I’m Almost 40. I Don’t Act, Sing, or Perform. And I’m Going to Win an Oscar, Grammy and Tony

I told my husband that the other night. He didn’t flinch. He’s heard me say things like this before. Things that don’t make no damn sense but somehow I mean every word. And I do. I mean it the way you mean something when it lives so deep in your body that arguing with it would be arguing with your own heartbeat. To be clear I want to win these awards for creative direction and I will !

I turn 40 in September.

These past five years have been a culmination of experiences I never thought I’d have. Rooms I didn’t think I’d be in. Conversations I didn’t think I’d be part of. Opportunities that showed up not because I had a perfect plan but because I made a decision. And then another one. And then another one. And each time, the woman I was becoming got a little clearer.

But here’s what nobody tells you about growth. Every single time I got settled, every time I thought okay, I’ve figured out how to do this, here came a new lesson. A new stretch. A new version of myself asking me to shed the one I just got comfortable being. Five years of that. Five years of building and unbuilding and rebuilding and wondering if the next version is the one that finally gets to stay.

I spent 2025 doing everything right. And I mean that. I sat at my desk and asked myself what kind of language was marketable. I studied what content my audience wanted to see. I tracked what performed on the algorithm. I reverse-engineered what would attract my ideal client. I built funnels. I refined offers. I wrote copy that sounded like what copy is supposed to sound like.

And every single day, there was this low hum underneath all of it. This quiet friction. Because what I was doing worked. But it wasn’t mine.

I was wrecking my brain over the how. How to say it, how to position it, how to package it. Instead of letting my body lead. Instead of letting my intuition run. Instead of creating the way I actually create, which is from this place that lights me up so completely that I know, I am certain, it would light other people up too. Because that’s how it works. When something is real, people feel it. You don’t have to convince them.

But I didn’t let myself play in that space. I kept thinking that sales and marketing needed to look a certain way. That being a serious business owner meant creating a certain way. That the container had to match what everyone else’s container looked like.

By the beginning of 2026, I was burned out. Not from working hard. I’ve worked hard my entire life. I was burned out from creating against my own grain. From pouring energy into a version of my work that was responsible and strategic and completely disconnected from the thing that actually made me dangerous in the first place.

And this is where I want to talk to you. Because I know you’re in this.

You know exactly what your worst case scenario looks like. You can map it out in detail. The failed launch, the empty webinar, the moment someone unfollows, the month the revenue dips, the conversation where someone asks what you do and you fumble the answer. You have rehearsed your own failure so many times you could direct the movie.

But when’s the last time you imagined the best possible outcome?

Not the safe goal. Not the “realistic” one your mentor helped you set. The real one. The one that lives in your chest. The one you’re almost embarrassed to say out loud because it sounds too big for the life you’re currently living.

I’m not talking about manifesting. I’m not talking about vision boards. I’m talking about the fact that somewhere between becoming a mother and getting fed up with my own limitations, I made a decision. I decided to have everything I wanted in this one life. And I know that might trigger you. The audacity of a woman who says that plainly and doesn’t apologize for it. But it is a decision. It’s available to you right now. Not when the kids are older. Not when the business is more stable. Not when you’ve earned enough to feel like you deserve it. Right now.

Here’s what I’ve learned in five years of building, breaking, and rebuilding:

The opportunity is never in the plan. It’s in the story you’re willing to tell yourself about who you are and what’s possible for you. It’s in the willingness to choose the unfamiliar route when every voice around you is saying you should really play it safe. To zig when they tell you to zag. Not to be different, but because your body already knows which direction is yours.

Most people build their business, their brand, their entire life inside the boundaries of their worst case scenario. They make decisions from the floor. What’s the safest move. What’s the least risky option. What won’t embarrass me. What won’t fail publicly.

And then they wonder why their life feels small even though they’re doing all the right things.

The women I work with, the ones who build something that actually lasts, they’re not the ones with the best strategy. They’re the ones who gave themselves permission to want what they actually want. And then had the nerve to go get it.

I’m a creative director. For five years I’ve built brands, visual identities, entire worlds for other people’s businesses. But the work I’m here to pioneer isn’t about logos and color palettes. It’s about this: your life is a creative project. The most important one you’ll ever touch. And most of us are not directing it. We’re reacting to it. We’re letting the algorithm, the market, the expectations, the fear make every creative decision for us. And then wondering why nothing feels like ours.

Creative directing your life means you stop being a passenger. You stop taking what’s given to you and start choosing what you build, how you build it, who you become inside of it. It means looking at your morning, your money, your relationships, your environment, your ambition with the same intentionality a director brings to a film.

This is what I’m here to talk about. This is the hill I’ll die on.

I built this Substack as a space to teach and talk around how I’ve done this. In my life, my opportunities, my relationships, my experiences. None of it was accidental. Every room I’ve walked into, every opportunity I’ve created, every version of myself I’ve stepped into started with a decision that most people are afraid to make.

I’m going to show you how I made them. And more importantly, I’m going to show you how to make yours.

Welcome to Creative Directing Your Life.