2ND EDITION | ISSUE #161 I was barely able to lift the thing. So it was not a huge surprise when I had to fork over 100 euros to make up for my overweight suitcase instead of parting with the 4 bottles of wine and limoncello inside the giant Samsonite hardside spinner I had bought for the trip. I didn't know it then, but it was the end of my days as a chronic overpacker. I blame the trip I took to LA with my grandparents when I was 7, when my mom somehow forgot to pack shorts for the week. Or...
9 days ago • 10 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #160 The amount of stress I impose on myself with self-imposed deadlines is kinda over the top. What is it about making time for our own brand that's so damn hard? That makes us spiral out a little? It's a question I've been grappling with since I started my business four years ago—but really focusing on in the last year as I've taken myself through my own slow branding process. Is it that updating our brand is personal, and it challenges us to embody and up-level how we...
16 days ago • 8 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #159 There i was, standing on a little circular pedestal, with both of my fists under my chin & swirling like a little girl back and forth. But ya know, as a 31-year-old adult. And just like that, I had officially checked “buy wedding dress” off my to-do list, and added it to the list of WINs inside my current 12 Week Year. Now, if you know of the 12 Week Year by ****Brian P. Moran, Michael Lennington, you may have just tensed up a little thinking of all the trackers and...
22 days ago • 8 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #158 The moment I dozed off into a lucid dream, the buzzing started again and I jerked awake—pausing to consider hitting snooze for a third time this morning. But before I could convince myself otherwise, I rolled myself out of bed, stumbled to the kitchen, and proceeded to spill coffee grounds everywhere in an effort to brew myself an entire French press of ambition. Yet the morning still had an upbeat undertone, like the clickity-clack of Dolly's nails in the opening...
30 days ago • 10 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #157 Framed in rosy fading hydrangeas, overlooking the valley below, with fall-hued hills rolling around it, sat a graveyard with roughly 30 matching headstones inside. A small pilgrimage of sweater-clad travelers wound their way up the path, me being just one of them. But this wasn't any old graveyard. It was a graveyard of failures. But failures that were being celebrated. Failures that had become part of the attraction. At this point, you are probably wondering just...
about 1 month ago • 7 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #156 Can I tell you a secret? I'm running away tomorrow. But only for like five days. Depending on how long you've been reading this newsletter, you won't be all that surprised. Roadtrips are something I do pretty often, and my craziest travel stories have been documented in many a newsletter in the past - it's where some of my best content comes from. I wrote this newsletter (issue #143) en route to a place that changed it all The crap grap moment (issue #114) & how to...
about 1 month ago • 12 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #155 My head jerks up, and my eyes open to the open MacBook on my lap. My heavy eyelids find the time in the right corner. 9:47 PM. I take that a sign and close up the website framework i’ve been chipping away at. And I'm not having fun. Like, at all. Zero inspiration. Just this growing feeling of... blankness? Blah-ness? That thing where you're doing "the work" but it feels like climbing a mountain with no top in sight. And then it hit me. I don't have a reference. Which...
about 2 months ago • 7 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #154 Depending on how long you’ve been following me, you may or may not know the lore surrounding our almost 100-year-old house and the renovation that's been one of the main characters in our lives since January of 2022. If not, here’s the cliff notes version: We spent the first year and a half completely gutting the place, commuting back and forth from our apartment to work on it. Then we spent the next six months living in a camper in the driveway until we could get the...
about 2 months ago • 8 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #153 "If you were my business coach? What advice would you give me about this offer?" I asked — while staring into my Zoom screen and connecting with Jayne — my most recent Brand Brushstrokes client who was giving me some beta feedback from halfway around the world. And as someone who doesn't really follow other designers — preferring to stay in my lane and not get distracted by comparison — I was so surprised at her feedback. "I didn't want to change my logo. And I had...
2 months ago • 7 min read