Relatable. Consistent. Stubborn. And, maybe a little wildly optimistic?

Hello, {{first name | Dear Reader}},

Every week I debate whether it's time to officially sign off from writing this newsletter. Well, all my newsletters, really--to be honest. I don't know if I continue because I'm addicted to the consistency, or whether I genuinely love writing. As a matter of fact, I keep a draft in my account with the subject line, "Signing off." And every week, I wonder if it's finally time.

Then I find myself here. With more to say.

More to say about women, wealth, power, feminism, and the oh-so-relatable reality that being an entrepreneur fucking sucks more than it doesn't.

And yet. Here we are.

I've been thinking about why I keep coming back, and I think it comes down to four things. Four words, actually. They're the ones I hope other women use to describe this newsletter, and honestly, to describe the kind of women I'm writing for.

Relatable. Not in the curated, soft-launch way. In the I also dissociate by doing deep research on random subreddit rabbit holes way. Or by using productive procrastination to design graphics for completely unrelated projects. In the it's actually hard to sell your services way. How much work it takes to keep a pipeline full. How hard it is to juggle work, family, and everything else. How time management in entrepreneurship is a serious struggle, and how most days I work more than I ever did at a 9-to-5. The world changes when women stop performing fine and start telling the truth about what building something actually costs.

Consistent. Showing up, even when the draft folder’s almost-goodbyes are calling, is itself a radical act. Power is built in the returning, not the arrival. We change things by not stopping.

Stubborn. The system is not designed for us to win. Knowing that and continuing anyway isn't delusion, it's defiance. Stubbornness in women has always been rebranded as a problem. I think it's the whole point.

Wildly optimistic. Not naive. Not bypassing the hard parts. But genuinely, maybe irrationally, convinced that what we build--the businesses, the words, the conversations--matters enough to keep going. That's not a personality flaw. That's how things actually change.

These four things are not a brand. They're a posture. A way of moving through work that is underfunded, underestimated, and somehow still going. This newsletter, and everything I make, is for the women who recognize themselves in that description.

Because I actually believe the world doesn't change because of a single viral moment or one perfect campaign or the right person finally getting a seat at the right table. It changes because enough women showed up, consistently, for long enough, saying the same true things, until the conversation has no choice but to shift.

That's what this is. That's what I'm doing. And I think it's what you're doing too, or you wouldn't be here.

Below is one of my most recent, THE all-time most-read, Fem-Led News edition. If something resonates, please share it. That is genuinely my only ask… most days.

I'm wildly optimistic that this work matters. Not in a toxic positivity way. In a we keep showing up anyway kind of way.

Relatable enough to be honest. Consistent enough to be trusted. Stubborn enough to keep going when it doesn't make sense. And optimistic enough--maybe foolishly, maybe not--to believe that's exactly how we change the systems that aren’t working for us.

Thanks for being here.

With grace and gratitude,
Raven