This isn’t about taste or talent

The world feels like pure darkness and chaos. Tbh, I sat in silence this weekend as I thought about how I want to show up in this newsletter, on my social, etc.

I wish I didn’t have to say that as often as I have over the last year, but it’s the truth. It’s overwhelming. And yet, as creators, artists, and founders, we still have to show up.

The truth is, access to freedom, choice, and agency often requires money. Revolution requires you to be resourced.

We have teams to support. Bills to pay. Customers who rely on us. The work doesn’t pause just because the world feels awful.

So the real question becomes:
How do you navigate the noise without losing yourself, your empathy and care for others, and your momentum?

Maybe this thinking will help you like it does for me:

Rest isn’t a reward. It’s a right.

You can’t create anything meaningful from depletion, no matter how “on” your strategy is. Hustle culture might pretend otherwise, but your nervous system keeps receipts.

Meet a friend for coffee. Name your feelings. Go outside without turning it into content. Stay in bed an extra half hour. Read a novel just because you want to. Curl up with your pet.

You have to take care of you first to give to others.

Let that thing start with connection.

If what you create makes someone feel seen, steadied, amused, or clearer than they were before, you’ve already won. Meaning cuts through faster than trying to push through the pain ever will.

This is where discernment matters.

Read the room.

The strongest brands and creators don’t ignore what they or their people are feeling—they respond to it. They pay attention. They adjust tone. They lead with awareness instead of performance.

Thoughtful presence is more powerful than perfect timing.

You don’t need to disappear to be respectful. You don’t need to stop offering value to be human.

You can promote your work with care. You can acknowledge what’s happening without centering it. You can keep moving forward without bypassing reality.

The world will continue to be noisy AF. But your voice still matters.

Ask yourself:

How are you navigating the chaos right now?
Where are you forcing consistency instead of creating resonance?
What would it look like to show up honestly and sustainably?

For now, beyond all else, take care of yourself and your people.

Create from meaning.

And trust that standing up for your values is always the right thing to do.

I see this pattern all the time. The visuals are beautiful. The references are thoughtful. The content is polished. On paper, everything should work. And yet nothing really sticks. Engagement is inconsistent. Recognition is fragile. You keep adjusting instead of building.

That’s not a talent issue. It’s not even a confidence issue. It’s a repetition issue.

Most people think aesthetic is about style.

But aesthetic is actually about the decisions you keep making. The choices you trust enough to repeat. The things you do again without checking if they’re still “cool”, “on trend”, or “allowed.”

Strong cult brands don’t copy looks—they extract rules. Besides there’s a cost to copying.

The best founders and creators notice what consistently pulls their eye, what they instinctively trust, what they return to even when no one else is talking about it. They stop recreating what they like and start translating why it works. Not as decoration, but as structure. That’s how taste turns into identity.

This is also where people get stuck relying on mood boards instead of patterns.

Saving references feels productive, but it doesn’t create recognition. Your real aesthetic doesn’t live in what you bookmark it lives in what you repeat. In the language you default to. In the pacing you come back to. In the tone that shows up even on an off day. That’s the signal your audience actually feels.

Cult brands understand this, so they stop chasing novelty for novelty’s sake. They’re not trying to impress everyone every time. They’re trying to feel familiar to the right people. Recognition compounds. Memory compounds. Loyalty comes from knowing what to expect—and wanting more of it.

This is also why separating brand from aesthetic matters so much. Aesthetic creates familiarity, but brand creates meaning. When the meaning is clear, the visuals can evolve without breaking trust. When the meaning is missing, every change feels risky—and you end up second-guessing everything.

At a certain point, the strongest shift is internal. You stop asking for permission. You stop polling the room. You stop crowd-sourcing decisions that require taste. You decide once, then reinforce it until it becomes recognizable. Not because it’s perfect, but because it’s yours.

And you let your taste develop before you optimize it. You don’t rush to polish ideas that haven’t earned repetition yet. You give things room to prove themselves. You allow instinct to lead before strategy locks it in.

Because an aesthetic without identity is just decoration. And decoration doesn’t build brands—decisions do. Your people don’t connect to how things look.
They connect to what gets them really feeling something.

That’s where real brand power lives.

Here’s what’s on the radar this month if you’re building a brand, refining your leadership, or stepping into your next-level creative CEO energy:

🗓 January 21st at 10 AM PT / 12 PM PT
👀 Only 100 seats available live (our last workshop had 1,000 registrations!)
📍 Get on the Waitlist + RSVP Here

If you’re ready to stop duct-taping your brand together and finally architect the identity, narrative, and ecosystem your work deserves—this is where we start.

In this session, we’ll walk through:

This is the system I use with my private clients, and it’s the framework that’s built legacy brands across categories. If you want in—let’s go! Only 100 get in the room.

This is the high-touch, 1:1 container where I step in as your Fractional Chief Brand Officer and help you move from "growing" to "growing with clarity and power."

We’ll co-build:

– Your evolved brand identity
– A strategy that connects dots across offers, content, and vision
– Systems that support scale without overwhelm
– Messaging that finally reflects your actual level

This is for you if you're already doing well—but you're ready for your brand to feel as big as your vision.

💌 Apply here to start the conversation

📅 Starts Wednesday the 14th
📅 Ends Friday the 16th
⏱️ 3 days only

This challengeis a focused, high-impact consolidation of the Cult Brand work, designed to help you move fast without losing depth.

Pop in now to check out the Business Library.

We added two sessions from the Cult Brand Blueprint Accelerator (our six-week brand accelerator focused on building cult-status brands), specifically on the topic of Founder Lore and Voice and Language.

We chose these intentionally because when a brand feels off or hard to explain, it’s rarely a content issue. It’s usually a story and language issue.

👉 Founder Lore helps you identify the parts of your story that shape how people understand and remember you.

👉 Voice and Language focuses on how that meaning shows up in words, so your brand sounds like itself across captions, emails, offers, and conversations without forcing tone or chasing trends.

We’re sharing these inside OOO Club because this way of thinking is foundational.

It also gives you a real sense of how we work inside the Cult Brand Blueprint Accelerator and what that depth and pace actually feel like.

Now back to the challenge, if you’re not already a member, join for free for 7 days to participate! You can join here.

👯‍♀️ Want to share a Smart Girl Opportunity with the community?
Job openings, collabs, grants, speaking gigs—whatever you’ve got—send it my way and we’ll include it in a future issue.
Just reply to this email and drop the details.

I joined Lori Harder for her podcast Earn Your Happy and it’s one of my favorite convos on a pod ever.

Give it a listen here.

See you next week—

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