The Business in My Head

Call me the CEO of Unleashed Potential.

2020. Studio Project.

Yesterday I had lunch with two women I adore. Friends. Both entrepreneurs.

Bad asses.

It was one of those lunches where the conversation moved quickly between ideas, projects, and questions about what we are building next, pushing each other a little further outside our comfort zones. I had no problem diving straight into what is keeping me stuck before the drinks even arrived. A safe space will do that for you.

Somewhere in the middle of it, I realized something slightly wild.

Most of what I am building right now exists entirely in my head and on my laptop.

If you could see the inside of it, it would probably look like a fairly elaborate operation. Layers of ideas. Real estate strategies. Design projects. Writing. Concepts that are half-formed. Others are fully formed. A few are even sitting on my desktop, ready to hit launch.

I like to call it a seven-figure torture.

From the outside, though, you mostly see Instagram. A small slice of things I actually share publicly. The reality is that I am a fairly private person. Quiet even. But internally, it is essentially a full-time strategy meeting.

Which is how I found myself back here today, writing a Substack post.

Not because it is perfectly thought out. Not because it is part of some carefully engineered content plan. But because it was time to do it.

Ideas that stay in your head forever are not really ideas. They are thoughts waiting for permission.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.”
-Carl Jung

Jung is essentially saying that what lives in your head must be brought into the open, or it controls you invisibly.

I think my third dog needs to be named Carl.

Entrepreneurial instincts have always been there for me.

When I was little, I sold Girl Scout cookies like it was a competitive sport. I created a neighborhood magic show. I taught myself dance routines from MTV videos I recorded. My first real business was selling scrunchies I designed to the nurses at the hospital where my mom worked.

Looking back, it feels fairly obvious that building things was always going to be part of my life.

What is interesting is that the instinct itself has never really changed. Only the tools have.

The scrunchies turned into design projects. The design projects turned into real estate. And lately, my curiosity has wandered into an entirely new playground.

Learning new systems. Experimenting with ideas. Asking questions like, “How fast can I build my own AI?”

Which is exactly why there is now a Mac Mini sitting on my desk.

Apparently, this is where curiosity has taken me next.

And that is not the only thing brewing.

Some ideas live in notebooks. Some are already half-built. A few are one button away from launch.

But yesterday’s lunch reminded me of something simple.

At some point, you have to begin.

Not when the idea is fully formed. Not when the plan is flawless.

Just begin.

I have failed at plenty of things. Personally. Quietly. And occasionally very publicly. At this point, that part does not bother me much anymore.

A few months ago, someone made a comment that was meant to sting a little. She told me it was obvious from my social media that I was going through a breakup.

Which I found mildly amusing.

Because the alternative would have been pretending everything was perfect.

And honestly, I have spent enough years watching people perform perfection online and off to know how exhausting that act must be.

What actually happened instead was something far more interesting. When you share pieces of real life instead of performing a version of it, people respond. Conversations open up. People connect. Sometimes healing shows up in places you did not expect.

So if someone prefers to sit quietly on the sidelines and judge, that is their choice. I would rather be the person actually doing something.

Which is exactly how I ended up here today.

Because apparently, the seven-figure business in my head is tired of waiting.

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