, I can imagine that’s not always easy to do.

We are in a course correction from aspirational perfection to perceived realness.
Not because people stopped caring about success. But because they stopped trusting polish.

Relatability isn’t just a vibe right now. It’s winning. Culturally, commercially, everything. We are in a full-blown correction from the era of aspirational perfection. The curated grid, the flawless flat lay, the highlight reel that made everyone feel quietly worse about themselves. That aesthetic is losing its grip. People aren’t just tired of polish anymore, they’re borderline suspicious of it.

And the data backs this up too. Winning brands are intentionally moving away from overly polished content and embracing imperfections, natural pacing, even the occasional stumble signal authenticity in a way that high production simply can’t anymore. As AI content goes up we’re only going to continue to crave content that feels human. Cue relatability. We are swimming in content that looks perfect and means nothing. So when something feels real, it stops us.

Which brings me back to Hannah. A Mother’s Day reel posted by her husband and their kids being kids. Just like my kid. There was no brand attached and no strategy visible. Just a woman being seen clearly by the people who actually know her and choosing to share that with a million strangers anyway. That’s character more than it is content. And right now, character is the rarest thing on the internet.

Community will outperform virality.

Success on social is being defined less by reach and more by relationship depth. The follows don’t matter as much as the feeling someone gives you. Do you trust them? Do you feel like you actually know them? Would you sit across from them at dinner and feel like the conversation was real?

Hannah passes that test. Easily.

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I went down the rabbit hole… and the resume is extensive.

Angel investor in over 70 companies including Topicals and Sienna Naturals. Founder of the wellness platform HBFIT, which ran for eight years. In late 2024 she founded Conteur Capital, an investment firm focused on healthcare and wellness innovations with a focus on women and Black-owned startups. She’s also one of the stars of Amazon Prime Video’s new docu-series The CEO Club alongside Serena Williams. DJ. Author. Wife. Mom. Fund manager. Content creator.

The list goes on.

And while all of that is impressive, it’s not necessarily what makes her interesting to me.

What makes her interesting is the staying power.

The fact that she’s been doing this for fifteen years and still sounds like herself. In an era where everyone is pivoting their personality every six months to stay relevant, Hannah has stayed remarkably.. consistent.

She’s also been honest about failure in a way that feels genuinely rare and refreshing. HBFIT closed after eight years and she spoke openly about what she learned. Including how to handle co-founder fallouts, which is what led to the closing. She didn’t disappear quietly. She showed up at AfroTech, talked about it on stage, and moved into something bigger.

She’s unapologetically herself in the middle of 1.5 million people watching her.

From what I can tell, her family is in the content not because of some strategy. But because she’s not separating parts of her life to perform them differently. The business is personal not because she’s performing founder life, but because it actually is her life.

She’s writing about identity and motherhood the same week she’s raising a fund and filming a documentary. And she’s not writing it as separate chapters, but as one continuous story.

And by doing this, she’s a walking example of what modern ambition actually looks like: a woman building in public without splitting herself in two.

Meg is the Co-Founder & CEO of BONDE, a private professional club for accomplished women. If it’s for you, apply here.

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Woke up this morning with a rush of clarity that I don’t want to go away. So it’s going on the internet — cause that’s what we do in 2026.

The clarity is: I know exactly what I want to do here.

Be so fully myself that I give others permission to do the same.

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It hit me when I was putting on my make up. In fact that’s where most things hit me lately actually. Business ideas, to-dos i forgot to do, etc.

Maybe it’s because it’s the few minutes of my day that are entirely mine. Which is wild to even say out loud. The few minutes a day that are mine. And by mine I mean, like, truly mine. In my own head. Not on my phone. Not distracted by what other people are putting in front of me. not by what my toddlers need from me. Not by what i want to put out to nurture my marriage, or my business, or my home. Just me in my own thoughts.

For some people this shows up in the shower. It does for me too. But today it was in the five minutes I had to put my make up on before it was time to take polaroid pictures in front of my son’s lego tower he was super proud of.

So back to the clarity. It came from an honest conversation with myself. And it sounded like this:

First up: under eyes.

Be 100% unapologetically you. In every possible way. Inspire the hell out of people (women) to the point where they feel they can reach their potential, because they can. But also help them get there because seeing it from the inside out is hard.

And don’t you dare use AI to write your stuff because you lose yourself in there. Your message gets watered down and the conviction gets lost. And the conviction is the best part. That’s where the momentum lives that drives your own success, and the urgency you feel for other people’s potential. It’s what fuels you. What lights you up inside.

AI doesn’t feel that. YOU do.

Next: cc creme in nude glow cause it’s Sunday & we’re going natural.

Motherhood is a huge part of your day to day and who you are. You fought to become one. And IVF is a big part of your story, too. Don’t neglect that. You can bring to life the joys and juggling realities of motherhood at 38 while building a life of your own and a business as a founder.

But what you have to say isn’t just for mothers.

Life responsibilities show up in all shapes and sizes. What you bring to table is how to handle adversity and how to keep the headspace of inspiration while juggling the reality of responsibilities.

Agency of choice is very real and everyone can, in fact, author their life. Potential is bigger than circumstances.

Use your own stories of adversity as a way to relate and inspire.

Now onto: cheeks and this new creamy bronzer.

And on motherhood: remember it’s part of your identity but it isn’t your whole identity. You are so much more than your kids mother and your kids need to see that.

That’s the whole point.

For you to lead by example and for them to watch and learn. So show them they can be multifaceted human-beings.

This and that. This and not that anymore. This and this at the same time.

Show them how to chase goals by chasing yours with them right by your side.

Almost done: Mascara & brows.

Have fun with it! You’re not the serious type. You never have been. Your authentic in the actual authentic way — and you say the thing. You can’t help yourself.

That’s why you left corporate to build something of your own. So you didn’t feel like you had to be the buttoned up version of you or something someone else wanted you to be. So don’t fall into that WHILE you build something for you. Show up how you want, talk about what you want, and the right audience you want to be around will find you.

i was reminded of quotes/mantras, in addition to my faith, that have stuck with me:

• My dad. he always said his ‘job description as a leader’ was to:

  “inspire others to perform beyond themselves.”

• Cecil Beaton ever since i first heard it in middle school

  “Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.”

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And last: setting spray (ahh!)

You have experienced so much and the best version of yourself is when you’re THIS. Inspiring women to reach their potential, not second guessing what you put out, and having the confidence that what you have to say can and will make a difference.

And on a separate note: How lucky are we to have platforms to reach people in this way? In however way we want to do it? Based on our skills, interests, ideas, whatever we choose.

Our full potential is out there. We just have to be ourselves to go get it. And find the people who keep us accountable to that version of ourselves along the way.

Platforms like this make that possible in a way that still kind of amazes me. The world gets small enough that you can find your people. But first we have to be findable.

Meg is the Co-Founder & CEO of BONDE, a private professional club for accomplished women. If it’s for you, apply here.

It was one of those afternoons where we had nowhere to be but there. Which is so rare these days so we both knew to soak it up. The light was dancing off the water like it does. And nobody needing anything from us for a minute.

So we put a coastal playlist on. One we made together nine years ago when we lived in Northern California and Highway 1 was the route for our Sunday drives before we had our boys. We’d drive down it to Big Sur for lunch or up north for a cold beer while watching the waves crash. That playlist lived in all of it. In who we were then. In that whole version of us that existed before any of this version.

Nine years later. That playlist was still sitting in Spotify exactly where we left it.

But we hadn’t been waiting. We’d been out here becoming completely different people. Our marriage was different. Our individual selves were different. Our goals were different. Even the number of bodies in the car were different.

We started talking about it the way you can only really talk when the kids are asleep and there’s nowhere else to be. About how wild change is. How it just keeps happening whether you’re aware or not. How you can be living inside the same life, same person next to you, same music, same coastline, and still be someone completely new.

Somewhere in that conversation we eventually switched off the old playlist and put on a song we’ve both been listening to lately. Lady Lady by Olivia Dean.

My husband looked over and asked: what do you think this song is actually about?

I answered: I think it’s about her always changing. And “lady” is more like a metaphor of her future self pulling her forward to what’s next.

So then of course I asked Chat to confirm. And I was right. And to be honest, relieved because that meaning is exactly what I can relate to in this season.

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Everything keeps growing. And growing requires new versions of you whether you feel ready or not.

I’m 38. Wife of nine years. Mom of two. Cofounder of a company I’m building in real time, which means I’m figuring out who I need to become professionally on a near-weekly basis. Everything keeps growing. And growing requires new versions of you whether you feel ready or not.

What I didn’t expect is that right now, for maybe the first time, I actually feel really good about it all. There’s something that happens when you stop bracing for the change and just go with it. Something that feels a lot like arriving even though you’re still very much in motion.

My husband sees it too. And there’s something specific about being seen by the person who’s known so many important versions of you and still having them look at the current one and feel proud. Thats its own kind of thing.

What gets me about Lady Lady is that it holds both things at once. The letting go and the moving toward. Not sad and not triumphant. That in-between feeling of nostalgic and calm and a little bit brave and excited. Which I think is actually the most honest way to describe what growth feels like from the inside if you let it happen.

So how do you know when to listen to her?

It’s probably different for everyone. But I’m starting to recognize a pattern for me.

The gut feeling that just won’t leave. And sometimes it doesn’t even make sense. But it just keeps showing up quietly underneath everything else.

An unsettledness that feels structural. Not the 3am spiral kind… although that happens too. More like bumping up against the walls of something you’ve outgrown.

Or conviction. The thing that lives below the level of argument. Where you know something is true about where you’re heading even though you can’t fully defend it yet.

I used to mistake all three for something else. The gut feeling would get rationalized. The unsettledness numbed or pushed down. The conviction second-guessed until it’s gone.

But the reality is… outgrowing something isn’t a loss. It’s actually evidence that you grew. The container got too small because you got bigger. That’s not a problem. That’s amazing.

The known is comfortable. It’s safe. But it’s also behind us. And staying loyal to a version of yourself you've already lived out of comfort, or fear, or not wanting to disappoint anyone is its own kind of loss.

Your future self isn’t asking you to blow up your life. She’s not asking you to have all the answers or a perfect plan or the right timing. She’s just extending an invitation. Quietly and persistently.

And the invitation is simply: are you willing to find out what’s next?

If you’re like me, in your mid thirties or forties, accomplished and still becoming, settled and still restless, this is actually where it gets really exciting. Because you know enough now. You know what you want and what you don’t.

You just have to be willing to go.

Now go put on Lady Lady by Olivia Dean. Ideally in the car, windows down, somewhere with a view. And listen to what your gut is telling you.

Tables Ready is written to be an open conversation with my readers so I can get to know you like you’re getting to know me. If this sparked something, I’d love to hear about it in the comments —

Cheers!

Meg

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I have an early flight tomorrow. I’m not fully packed. I just got out of the shower. And here I am… logging back on one last time before bed when I absolutely should be asleep.

I thought my husband was getting ready for bed too. Instead he just walked past me in his workout gear. Now downstairs on the treadmill.

He’s doing what I’m doing but in his own way.

Stealing back a little ‘me’ time. Regardless of the hour or the looming alarm.

It started this morning.

Our three-year-old woke us up this morning with a fully formed agenda. Water. A banana. And his favorite show. All before my husband or I had opened our eyes. Before a single thought of our own.

The show became a negotiation he didn’t win but he didn’t go down without a fight. Then it was upstairs to get the baby with yet another cold. We got both boys dressed, fed them a proper breakfast (not just a banana), looked up, and it was time for the nanny to show up and our toddler to head to preschool.

And at exactly then… my first call started.

Back to backs after that. Emails responded to in between. I wrapped up my last call in the car on the way to pick up my preschooler. Half my brain still professionally mid-sentence, the other half calculating what we had in the fridge and whether it would pass our three-year-old’s very specific dinner requirements.

Then home. Played outside. Then inside for the anticipated dinner negotiation (tonight’s dinner meltdown was that his orange slices were “too juicy”). Then books and bedtime.

And then… quiet.

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As a parent, from the moment a toddler wakes up, you’re needed.

Not wanted… needed. In a physical, immediate, non-negotiable way. And then you start work and you’re needed there too. You switch from parent-brain to professional-brain and back, sometimes in the same hour.

By the time the kids are asleep... you’ve been someone’s something all day long. And you haven’t been yours.

So your nervous system does something sneaky. It knows sleep is coming. It knows the alarm is set. But it also knows that the moment you close your eyes, tomorrow starts. And tomorrow looks just like today. So it quietly negotiates for just a little more time where no one needs anything from you. Where you can read something no one asked you to. Watch something no one chose for you. And think a thought that belongs only to you.

It’s really a form of preservation, not necessarily procrastination.

I know what the advice is supposed to be here.

Wake up before the kiddos. Protect your mornings. Build the routine. Put the phone down at 9pm. Manage the schedule better. Find the balance.

And some of that works, some of the time. We’ve tried most of it.

But I’ve stopped pretending this is primarily a discipline problem. For professional parents in the thick of early childhood, with the sick baby and the preschooler with opinions and the job that requires real presence, the margin for self is genuinely so thin. Some nights, midnight is the only hour that hasn’t already been claimed by someone who needs something.

And the most honest thing I can say is: of course. Of course this is where the day ends up. Not because I’m doing it wrong. But because I’m carrying a lot and this quiet is the first moment all day that asked nothing of me.

If you’re reading this when you should be sleeping… so be it.

You were needed before your eyes were open this morning. You made decisions before your first coffee. You fed people, comforted people, checked temperatures, negotiated with tiny humans, and still answered the email.

You’re not here because something is wrong with you.

You’re here because, just like me, this is the first moment today that was yours.

Happy scrolling, watching, thinking, & doing you.

Meg is the Co-Founder & CEO of BONDE, a private professional club for accomplished women. If it’s for you, apply here.

But then he stopped us.

My three-year-old spotted a fluffy pink flower growing along the edge of what I can only assume is a twelve-million-dollar property, ran straight over to it, plucked it without a single hesitation, and held it up to his face.

“Mama! This smells like raspberries!!”

He handed it to me the way kids hand you things… with complete confidence that you will find it just as magical as they do.

So I smelled it.

And he was right. Not just a little right. Exactly right. It smelled like a bucket of fresh raspberries. Bright and sweet like you could eat it. I pulled back and looked at this little pink flower like it had just spoken to me. Because in a way it had.

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I can’t remember the last time I smelled a flower.

Not casually walked past one. Not noticed one with my eyes. Actually stopped…. leaned in… and smelled one.

A decade, maybe? More? I genuinely don’t know.

For the rest of our walk, even during the stretches when he dozed off in the stroller, I kept stopping. Every time something caught my eye, I’d pull over to the side of the sidewalk and lean in. Even when it felt awkward to do it. A deep burgundy one that smelled like honey. A white one so light and clean it barely smelled like anything at all.

Each one different… like it has its own specific little world.

And I felt … I don’t know how else to say this… happy and sad at the same time. Happy because something small and beautiful was happening to me on a random day. And sad because it had been so long. So many walks past so many flowers and I never once thought to lean in.

It took a bright-eyed three-year-old to remind me that this was something I was allowed to do.

So where else am I seeing in black and white when I should be seeing in color?

Because I don’t think the flowers are the point exactly. The flowers are just the most literal version of something that’s been quietly happening to us adults for years.

A slow narrowing. Life gets busy. And full and serious. And without meaning to, we start moving through it on a kind of autopilot. Efficient, forward-facing, results-oriented. We stop noticing what isn’t urgent. We stop touching things that don’t require our attention. We forget that some things don’t need a purpose to be worth pausing for.

Kids haven’t learned that yet. They haven’t been taught that a flower is just background scenery, that pausing for it is an inconvenience, that the goal is to get where you’re going. A three-year-old sees a pink rose and thinks: that might be interesting. And then they go find out.

When did I stop doing that? When did you?

I don’t have a tidy lesson here because I’m still unpacking it myself. And I’m not going to tell anyone to slow down, because we already know we should and it doesn’t help to be told.

But I will say this: I’ve been thinking about all the places in my life where I’m moving so fast I’ve forgotten to be curious. The conversations I’m half in. The meals I don’t really taste. The people I love who I look at without really seeing.

My son is three. He has no idea he taught me anything. He’s already moved on to his baseball collection and wrestling with his little brother and whatever comes next.

But somewhere in Pacific Heights, there’s a fluffy raspberry-scented flower that woke something up for me. And to that I am grateful.

Tables Ready is written to be an open conversation with my readers so I can get to know you like you’re getting to know me. If this sparked something, I’d love to hear about it in the comments —

Cheers!
Meg

The note I deleted: “The amount of controversial things I write in a box but then delete is HIGH….. realizing more and more how challenging/controversial I really am”

So, naturally, I start to unpack whatever that behavior is —

The tiny box confessional

There’s a tiny box that knows things about me that no one else does.

The comment box. The LinkedIn draft. The text I typed and then held my thumb over until I talked myself out of it. Poof, gone, deleted.

The amount of controversial things I write in a tiny box and then delete is HIGH. I’m realizing that more and more lately. How much I actually think. How many opinions I have that never see the light of day.

For a self-proclaimed “life observer” there’s some irony here.

The draft I deleted that led me here

Here’s the most recent example: I wrote something about leadership for LinkedIn. Specifically about a type of leader I really can’t stand.

The no-sh*t leader. The one who stands in front of a room and says things everyone already knows. We need to sell more. We can’t lose any more people. We need to get that one in for the month.

All statements that make everyone in the room want to respond with: no sh*t.

And the most painful part is that leader walks away thinking they just motivated their team, but the reality is everyone left feeling the opposite. Unmotivated and checked out because that’s not leadership. A leader’s job is to clear the path forward for their people, not to point out all the weeds in their way.

I’ve believed this for years. I was even super intentional about not being this kind of leader when working in corporate. It’s in the DNA of what I believe good leadership is. So for me it’s not at all a hot take. It’s just true and I lived it.

So I wrote it out, made it digestible, and formatted it so it would land the LinkedIn way.

And then… deleted it. But WHY?

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Hidden calculations we’re running

Here’s what’s strange. The decision to delete happened before I even realized I was making one. Because the second I finished writing it, the questions came flooding in. Fast and almost automatic. Like they’d been waiting for me to finish so they could have their turn to speak:

How will this land? Is this too direct? Too harsh? And if I’m being really honest… is this too much coming from me? As a woman? Will it read as controversial or aggressive? Too bro? Too pushy?

That last part is the one that bothers me most. Because maybe controversial isn't even the right word. Controversial implies you're trying to provoke something. When what’s actually happening is that some people are just further along in a specific thought than the room they're in. And that can read as “too much” to someone who just hasn't gotten there yet. But it's not the same thing.

Because I didn’t write something aggressive. I wrote something true. Something I’ve believed and practiced for the better part of my career and what made me a successful leader. But somewhere between the thought and the post button, I started editing myself through someone else’s imagined reaction.

That’s the cost/gain calculation.

On one side: what could this cost me? Being misread, the wrong audience seeing it, coming across as too much, too aggressive, too whatever…

On the other side: what do I gain by saying this? Clarity, connection, putting something I think is true and helpful into the world.

And the problem isn’t that we run the calculation… that’s actually probably smart.

I think it’s that we put too much weight on the cost side. The hypothetical negative reaction of a person we’ve usually never met and many times even imagined up somehow carries more weight than the years of experience that earned the thought in the first place.

So here’s the question

At what point did we decide that the loudest voice in the room gets to be the hypothetical critic? And why do we keep letting them win before they’ve even shown up? And what would we say if we knew the imagined reaction didn’t count?

I’ve said this exact phrase about leadership in rooms, in 1:1s, and in feedback for years. So why did I doubt it? Why did I trust the hypothetical reaction of a stranger on the internet more than I trusted my own years of lived experience?

The timing of this adds to the irony and maybe that’s why I’m even noticing it.

Last week at a retreat, (a Human Design coach) was unpacking my chart with me. And at one point she looked me dead on and said: You have something worth saying. There will be many times you’ll doubt it. The worth of it, the delivery of it…. but it’s worth saying. Even if it’s just for one person. So share it anyway and don’t overthink it.

That encouragement meant everything.

And then exactly one week later, there I was. Deleting and cost calculating. Unknowingly doing the exact thing she told me not to do.

That critic isn’t even real. We built them up and let them have a row seat of every thought we almost posted, almost said out loud, and then deleted.

And the annoying part is that the imagined audience is always harsher than the real one. The person we’re so afraid of misreading us probably isn’t even paying attention anyway. And what comes instead when we do say the thing is someone sliding into our DMs saying things like: Same. I’ve been thinking that for years. This is exactly what I needed today. Thank you for saying it.

That’s the real “cost” of the calculation. The silence. The idea that somewhere out there is someone who needs to hear exactly what was just deleted and now they won’t. And that's what Alex was urging me to remember when the doubt creeps in.

So the question really shouldn't be whether the opinion is “too much”. It should be whether this pesky imagined critic is more important than the real person who needs to hear what we’re brave enough to say out loud.

Tables Ready is an open conversation with my readers and a chance for me to get to know you too. If this resonated or reminded you of your own version of this, I’d love to hear about it in the comments or message me in my inbox.

It didn’t happen by accident. But I also didn’t see it coming.

A member of our BONDE community said something to me leading up to the retreat that made me laugh out loud the second she said it.

“Before this, you couldn’t have paid me to do something like this. Leave my family for multiple days for some kind of networking event. And here I am… excited for it, buying new clothes for it, anticipating the exhale of it. And choosing to pay for it…”

Same. Completely same.

I was always the person who dreaded anything like this. Networking events, work trips, leaving my family for more than a day. Going anywhere with strangers where I’d have to make small talk and grin and bear it until I could get back to the hotel room and tell my husband I was ready to go home. While looking up earlier flights.

And without realizing it, here I was. Planning it. Willingly and excited. I didn’t even realize it until she said it out loud.

Here’s what I think is actually going on. And I think it happens to a lot of women without us ever stopping to recognize it.

We carry so much and so consistently, that we stop noticing we’re carrying it. The mental tabs are open 24 hours a day whether we want them to be or not. The to-do list doesn’t clock out when we do. We’re running the household logistics, the work priorities, the emotional calendar of everyone around us. All at the same time. Usually in the background. And usually without being asked.

Experts call this the mental load. Not just doing the tasks but managing the awareness that the tasks exist. Knowing the pediatrician appointment needs to be scheduled, that we’re almost out of something, that a friend is going through something and hasn’t been checked on. It’s not the work itself… it’s the constant open-tab hum of it.

Here’s my version of it: my husband does so much. Genuinely. Many times he’s the 60 to my 40. But even when he’s doing the 60, actually physically doing it, I’m mentally right there with him. More milk picked up, check. Son dropped off with the right coat so the teachers know it’s his, check. Garbage on the curb Wednesday night, check. He completed the task but I still tracked it anyway. Not because he asked me to. But because I can’t help it.

And I don’t think this is unique to me. Most women reading this probably just nodded.

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An example of this happened before the retreat even started.

A group of us were laughing around the pool about how we’d each prepared to leave. Almost every mother had done the same thing: stayed up late making sure the laundry was done, organized meals for days (shoutout to Little Spoon for helping us here), written out detailed instructions nobody asked for, outlined every possible scenario so that life at home could continue without a hiccup.

And then we got on the plane quietly annoyed and exhausted that we’d had to do all of that just to feel like all the boxes were checked.

The wildest part? We gave ourselves those invisible boxes. Our partners didn’t ask for any of it. They really didn’t need it. But we did it anyway. Because somewhere in us, we felt we needed to earn the permission to go. We needed to know everything was taken care of before we could justify taking care of ourselves.

That’s not love or even responsibility. That’s conditioning.

The part nobody talks about on International Women’s Day.

This isn’t just about women. It’s about what we’ve all inherited.

We watched prior generations divide the world into two jobs: the home-job and the job-job. Women naturally, and through forced societal norms took the home job, and then added the job-job on top. Men took the job-job and weren’t conditioned to think about the home-job at all. Not because they don’t care, but because nobody taught them to track it the way we do.

So when a guy leaves for a work trip or a golf weekend, his mental checklist is: what do I need to pack? He wasn’t conditioned to ask: have I set the home up for success before I go?

And when a mom leaves, she gets asked, and often times by others: who’s taking care of the kids?

The answer: their dad. The other fifty percent of their parent who is entirely capable and genuinely excited for the quality time. And we need to say that more. Because painting this as a burden or suggesting that dads can’t handle it sends the wrong message in the other direction.

The whole dynamic needs a rebrand. A rebalance.

The goal isn’t for women to get better at stealing away for a few days to recover from a load that never gets redistributed. That’s just a pressure valve. The real shift happens when the mental load is actually shared.

Which is exactly why what happened at the retreat mattered.

What makes BONDE different from every “networking event” I’d ever dreaded was that nobody asked what you’d accomplished.

From the moment you shake the first hand, the question is never what do you do for work? or how accomplished are you? It’s simpler: how are you really? what made you decide to show up for you?

No positioning. No resume comparison. Just women showing up as honestly as they could from the very first conversation.

For women who are used to being in the driver’s seat, in business, at home, everywhere, that kind of intentional letting go is both necessary and honestly super uncomfortable because it’s unfamiliar. The feeling of being somewhere without the full itinerary. Of not being needed for a few days. Of stepping away from the version of yourself that holds everything together.

And then slowly… sometimes over a meal, or around a pool, or in a conversation you didn’t expect to have while hiking, something loosens. The tabs start closing. You hear yourself think. You remember what you actually sound like when nobody needs anything from you.

That’s where quiet confidence lives. Not in the performing of it. But in the space where it finally has room to surface.

Women’s History Month is full of recognition for what women have built, carried, survived, and achieved. All of it deserved. But what I keep coming back to this year is quieter than that.

I keep thinking about the reframe.

The bigger question underneath it: what would it look like if we stopped treating the mental load as a personality trait of capable women and started treating it as a structural problem worth actually solving? What if the goal wasn’t to help women “rest better” within the current system, but to question why the system is set up this way at all?

That’s the conversation I want to keep having. Around the table, in the comments, and everywhere else.

We don’t have to earn the exhale. But we do deserve a world where we’re not asked to.

Tables Ready is an open conversation with my readers and a chance for me to get to know you too. If this resonated or reminded you of your own version of this, I’d love to hear about it in the comments or message me in my inbox.

She did everything right: built the career, earned the titles, led the teams, did the work.

And then one day recently her phone rang and... that was it. Severance package. Email deactivated almost immediately.

So I asked her honestly: how did that actually feel? how are you really?

She paused for a second, kind of looked down, and then she said “Honestly? At first it was like someone threw cold water in my face. I couldn’t breathe for a minute. But then... and especially now… I couldn’t be happier it happened.”

Then she went on. She said every single holiday break for the last ten years, she had it on her to-do list to take some time to think about whether she should make a career change. And every single year, she got busy, the schedule filled up, and she just... didn’t. Ten whole years went by.

What struck me in our conversation was the confidence she was carrying in the middle of uncertainty. That's when the conversation shifted to mindset: specifically what we called a high agency mindset.

It sounds like a fancy way of saying confidence or ambition, maybe even privilege. But it’s really none of those things.

High agency is the unsettling realization that no one is coming to rescue you. And instead of buckling… you stand up straighter.

It’s believing you actually have a say in how your life goes. Not when things are perfect or easy or fair. Actually… especially then.

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It doesn’t always show up in big dramatic moments. It shows up in quiet, boring little decisions made over and over again. The difference is just in the question we ask ourselves.

instead of: “why is this happening to me?”
it’s:“okay… since this is happening... what am I going to do next?”

That’s it. That’s the whole idea. But it changes everything.

Because most of us spend time in low agency mode without even realizing it. We slowly hand our power over to a job that stopped fitting years ago, or to a version of ourselves we outgrew but never really looked at again.

And low agency sounds completely reasonable. that’s the sneaky part. It sounds like this: “I can’t leave yet. It’s not the right season. That’s just how this industry works. I’ll revisit it when things calm down.”

None of that sounds crazy. It sounds responsible. But over time? It starts to show up as low level resentment. Like life is something that’s happening to you rather than something you’re actively living.

The other thing I find fascinating (and kind of uncomfortable) is that once you accept that you have agency, you also have to accept responsibility. You can’t really tell yourself you’re “stuck” anymore. Because you’re not stuck. You never were. You were just choosing what’s familiar over what’s uncertain. And those are very different things.

This especially shows up for people in the middle chapters. We’ve built enough to know what we’re capable of. And lived enough to feel the cost of staying somewhere that doesn’t fit. So we ask question: “now what do I do with it?”

High agency doesn’t mean blowing your life up. It just means being honest about what’s not working anymore.

In real life it looks really ordinary. Like, you’re overwhelmed, the house is always chaotic, snapping at the kids more than we want to, and every night ends with a version of half-working, half-scrolling, completely fried. Low agency says that’s just the season. That’s just parenthood. Reset later.

High agency says: Okay… this is just... reality. So what am I actually going to do about it? Maybe hire help before you feel financially ready. Maybe block your calendar differently. Maybe just start saying no without providing an explanation. Nothing dramatic. Just small tweaks that put you back in the drivers seat.

Or professionally: you’ve outgrown your role and you feel it every Monday morning. You have ideas you’re not sharing. You’re quietly resenting leadership. Low agency says that’s just corporate life. Your boss should notice. Or it’s not the right time.

High agency says if I stay silent, nothing changes. So you ask for the meeting. You share your ideas. You ask for the title or the comp adjustment. Or you start looking elsewhere. You might not get what you want but you stop pretending you’re powerless.

And I think it’s important to note: agency isn’t some personality trait we either have or don’t. For most people it’s just a practice. An exhausting one, honestly, because it takes away the comfort of the “I’m stuck” story.

But there’s this real confidence that comes with it. Not because you know how things will turn out… you don’t. But because you know you’re not just sitting there waiting.

You’re participating. You’re choosing. Awake at the wheel.

So I keep coming back to the question and I hope you do too:

Where in life can you swap out “why is this happening to me” for “since this is happening, what am I going to do next?”

Tables Ready is written to be an open conversation with my readers so I can get to know you like you’re getting to know me. If this sparked something, I’d love to hear about it in the comments —

Cheers!
Meg

What if the answer isn’t to unplug and shut out information, but to go deeper into your own life until the noise just… stops being so loud.

About an hour later, I was in an Uber on the way to the airport. It was early and the sun was just coming up. The last thing I wanted to do was talk.

But the driver was chipper with an Australian accent and I could tell he wanted to chat. Then that thought came back to me: an interesting life makes conversation with people, it doesn’t scroll on a phone in the back of a car.

So I asked: where are you from? How did you end up here?

The conversation took off. We talked the whole 30 minutes and got surprisingly personal. He shared that he'd been feeling lonely and we ended up talking about community, faith, and the choices he was working through. At the end he said, “thank you for this conversation, I really needed it.”

My day was made before 7:30am.

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An interesting life is having enough going on that it starts to give you clarity and a natural filter for the noise.

Of the things you care about, the things you like, what you believe and what you don’t, what aligns and what doesn’t. Enough real conversations happening in your life, back and forth, that get you to think, speak, hear yourself respond, force you to respond. Moments outside of reading or watching other people live that get you to feel real responses. Nervousness, excitement, danger, problem solving.

When this happens, things start to become clear. What you stand for. What’s interesting to you. So when you encounter the noise: online, in the media, in your feed, you already know what to cut out and what to welcome in. Not because you’ve thought hard about it, but because you’re aligned and oriented. Things become less noisy not because there’s less of it, but because you’re naturally filtering without even noticing.

I firmly believe the noise isn’t solved by silence or retracting. It’s solved by having enough real life moments that the noise is easily spotted and has nowhere to land.

Over the past few years I’ve felt this firsthand. It’s the clearest and most steady I’ve ever felt. Naturally unfollowing/removing what doesn’t feel right and letting go of what feels like clutter. Not because I planned to, but because I finally just recognize it in real time. A mental refresh that happened on its own, driven by lived experiences and conversations that keep pulling me out of my comfort zone and into thinking that actually feels like me.

Now when something doesn’t light me up, the noise removal is easy and unemotional. And when something does, I know I want more of it. The filter just works. This kind of clarity isn’t manufactured. You have to live your way into it.

So how do we actually get there?

A great question to ask is “when did I last feel something real?”

When did something make me nervous in a good way? When did a conversation push me somewhere I didn’t expect to go? When did I have a problem that was actually mine to solve?

If the answers hard to come by… that might be the signal.

Next up is just to keep it simple. Think about things already in motion. Something you’re already in the middle of that hasn’t resolved yet. A conversation worth finishing. Commitment you made that now requires you to show up. A problem needing solved. Something with an uncertain outcome that involves you specifically.

I don’t think an interesting life is built in big gestures. It accumulates in small moments where we’re actually present, actually participating, actually looking up from our screens, actually responding. Those moments compound.

And after enough of them, we start to get to know ourselves because it came from experience, not from observation of others where we think “huh, could that be me?!”

That’s what makes the noise quiet down. Not less of it… just more of you.

Tables Ready is written to be an open conversation with my readers so I can get to know you like you’re getting to know me. If this sparked something, I’d love to hear about it in the comments —

Cheers!
Meg

That’s exactly what planning BONDE’s first retreat felt like.

There’s something surreal about milestone moments as a founder. You’re so heads-down in the work that sometimes it’s hard to stop and appreciate all the steps it took to get here.

But as we prepare for our next retreat, I keep reflecting on how far we’ve come.

Let’s go back to 2024:

When we first dreamed up BONDE, retreats weren’t on the roadmap. Community, connection, access, authenticity… all words that described the vision. Helping women navigate the middle of their careers, the second and third chapters of life, and those intentionally opting into their next move. But how we would cultivate that? That part wasn’t clear yet.

It took a year for the idea for retreats to surface. I had just taken my second maternity leave. And actually took it. During that time, I kept thinking: it would be so nice to have a moment just for myself. To unplug from responsibilities and plug into my own thoughts. To simply be. To SLEEP.

When I resurfaced from mat leave, my cofounder, Parnian, had been reflecting too. She had a single, clear conclusion: we needed to offer retreats. A space where our busy, multi-tasking members could unplug from the world and reconnect with themselves. Music to my ears. I agreed instantly, knowing firsthand how necessary it was. And just like that, the next steps began.

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We knew this wasn’t an inside job. This wasn’t something we wanted to test or learn from scratch through trial and error. We wanted it shaped with the same TLC we give our programming, our tech, and our branding.

So we reached out to our network and got introduced to Anna: head of retreats at an existing membership community.

I flew to NYC to meet her. Whoever we brought on had to align with our vision, overall style, and our intentionality. We met for lunch in Brooklyn, and we were immediately impressed. She didn’t pitch or lecture. She just asked questions. Really thoughtful, intelligent, curious ones. She leaned into our vision rather than inserting her own opinions from the jump. The exact energy you want from a potential advisor when you first meet them.

We connected personally, too. Sharing the unseen but important pieces of our lives. That bond and depth of connection is in BONDE’s DNA. It’s how we cultivate relationships that feel immediate and personal.

Once we aligned with Anna, it was game on. Over the next 90 days, we went all in.

We secured a full buyout of a Catskills retreat venue before we even had a single RSVP. No attendees identified, just a gut feeling that we’ll make it happen and a date to work backwards from.

Deadline anxiety was high but it was also what drove us. We focused on the most important next step to tackle, and little by little, things started to come to life.

We set the theme. Identified our facilitator. Hired a wellness instructor. Found a florist. Convinced in a DJ. Created the design assets. And most importantly, carefully selected the guest list. One by one, all 30 attendees coming 17 different states.

Each of them highly accomplished in their industries. And all looking for the same thing: a “me moment” alongside other successful women in community.

Everything fell into place. It felt almost too easy. But looking back, it wasn’t.

There were lessons in every step:

1. Book it & find a way. Sometimes the pressure of a deadline is the only thing that forces clarity.

2. Seek guidance from people with lived experience. Advice is only as good as the thoughtfulness behind it. Anna’s insight elevated every decision.

3. Pause & reflect. Taking time to step back (even during maternity leave) allowed the idea to form organically and intentionally for us.

4. Relationships are more important than transactions. The personal connection with Anna was as crucial as her expertise. Chemistry and shared values matter.

5. Iterate quickly but intentionally. From venue to guest list, we moved fast. But every move was deliberate and aligned with our overall vision.

What keeps coming back to me is this: building BONDE has never been about launching a product or checking a box. It’s been about creating a space where women can show up fully, gain access to resource they wouldn’t have otherwise had, and plug into themselves… and into each other.

The retreats are one way that intention comes to life.

Looking ahead to Palm Springs next week, I feel proud of what we’ve built and how we’ve built it. Thoughtfully… collaboratively. BONDE isn’t just a concept anymore. It’s here. A living, breathing community. And every retreat, every conversation, every little moment is a reminder that it’s meant to exist.

Cheers!
Meg

She bet on herself.

She’d started her own business not too long ago, and it showed. In how relaxed she was talking about uncertainty and how little she needed to prove. The road wasn’t perfect and she didn’t pretend it was. In fact, she shared the hard parts easily. But even then, you could tell she was loving every minute of it.

That kind of confidence always catches my attention. The kind that comes from choosing something hard and staying with it. I’m infatuated by it. So I leaned in.

Early in the conversation, we were talking about being unfiltered early and often. About how the most powerful connections usually don’t come from being impressive and buttoned up… they come from being honest sooner than feels comfortable, or from saying the thing before it’s perfectly phrased. From not waiting until it’s “safe.”

And then she said something that quite literally made me freeze up.

“I really respect irresponsible optimism.”

I never heard those two words put together before. Unraveling how they go together felt hard to do. I felt it in my body before I could explain why. I tightened up, felt the friction. And to be honest, it made me uncomfortable.

So instead of doing what I usually do (nodding along, filing it away, assuming or acting like I understood) I paused and asked her to explain.

What do you mean by that? Irresponsible optimism?

She lit up.

And I don’t think it was because she had a rehearsed answer, but because it’s not often people ask or give to clarify instead of projecting their own meaning onto our words.

She said: It’s about candor. Having the integrity to shoot someone straight.

Believing that people (especially those you love and care about) deserve the truth, and not a softened version designed to keep everyone comfortable and happy.

She shared that to her, irresponsible optimism wasn’t about delusion or blind positivity. It wasn’t about ignoring risk or pretending things would magically work out.

Then she referenced Brené Brown: to be clear is to be kind.

So often we treat kindness as restraint. We don’t push or say too much at the expense of protecting feelings. Even when someone is explicitly asking for honesty.

Here’s an example we talked about in real time:

Let’s say I send you a pitch deck and ask for your feedback, don’t tell me it’s great if it’s not. Don’t comment on the colors and skip the fact that the story doesn’t land.

Tell me where it’s confusing.
Tell me where it’s too wordy.
Tell me what’s going to get me passed over for capital.
That’s why I asked.

Anything else might feel nice in the moment, but it doesn’t help me move forward. And worse, it subtly communicates that you don’t think I can handle the truth.

The same pattern shows up in our personal lives. We ask friends for advice and they circle the point. Because they don’t want to hurt us.

But what’s missed here is what we’re asking for. What we’re really asking for isn’t reassurance. It’s perspective.

Irresponsible optimism, as she described it, is trusting that honesty (when delivered with care) strengthens relationships rather than hurts them.

Integrity matters here. Because this isn’t about being harsh or critical or “just being honest.” It’s about telling the truth with someone, not at them.

Using your voice well also means knowing when it’s not yours to use.

It’s about discernment. Knowing when to use your voice, and when not to… for their sake.

If you haven’t walked in their shoes
or taken the risk they’re taking
or you’re not actually a SME in what they’re asking for advice on.
Be careful how you show up.

These moments aren’t an invitation to offer candid feedback freely. Not every opinion is helpful and not every moment calls for truth-telling.

Maybe that’s why the phrase initially unsettled me.

Because irresponsible optimism asks something of us. It asks us to risk discomfort and to trust that the relationship can handle more truth than politeness.

It’s easier to stay vague.
It’s easier to be agreeable.
It’s easier to be liked.

But the people who have most changed my thinking, my work, my direction weren’t the ones who nodded and agreed along. They were the ones who were clear alongside me.

As I continued to unpack the conversation, I realized: irresponsible optimism isn’t irresponsible at all.

It might just feel that way in a culture that’s grown far too comfortable confusing kindness with avoidance.

Thanks for sitting with me. Cheers!
Meg

Not overly explained. Felt.

We believed (and still do) that if we cared deeply about something, other women would recognize it immediately. Care is contagious like that.

So we did what any two founders with taste, opinions, and zero formal design training do: we opened Canva and jumped straight down a rabbit hole. Colors, fonts, templates, mood boards. And of course, from there, all roads led to Pinterest.

And while we were pinning our way toward clarity, there was one image we kept coming back to. A logo that wasn’t slick or flat or overly digital. You could feel the care in it. The kind that takes time and intention. The kind that signals someone actually thought about the human on the other side. A simple crest that was sewn, textured. Felt.

That image stuck with us.

So I did what I do when something matters: I went looking for the source. Not casual looking either. The kind of looking that borders on unhinged. Find-your-college-boyfriend’s-high-school-ex-girlfriend level looking.

And eventually, I found her: Laura Santi.

As we sifted through Laura’s work, and especially after we met her for the first time, we felt the first instinct we’ve committed to as founders ever since:

Hell. Yes.

We started working with Laura (then at EightySeven) to dream up BONDE: brand voice, naming (Savant? Boardroom? Literally forget it. Nothing was trademarkable), and most importantly, the feeling. That exhale when you realize something professional can also be personal. That something like this finally exists.

Then we landed on BONDE. And Laura brought it to life.

But she didn’t just design the brand. She shaped its direction.

We originally set out to build BONDE for as a private professionals club for women in corporate (only) and New York (only). But Laura showed us, without even trying, that she was the member. A multi-faceted woman scaling her career, expecting her first baby, relocating, showing up for others, and using her skill to help people move forward.

So we pivoted. Hard right. For Laura.

BONDE exists for stories like this. Instead of endlessly scouring Pinterest (forever grateful), our members now have a vetted community, a toolbox, to find exactly who they need to make their next move possible.

Just like Laura was & still is for us. Now as Head of Brand for BONDE.

Most of what shaped BONDE didn’t necessarily come from our strategy decks.
It came from paying attention.

Here’s what this experience taught me:

1. Trust your hell yes instinct:

   When something feels undeniable, it usually is. That instinct has guided more of our decisions more than any framework ever could.

2. Allow yourself to pivot:

   Laura didn’t fit the original demographic we had in mind. On paper, she wasn’t the target. But in practice, she was it. Mid-career. Relocating. Betting on herself and her talents. Becoming a mother while still showing up for others with consistency and care. Working with her helped us see the nuance of who a BONDE member really is and not just who we assumed she’d be.

3. Be intentional about who you bring in early.

   This matters more than most people realize. When you’re still new and in your raw ‘idea phase’, early collaborators don’t just execute along side you, they can shape and influence direction. Good or bad. While Laura was designing the brand alongside us, she unknowingly and quietly influenced what BONDE became. Hiring, partnerships, creative collaborators, whatever it might be… all leave fingerprints on the product whether you mean for them to or not. So be intentional with who you bring in the room.

4. Build what you were looking for.

   Laura was what we needed in that moment. And BONDE is what we wished existed. The strongest products are often answers to real friction things you’re searching for and can’t seem to find.

5. Pay attention to what you can’t stop noticing.

   The image we kept coming back to on Pinterest mattered and the intentional work behind it mattered. Obsession isn’t random, especially when you’re in building/creating mode. I’m a firm believe that it’s information trying to get your attention.

6. Feeling recognition beats persuasion.

   The strongest brands and communities don’t convince people to belong. They make the right people feel seen, almost immediately. So many of our members express that feeling and how much that mattered to them. As founders, this is extra special to hear because it means the thing we cared about most from the start matters.

This entire story is really about attention. What we noticed, what we couldn’t stop thinking about, and who we were willing to go looking for.

So if you’re in the middle of building something (anything) this is your reminder to notice what keeps pulling at you. The collaborators you trust, the moments that feel like an exhale, the things you’d go looking for if they disappeared. That’s often where the clearest signal lives.

Thanks for sitting with me. Cheers!
Meg

Being unapologetically yourself about what you show up for. Not posting because it’s what you think others want to see, but because it’s what you want to say. Not second-guessing a piece of writing or having ‘post regret’ because what you wrote isn’t for everyone. It’s for you, and anyone else who resonates with it.

Showing up is step one. Step two is how.

The misconception is that we’re showing up, in our writing, the photos we share, the decisions we make, the jobs we pursue, for other people. When we start paying attention to what we want, and how we want to take up space, it stops being performative and starts being… authentic.

My three-year-old son is the perfect example of this. He is authentic in a way that feels almost instructional. He’s unapologetically himself because he doesn’t know any different yet. He hasn’t built the social awareness mechanisms required to fit in for our modern version of survival.

He likes what he likes and he’s proud of it.

Art but hates getting his hands dirty. The color pink. Baseball and hockey and playing David and Goliath. He’d watch Tumble Leaf all day if we let him and eat “chewy fish” while doing it. He talks himself into being brave, but it’s not his first instinct. His first instinct is observant, attentive, cautious.

And this doesn’t waver.

Pink. Baseball. Chewy fish. Clean hands.

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As we get older that clarity of self starts to chip away.

I can point to moments in my own life when it happened. Girls giggling in the middle school locker room because I forgot to shave my armpits. Shrink. Being told I was too loud. Too bossy. Shrink. Naively sharing my views on faith, only to be met with a dagger comment back. Shrink.

Those tiny paper cut moments over time teach us to censor what we put out for the world. Because we don’t want to feel that feeling again. Picked on, judged, doubted. So instead of sharing honestly, we tailor our messaging. We bet on being well-received instead of betting on ourselves to have a voice that’s uniquely ours in the first place.

Those same instincts follow us offline and into real rooms, real conversations, and even real decisions.

At work, it exists in every position.

For example in leadership: when someone’s interviewing for an open role and you can tell, almost immediately, that they aren’t meant for the industry or role. They don’t have the intangibles. You can sense they don’t even really want the job.

Somewhere along the way, someone told them they should get into sales, and they believed it. So there they are, sitting across from you, interviewing for a tech sales role in the heart of San Francisco. And without trying to, they light up talking about the wine industry. They went to school for it even. And yet here they are.

This is where authentic leadership shows up.

Instead of continuing to pile on interview questions (or worse, hiring them) you get real. Not harsh or dismissive. Real in the way you’d talk to a nephew you care about. You explain what’s actually behind the door they’re knocking on, because you can actually see it. What entry-level tech sales really requires. How it can shape someone’s life, for better if they want it or for worse if they don’t.

You explain the intangibles, because you know them and he doesn’t. Decisiveness, resilience, comfort with volatility, being genuinely money-motivated. Then you gently reflect back what he said about himself and how those things don’t quite align.

You’re not telling them they’re wrong. You’re not telling them what to do. You’re simply helping them see something they can’t see yet, because you can.

That’s authenticity. Saying the true thing out loud.

It shows up in our personal lives, too. In smaller, quieter ways. Like how we bend.

Not voicing where we want to go to dinner. Allowing company to stay longer than we want. Saying yes to a weekend that doesn’t actually work for you.

Those micro-moments are all opportunities to show up honestly. And here’s the thing I’m still learning: they don’t require an explanation unless you want to give one.

“My vote’s Mexican!” (my son has zero hesitation here)
“We’d love to have you visit from X-to-X.”
“That weekend doesn’t work for me, but these do.”

Being honest isn’t being mean. It’s just being clear.

Mel Robbins talked about people pleasing in a way that really stuck with me. On the surface, it sounds like a nice trait: being considerate, easygoing, not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings. But when you look closer, it’s masked as a kind of manipulation. You’re changing your response to manage how someone else experiences you.

You’re not giving them the real version.

Reframing people pleasing this way helped me see it differently. It isn’t kind or generous. It keeps relationships slightly misaligned. And who wants to get to know, or build something with, someone they never fully meet?

Authenticity doesn’t mean we share everything.
It means we trust ourselves enough to share what’s true, and we let that be enough.

Thanks for sitting with me at the table. Cheers!
Meg

My answer wasn’t a book, or an essay, or something I could physically put on a shelf. It was Substack.

Just… Substack.

And as soon as I said it out loud, I knew exactly why.

Because what’s happening here right now feels less like consuming content and more like sitting at a dinner table with someone you’ve admired from afar for years, finally getting a chance to hear them talk. No wonder the medium is taking off!

For a long time, our inspiration from people was limited to mostly visual. Tiny squares showing us glimpses of how others moved through the world, their style, and the corners of their homes. Instagram gave us that. You could admire, double-tap, save, and keep scrolling. And for a long time, that was enough. We didn’t even know we wanted more.

But Substack changed that.

Now we don’t just see what people wear or buy or how they decorate their personal spaces. We get to see how they make decisions. How they reason annd unpack tension. How they put words to the things they care about.

Some pieces are short and punchy. Others might wander longer like an essay. And sometimes you get a glimpse of someone who is certain one week and questioning something the next. That honesty and variability is what makes it feel real. It’s what makes it feel like we’re actually getting to know each other.

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From the conversations I’m having with people, it’s clear we aren’t looking for more perfection. We’re craving proximity. Good-old-fashioned connection and conversation that matters. We want to understand how someone thinks and learn from them, not just what they recommend or how they live. We want the context and the substance. A point of view that matters because we’ve seen the person giving it has been living intentionally.

And that’s why the moment someone you’ve followed on Instagram for years launches a Substack, there’s that immediate pull to follow. That little jolt: Wait, now I get to know you?

It’s the same feeling as finally being looped into a conversation you’ve been on the edge of noticing for months. Or when that outfit you’ve saved a dozen times finally has the LTK link attached. Phew! You’re in. Behind-the-curtain information is gold. And Substack is that, at a scale we weren’t really even asking for, for people we’ve admired from afar. Or even getting to know now for the first time.

Take , for example. Millions of followers on IG, Impeccable taste that is unapologetically hers. That perfectly lived-in yet polished energy so many women aspire to conquer. Admiring her from afar, and what she wore on the outside, was more than enough for me. But now, through her Substack, she shares what’s inside: how she reasons, the discipline it takes to trust herself in a world that’s constantly trying to sell something else, the push and pull of influence, the effort to maintain taste and joy even when the world is loud and performative. Seeing inside her headspace, however much she chooses to share, makes her even more compelling.

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On a smaller, more personal scale, there’s , someone I’ve loved to follow since my 2017 Minneapolis days. Always impeccable style, often captured in a bedroom mirror selfie and paired with a sharp, understated wit. Instagram gave glimpses into this, just enough to know there was depth there. Substack pulls the curtain back further. Now there’s humor and honesty along with taste and thinking at a deeper level, all at a frequency you can actually get to know. It’s like finally sitting across from someone you’ve always known you’d like.

That duality: the visuals paired with the freedom to put them into words, without character-count limits, pulls us closer. We don’t just see what people like. We get to understand why they care. What they’re paying attention to. What they’re still figuring out.

And here’s the part that matters most to me: Substack doesn’t just change the reader. It changes the writer.

Being here is an opt-in. You can’t really hide…. or at least, you shouldn’t.

Creating a Substack means saying yes to pulling back the curtain and sharing the interior, the thinking. The things you care about enough to put into sentences. You’re committing to paying attention and explaining it out loud. Not in a messy, oversharing way, or in a performative way. Just in your own way. Just enough to be yours.

So I’m here. At the table. Pulling up a chair. Sharing what I notice, what I’m inspired by, and what I’m questioning.

Not to impress or to perform. But simply because this feels like a conversation I want to join.

Cheers!
Meg

Not necessarily scary, just… intimate. Almost as if you’re talking to a room before you know who showed up.

Lately I’ve had lots of conversations with people who want to start a Substack or show up more on LinkedIn or just use their voice more in general. Almost every conversation hits the same moment. The desire and the intention is there, but then they sit down to write and everything feels heavier than expected.

Talking about who you are is easy in bullet points: Wife. Mama. Founder. Advisor. Connector. Problem solver. Firstborn daughter. Libra. Enneagram 7…. short & safe.

But when you’re staring at a blank page, those titles are useless. They don’t tell you what to say. So the questions begin to change.

What’s my actual voice?
What’s my “lane”?
Is this even worth putting out there?
Will anyone care?

People say “don’t overthink it and just write”. And I believe that. I’m a big fan of starting before you’re ready. But I also think there might be something healthy about pausing here. Sitting with the unknown for a sec and asking not what am I, but who am I and what do I actually want to say with it?

Here’s what that looked like for me this week…

I wrote two Substack drafts. Which, if you’re a parent, you know means this happened after the kiddos bedtime, on the couch, with a quiet voice inside saying “you should really be sleeping right now...”. One was about how AI might actually make us more human. The other about high-agency thinking.

Then I shared them with my husband. Because he’s the person who sees me most clearly and helps me gut check when I feel unsure.

He started by telling me they were really good. Complimented the writing. I could feel the but coming next. Then he said, “but they’re too surface-level for you.”

It was exactly what I needed to hear. And probably why I showed him in the first place.
They were ideas I believe in and ones I can explain well. But they weren’t coming from my lived experience. They sounded more like headline chasing. They were… safe.

He started reminding me of things I’ve actually lived through. All the things I’ve built without a playbook. The decisions I made that didn’t come with certainty. The people I’ve met along the way and what came from those connections. Chapters that have been (and still are) messy, unresolved, and real. The parts with weight. The parts people actually recognize themselves in.

And something clicked.

If this space is going to matter, to me or to anyone else, it can’t just be about the things I think are “worth saying.” Or the things I think people want to read. It has to be real. What I’m actually living. What’s being built, questioned, and figured out in real time.

Because the reality is no one has this figured out. Writing is vulnerable. Choosing what to say is vulnerable. Even hitting publish is vulnerable. Pretending it’s not just creates distance and makes everyone else feel like they shouldn’t participate unless they show up with Carrie Bradshaw level confidence.

So instead of starting with perfectly packaged insights or a confident takeaways, this felt like the only honest place to begin.

Admitting that finding my voice is awkward and something I know I’ll grow into. That it’s unfinished. And that I’m choosing to be real before I’m ready.

There are enough people in the world who want that version of us. The one that isn’t polished or borrowed or trying to sound like anyone else. The one thinking out loud and telling the truth from exactly where they’re standing and where we’re going.

If we stay in that “lane”… showing up gets simpler.

Thanks for being sitting at the table with me. Cheers!
Meg