I use it daily. I also roll my eyes at half the content I see that was clearly written by it. I’m both the problem and the person complaining about the problem, which is always a fun place to be.

But here’s what I’m actually feeling about the whole thing, and it’s the part I don’t love: people are outsourcing the thing that actually makes their work theirs, and then wondering why their engagement is in the shitter.

AI-generated content, even the good stuff, tends to over-explain.

It tells you what you’re about to read, reads it to you, then summarizes what it just told you.

We’re so afraid of being misunderstood that we’re having the tool overexplain us into getting eye rolled. We’re losing our own voices, the real ones, who don’t sound like a perfectly buttoned up whitepaper.

And dare I say I think we’re losing the plot.

When I think about the content that I’m saving online these days it isn’t the shit that comes with a 1500 page essay or a 10 step program. It’s more artful and the images and hooks are usually doing the heavy lift. There’s something about the “show, don’t tell” approach that has me feeling something more than a word salad biography ever could.

As someone who has built an entire business around the idea that a picture is worth a thousand words dollars, I can tell you that creating content that is more atmosphere than autobiography is what works right now. Because in a world where AI thinks more is more, I know first hand that when you choose to leave things out, let things breathe, and trust that the human on the other side is going to fill in the rest, you win.

The part AI can’t fake yet is called restraint, and it’s the part most of us are accidentally training ourselves out of. We’re outsourcing our intelligence and our ability to know when enough is enough.

So, let’s talk about what happens when you aren’t trying to teach 48 things before breakfast, and instead of sending a training manual, we focus on making folks feel something in about a second and a half.

Here’s what that looks like:

A clever visual.

A really good hook.

A double entendre is even better.

Whitespace. Lots of it.

Tension. Lots of it.

Restraint. Lots of.. you get the picture.

Less is more is actually the art of not explaining.

What we’re fully missing is that not every thought needs to be stretched into a five-paragraph essay, and not every visual needs text slapped all over it telling me how to eat, shit, sleep. Sometimes the image is the story. Or at the very least, it’s doing half the talking.

Subscribe now

As I’m building my Studio, I’m spending a lot of time working on brands and if there is one that I know for sure, it’s that branding stopped being about explanation a long time ago.

Now it’s about atmosphere.

We don’t need to tell people what you do. We need to make them feel something specific the second they land on our stuff. Mood → Pace → Edge. A sense that there is an actual human in there making choices.

The internet moves faster than ever and people are making split-second decisions about what deserves their attention and what gets buried under the next thumb swipe, which means visual storytelling has quietly become one of the most important skills you can have.

You’ve probably heard me say this before but our brains process images 60k+ times faster than text. Sixty. Thousand. Times. Which means before someone eats your word salad, they’ve already felt something. When half the words on the internet were written by a machine, who by the way, feels absolutely nothing, that ability to make people feel everything or nothing really matters.

And here’s where I waffle and become both the problem and the person complaining about the problem…

You like to use AI to write for you or help you flush out ideas? Cool, most of us do… but letting AI be the end all say all is not OK. The real issue isn’t even the writing, it’s that AI is replacing our editing instinct. The decision about what to leave out. The part of the creative process where you stare at the draft and go, this is too much, cut three sentences, kill that line, let the rest breathe.

That’s the part we’re losing. We’re letting more actually equal more and it’s not working. Instead of trusting the reader to pick up what we’re putting down, we’re cramming the point so far down their throats we’re choking them out with our over-explaining.

AI can’t look at something and go “that would land slightly better if we just cut.this.shit.out”. Only we can do that, but we aren’t, and this is what has me concerned. Instead of meaningful interactions with people who have real opinions, we end up with a bunch of bullshit content that says all the technically correct things while somehow leaving us feeling completely blah.

Perfectly optimized. Emotionally vacant. A whole lot of words doing a whole lot of nothing.

And if I’m being really fucking honest, I don’t even think that’s actually an AI problem. I think it’s a not-trusting-yourself problem. With everyone using the tool, it’s like we’re trying to keep up with the Jones’, only the Jones’ aren’t real and they’re simply regurgitating the same five-step frameworks that SallyJo555 shat out last week.

And it’s this inability to edit which makes the entire feed sound like one long, slightly-deranged group chat where nobody actually has anything original to say.

Listen Linda, great storytelling has never really been about saying more. It’s always been about saying the right thing, at the right moment, with enough space around it for people to lean in (and want more).

Good visuals can do this 100x better than words ever will. A good image creates emotional shorthand. It bypasses overthinking and cuts straight through the noise, building atmosphere before explanation.

And while everyone is trying to explain themselves into relevance the brands that win will be the ones that are confident enough not to. They understand that curiosity is more powerful than clarity. Our brains want to complete patterns. Your job is to find the cliffhanger and well, let it actually fucking hang.

Say less. Show more. If you have to explain the joke, it’s not a joke.

xo,

jess

PS: if any of this landed, you might like The Art of Visual Storytelling Playbook. Or if you’d rather we just help bring your story to life (minus the over-explaining of course), the Studio is open.

Every action has a reaction.

Hot and cold.

Light and dark.

Love and fear.

Traditional branding and well, us.

You can’t know one without the other.

They’re not just connected, they literally define each other.

Which means if your brand doesn’t stand against something, it doesn’t really stand for anything either.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because I keep seeing the same thing play out in every corner of the internet.

Entrepreneurs who have real opinions, real experience, and real points of view are watering themselves down into the most agreeable, least offensive, most beige version of who they actually are….and then wondering why nobody’s paying attention.

Somewhere along the way, we collectively decided that having an enemy was mean.

That taking a strong position was divisive.

That the safest play was to stay neutral, where nobody could disagree with you, nobody could come for you in the comments, and nobody could say you were wrong.

But here’s the thing about the middle of the road: it’s where you get hit by traffic going in both directions.

The Law of Polarity isn’t just some spiritual concept to nod along to.

It’s a business strategy.

Subscribe now

Because when you refuse to define what you’re against, you make it impossible for people to feel something about what you’re for.

You end up stripping your brand of the very tension that makes people lean in, pay attention, and eventually pull out their wallets.

People don’t rally around neutral.

They rally around “fuck yes”

Think about the brands that have actually carved out space in your brain. I guarantee none of them got there by trying to make everyone comfortable.

Look at Outdoor Voices. When every athletic brand was screaming about peak performance, crushing goals, and being the best version of yourself, Outdoor Voices showed up with “Doing Things” as their whole philosophy. Their enemy wasn’t laziness, it was the toxic intensity of fitness culture itself. The idea that movement only counts if you’re drenched in sweat and pushing past your limits. They said “hey, what if you just went on a walk and felt good about it?” and an entire audience of people who felt alienated by the fitness industry exhaled and said finally.

That exhale + finally is something that I hear a lot about anti-branding. I didn’t re-invent branding, I just said I’m not for the traditional way and here’s a different path.

Like it or not, polarity creates pull.

When you stand firmly on one side of something, you create a magnetic force. The people who share your values feel seen. They don’t just agree with you, they feel like you’re speaking directly to their experience.

And the people who don’t? They self-select out. Which, by the way, is exactly what you want.

This is what the Law of Polarity is really teaching us.

You cannot create a strong positive charge without an equally strong negative charge. They need each other. Your “for” is meaningless without your “against.” Your mission has no weight if there’s nothing you’re pushing back on.

And yet, so many of us are out here trying to build brands that exist in some impossible no-man’s land where we stand for everything and against nothing. We water down our messaging so it attracts (everyone). We find ourselves softening our opinions so nobody feels called out or left out. We hedge every take with “but that’s just my perspective” like we need to preemptively apologize for having a point of view.

We do not need to apologize for having an opinion. We do not need to be afraid to just say “hey, this is what I stand for.”

I think part of it is that we’ve confused being polarizing with being an asshole. But those are not the same thing. Being an asshole is tearing people down for sport. Being polarizing is having the guts to say “this is what I believe, and here’s why”, knowing full well that not everyone is going to like it, and that’s OK.

The other part, and I think this is the bigger one, is that we’ve internalized this idea that more audience equals more money. That the goal is to cast the widest net possible and capture everyone. But that math doesn’t actually work.

A massive audience of lukewarm people who sort of like you will never outperform a smaller audience of people who feel like you’re speaking their language.

Lukewarm people don’t buy. They browse. They bookmark. They “save for later” and then don’t actually come back later.

The ones who send you DMs saying “I feel like you wrote this just for me”. Those are the ones who felt the pull because you decided to get out of the middle.

I built both of my brands, The Passive Rebel & REBEL, on this exact principle, even before I had the language for it. My whole thing is anti-hustle, anti-corporate, anti-bullshit. That’s not just a vibe, it’s my line in the sand. It says “if you believe that grinding 18 hours a day is the only path to success, I’m probably going to annoy you.” And that’s fine. Because the people on my side of that line are not just customers, they’re collaborators. And they’re invested.

Your brand enemy doesn’t have to be a company or a competitor. In fact, in the spirit of doing this differently, focus on the belief systems, common practices, or a lazy assumption that your entire industry has accepted without questioning. I’m a firm believer that you don’t need to do things the way things have always been done. It can be the advice that everyone gives that you know from experience is total garbage.

But it has to be something, because without it, you’re just another voice in the noise, saying things that are technically true but emotionally flat.

In brand building, opposites aren’t just inevitable, they’re absolutely necessary.

So stop trying to be everything to everyone.

Stop softening your edges so you fit into a box that was never meant for you.

And for the love of something greater than us, stop apologizing for your voice.

Pick your side. Name your enemy. Plant your flag and GTFO of the middle.

But I want to go deeper here because I think there’s a conversation worth having that goes beyond “lore is important” and into why I think it’s the only thing that’s going to separate the brands that matter from the brands that get scrolled on.

I’ve restructured the entire way I take on work at REBEL Studio around this one idea, but first, a little more context on where my head’s at.

I’ve been paying attention to the brands that stop me. I’m talking about the brands that make me feel something before I can even articulate what they do.

Le Labo, Aesop, Fellow, Death to Stock. and one of my faves, Flamingo State.

They make home and body products but calling them that makes me want to punt my laptop because it completely misses the point. It’s just so beyond products.

They have a candle that smells like a fresh tomato. Not tomato-scented in that Bath & Body Works choking-on-the-fumes-sort-of-way where it vaguely reminds you of something a tomato smell like, if it was made in a lab under neon lights and poked by tiny robot needles.

This Flamingo Estate candle smells like you just walked through a garden in July and brushed past the vine and got hit with that green, sun-warm, almost savory thing right in the fucking nostril.

And the reason it smells like that is because someone cared enough to figure out how to make a candle actually smell like the real thing.

Not an approximation. Not a “ok version.”

The real thing.

That kind of obsessive, borderline unreasonable attention to detail isn’t a product decision.

It’s a lore decision.

It tells you everything about the people behind this brand without them saying a single word.

You can feel the philosophy in the wax as it burns a hole in your atmosphere (and wallet).

Lore isn’t a story you tell.

It’s the thing people feel in the details of what you make and how you make it. It’s the care underneath the care. The reason behind the reason. The unreasonable hospitality that keeps you locked and wanting more.

Subscribe now

And I keep coming back to this idea that the brands doing this kind of work, the ones that feel like a world you can step into rather than a product you can buy, they all share a depth that wasn’t manufactured.

It was accumulated.

Decision by decision, conviction by conviction, weird obsessive detail by weird obsessive detail, until the whole thing started to feel like it could only exist because these specific humans built it.

That’s what I want to build. That’s what I want REBEL Studio to be known for.

When I decided to open the studio, I made a commitment that we would only take on projects I was a full-body yes on. Not because I wanted to be precious about it, but because the kind of work I’m talking about, the lore-thick, culturally rich, grab-you-by-the-balls kind of brand building, you can’t do that on autopilot. You can’t phone that in. You have to actually give a shit, deeply and specifically, about the thing you’re building and the humans behind it.

So I started baking lore into every scope.

Not as an add-on. Not as a “Phase 3 if we have room.”

As the foundation.

Because I’ve seen enough brands now to know that without it, you’re just building a pretty shell and praying no one lifts the hood up.

Here’s what I mean by that.

When I’m working with a client, I’m not just asking the standard discovery questions. Not just “what do you do” and “who do you serve” and “what are your brand values” because honestly, most of the time those questions produce the same vanilla answers from everyone.

We value authenticity and community and blah blah blah. Cool, so does literally every other ‘ok’ brand on the internet.

I want to know the stuff underneath that. The conviction that existed before the business did. The thing that happened, the specific moment or experience or realization, that made this founder incapable of doing anything else with their life. The belief that’s so baked into how they operate that they don’t even think to mention it because it’s just how they are.

That’s the lore. And it’s almost never on the surface. You have to dig for it.

Sometimes the founder doesn’t even know it’s there because they’ve been so busy building the business that they forgot to pay attention to why this business and not some other one.

When we find it, everything changes. The whole brand clicks.

The messaging stops feeling like marketing and starts feeling like a point of view.

The visual identity stops being a mood board and starts being an atmosphere.

The customer experience stops being a funnel and starts being a world.

And the thing I’ve noticed that keeps reinforcing my lore whore tendencies, is that the brands we build with this depth don’t have to work as hard.

They don’t have to constantly market themselves or chase trends or hack algorithms or manufacture urgency. People just... gravitate, because when something has real depth, people want to be near it.

I think the reason this matters more right now than it ever has is because we’re drowning in AI-generated e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.

And I’m not saying that from a soapbox, I’m saying it as someone who uses AI every single day in my business and genuinely loves what it can do. But there’s a difference between using a tool and letting the tool use you, and right now a lot of brands are doing the later.

The result is this ocean of content and branding that looks fine, sounds fine, reads fine, and feels like absolutely luke warm milk.

It’s all surface. No weight. No roots. No lactose. No lore.

And you can tell.

Maybe not consciously, but something in the gut registers the difference between a brand that was assembled from traditional best practices and a brand that was built from lived conviction.

One feels like a catalog and the other feels like a zine.

I keep thinking about this in terms of what I want my own legacy to be.

Not just as a business owner, but as someone who builds things for other people. I don’t want to be known as someone who made pretty brands. I want to be known as someone who built brands with weight. Brands where you could feel my fingerprints on every single detail. Brands where the candle smells like the juicy tomato because someone refused to settle for synthetic.

That’s the thread I’m pulling on.

And the more I tug, the more convinced I am that lore isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s the whole game.

One more thing and then I’ll let you go.

You can’t manufacture lore, but you can create the conditions for it to form.

You can be specific instead of generic.

You can be honest about the mess instead of curating it away.

You can build on your own history instead of pretending each piece of content exists in a vacuum.

You can create language around your ideas that gives people words to navigate your world.

You can let things evolve in public instead of disappearing and coming back fully formed.

And you can care about the details to a degree that feels almost unreasonable.

Because unreasonable care is what creates the kind of texture that people can feel.

I didn’t set out to build lore with The Passive Rebel or A.N.T.I.

I set out to build a business.

But somewhere between the thief who stole my workshop, the bots that ate my only viral post, and the coaching program that proved to me that people are selling you snake oil, something accumulated.

Layers formed.

Ididn’t build it on purpose. I let it build me.

That’s the part I think most people miss.

You don’t create lore by sitting down and deciding what your mythology is going to be.

You create it by living and working and making decisions with enough conviction and specificity that the mythology forms around you.

xo

Jess, your self-proclaimed, badge proudly worn, Lore Whore.

It’s the theory that desperation repels and trust attracts.

That when you grip something too tightly, you’re basically ensuring it never fully arrives.

I’ve nodded along to this concept for years.

And then promptly ignored it every single time I had something at stake.

But as I’m officially in launch week with Anti-Social™, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how I want to welcome this new era of my business, differently.

So much of how I got here has been about detachment, so it seems rather fitting that the best way to launch Anti-Social is to actually be anti-social, and detach myself from the pressure to be “on” everywhere all at once so I can control the outcome.

Most people think of “indifferent” when they hear detachment, but to me, indifference means you’re neither here nor there and usually that stems from a place where effort is low.

But what if detachment actually means you tried fully, completely, honestly, and from a real place, and then trusted the process enough to stop white-knuckling the result?

There’s a version of caring about my work that tips over into strangling it if I’m not being mindful.

Where the need for it to land a certain way becomes so heavy that it bleeds into everything – the copy, the energy, the way I talk about what I made.

I caught myself mid way through building Anti-Social, fingers clenched around some of the copy, and had to consciously let go a bit to ensure that the content and material was allowed to form, just as it should.

If I’ve learned anything through this whole process it’s that people can feel when something comes from “I believe in this” versus “I need this to work so I can believe in myself.”

This time around the difference isn’t baked in some complex strategy.

It’s actually the thing underneath all of that.

The energy I can’t fake or hide behind.

Five years ago, FOMO, bro-marketing, and slick sales pages would make me pull out my plastic faster than frying an egg on a Florida sidewalk in July.

But I’ve watched what that hustle culture does to people. And I’ve lived what it does to me.

I see this happening in the online education and coaching space, and it’s clear that many of us are exhausted by it.

There’s just so much pressure to be an “expert” and for things to be perfect, which is only magnified & manipulated by the algorithm.

And while this is mostly self-imposed, this pressure is heavily reinforced by our online culture, to make every launch the launch.

Every offer has to be the one that changes your entire life.

Every funnel needs to perform on the first run.

Every email sequence should be generating consistent, predictable revenue immediately — or something is wrong with you.

Listen, goals are good. I want to be clear about that. Having direction, a number I’m working toward, a vision for what I’m building, all good things.

But they are not the problem.

The problem is what happens when the goal becomes the only acceptable outcome.

We get so locked onto a specific result that we lose the ability to see anything else.

We stop reading what’s actually happening because we’re too busy measuring it against what we wanted to happen.

We make decisions from fear instead of information.

Second-guessing the price. Changing the offer a hundred times before the market has had a chance to respond. Stuffing it with more content, more bonuses, more justification — because the silence feels like rejection, and rejection feels like proof that something is wrong with us.

And underneath all of it, we end up communicating everything but the thing, and it leaves us feeling…👉 desperate 👉 insecure 👉 and #tries.too.hard.

There’s a real difference between having goals and being imprisoned by them.

Goals give you direction.

Attachment to a specific outcome gives you tunnel vision.

And tunnel vision might be the most expensive thing you can carry into a launch, because it makes me blind to the actual information the business is trying to give you.

Every launch, every offer, every experiment is just a conversation.

The way our audience responds is a signal.

The numbers are saying something.

Even the silence is saying something.

But we can only hear it when we’re not so desperate for a particular answer that we’ve stopped listening.

This is where the Law of Detachment stops being a concept of “woo” and becomes actual strategy.

I’m releasing the grip on how it’s supposed to go, and getting genuinely curious about how it’s actually going.

Because curiosity is so much more useful than anxiety.

The Passive Rebel is actually built on this principle, even if I didn’t name it that way at the time.

When I ran my first funnel, I had almost zero expectation attached to it.

I just wanted to understand how the thing worked. I wasn’t attached to a revenue figure or a conversion rate.

I just wanted to learn.

That genuinely curious, low-stakes energy is what let me actually see what was happening instead of just reacting to whether it matched what I’d hoped.

From that one experiment — one big fuck around and find out — we built an entire ecosystem.

The atmosphere we call A.N.T.I.

That’s the Law of Detachment in practice.

Anti-Social™ is something I’m genuinely proud of.

It came from a real place. It stays true to what I know works.

It doesn’t hedge or try to be anything it isn’t.

It’s a system I built for myself that took me from $0-$100k in 93 days and reshaped the entire way I approach business.

And going into this launch week, I decided to do something different: I’m not gripping it.

I did my best. I spoke from what I actually know. I built something I believe in. That part is done.

What happens next is going to tell me something regardless, and it’s this detached mindset that has carried me this far, so I’m letting it carry me through this launch as well.

It’s also a core part of Anti-Social itself, so it feels important to lead by example here.

I’m not detaching because I might get hurt.

I’m detaching because the information is more valuable than any single outcome.

Typically I’d be in knots during a week like this.

Instead, I’ve found a quiet space of just knowing there’s nothing left to do, and it’s peaceful af.

Not a passive peace.

I’m still showing up, still doing the work of getting it in front of people.

But underneath that effort, there’s something quieter than I’m used to carrying into a launch.

Something that feels a lot like trust.

Subscribe now

Because somewhere along the way, we seemed to stop trusting ourselves and instead tie our entire self worth to the outcome as proof.

Proof like, if it works, I was right about the idea, about myself, about whether I belong.

And if it doesn’t, the verdict flips.

And because so much feels like it’s riding on that verdict, I grip.

What I keep coming back to this week is the separation of two things.

The work and the worth.

The outcome and the evidence of whether I belong here.

Because if I’ve made something true, something I believe in, something built from real experience, well then I already belong.

It’s already done.

No amount of sales is going to change that.

I made the thing.

I meant it.

And now I get to let it be what it’s going to be.

I’m not giving up on my goals or deciding results don’t matter.

I’m just finally at a place where I know that I’ve done my part, and the rest was never really mine to control anyway.

xo

jess

P.S. If you’d like to learn how I drive daily leads into my business while running “lazy ads”, I invite you to join us inside Anti-Social here.

The self-taught boom is here, and it’s growing at an astonishing rate. Digital products hit about $124 billion in 2025, and are projected to hit $416 billion by 2030.

That’s a huge YoY growth rate 📈📈 📈

But here’s the wildest part: while the market is growing like crazy, most entrepreneurs are building things that nobody actually buys.

Not because the products are bad, but because they’re solving problems that are too big, too vague, or too far in their buyers future for their people to care about right now.

The entrepreneurs making real money aren’t building comprehensive transformations, they’re solving micro-problems.

And there’s actual data behind why this works.

Here’s a stat that should rewire how you think about what offers you’re building in your business:

Micro-learning content has an 80% completion rate.

Traditional long-form courses? About 20%.

Think about what that actually means. When you create a massive course, 80% of people who buy it never finish. They get overwhelmed. They get lost. They give up.

But when you solve one specific thing in a focused way, 80% of people actually complete it. They get the win. They feel successful. They trust you enough to buy the next thing.

This isn’t about education format, it’s about how human brains actually work. Studies show that people retain 25-60% more information when it’s delivered in small, focused segments.

Sadly, we forget 70% of traditional course content within 24 hours.

Your audience isn’t “lazy” but you’re problem solving process should be.

Digital products thrive on micro-problems.

They also have a unique advantage in that they’re infinitely scalable without the baggage of service delivery. You create it once, and sell it forever. No additional time per customer.

But that same advantage becomes your biggest liability when you build something massive upfront.

A $3,000 course that took you six months to create and nobody buys?

You just lost six months with zero revenue and zero validation.

A $47 guide that took you two weeks to create and sells 100 copies?

You just made $4,700 and proved demand for your next offer.

The math is pretty straight forward: 55% of consumers are tightening budgets right now. They’re not buying transformations, they’re buying solutions to immediate problems. They’ll spend the money, but it needs to solve something they’re dealing with today, not six months from now.

When buyers can’t get clear on exactly what they’re getting and why it matters right now, they don’t buy. Complexity kills conversion.

But micro-problems find and remove the friction.

Let’s break a few big problems into money-making solutions, so you can see how this works in today’s market, shall we?

Let’s say you help people “build their personal brand” (too big). Here’s how you’d break that into micro-problems:

Instead of: “The Complete Personal Branding System” ($997, 12 modules, 6 months, and death by a thousand cuts to complete)

Think:

• “Write an Instagram Bio That Actually Converts” ($27, 45 minutes)

• “Create Content Pillars That Feel Natural to You” ($47, 33 minutes)

• “Turn Your DMs Into Discovery Calls” ($67, 40 60 minutes)

• “Pitch Yourself to Podcasts” ($97, 2 hours)

Each one solves a specific problem someone has right now. Each one has a clear outcome. Each one proves you can help before they invest in something bigger.

The person who buys into your micro-problem and gets results are way more likely to buy your higher cost program than someone who’s never worked with you before.

Or let’s say you teach productivity (again, too vague). Break it down:

• “Triage Your Inbox in 15 Minutes Every Morning”

• “Run Meetings That Don’t Waste Everyone’s Time”

• “Batch Your Deep Work Without Burning Out”

• “Say No Without Feeling Like an Asshole”

Each one micro problem you create should provide a specific unlock.

Not a complete system.

Just one thing that makes their day better starting tomorrow.

The pattern is always the same: take the massive problem and ask “What’s the first thing someone needs to solve before they can handle the rest?”

That’s your micro-problem. That’s your offer.

The feedback loop is what builds businesses

When 94% of learners prefer short, focused lessons, you know something fundamental has shifted.

People don’t want more. They want better.

They want targeted. They want something they can actually finish and use.

This creates a feedback loop that massive courses never get:

Someone buys your micro-solution → 80% of them complete it → they get a result → they tell you what they need next → you build that → repeat.

You’re not guessing what comes after “module 8” of a course nobody’s finishing.

You’re building exactly what people who already bought from you are literally asking for.

Companies using micro-learning see 28% higher performance metrics and 50% higher engagement compared to traditional formats, because people actually use what they buy. They don’t just buy it and let it rot in their downloads folder.

Your goal isn’t to build the most comprehensive thing.

It’s to build the thing people actually complete, get results from, and come back for more.

They’re already hungry. Our job is to make them eat. One bite at at time.

Subscribe now

Mobile app users spent $150 billion on in-app purchases in 2024, with 54% of that going to micro-transactions and smaller purchases.

People are buying more often, but spending less per transaction.

The subscription economy has grown 435% over the past decade, but here’s the shift: alternative payment models like pay-per-use and micro-transactions are growing at 31% annually, faster than subscriptions.

What does this tell you?

People want to buy solutions without massive commitment.

They want to see if you can solve one problem, and if it works, then they will decide what’s next.

The old model was “sell them the expensive thing and hope/who cares if they use it.”

The new model is “sell them the small thing they’ll actually use, then they’ll buy more things.”

The online education market hit $185 billion in 2024 and is growing annually.

But completion rates aren’t really improving, they’re still abysmal for long-form content.

Meanwhile, platforms like TikTok and Instagram have trained entire generations to expect information in small, consumable chunks.

Did you know that 92% of people finish videos under four minutes but only 35% finish hour-long content.

Your audience is operating the way every platform has trained them to operate and we need to adapt or get left behind.

So meet them there.

Solve the micro-problem.

Get them the quick win.

Build trust through completion, not through volume.

Oh, the massive transformation you want to deliver?

You’ll still deliver it.

Just not all at once.

Not in one overwhelming package.

Instead, you’ll deliver it piece by piece, problem by problem, with your audience telling you exactly what they need next.

That’s not a compromise.

That’s just smarter business.

I just had my most successful month in business.

A $78k month, something I didn’t think was possible 6 months ago.

And as I sit here in reflection, it’s been made abundantly clear that this month’s outcome wasn’t achieved just by strategy alone. In fact, I lost a loved one this month, plus it was a holiday week, and I ended up offline and “off” from the business entirely, yet here we are, #bestmonthever.

There are 3 Laws that I have always believed that when working in unison, good things happen.

This month proved that point.

These three Laws, the Law of Creativity, the Law of Attraction, and the Law of Vibration have a way of creating real flow when working as one.

And as we head into a new year, I’m thinking a lot about this. Mostly because I don’t want to carry the same energy, tactics, or any of the “should be doing” list into 2026. I want to bring tools that actually work with how I’m wired, not against it.

Here’s what I fundamentally believe: you need both strategy and these three laws if you want to have a successful business. Strategy without this understanding ends up feeling like hustle wearing lipstick. And these three laws without knowing how to strategically put them to use, well, that would just be silly, wouldn’t it?

If you’re not familiar with these Laws, here are my hot takes on them, along with my framework on how to put these 3 Laws into practice.

Up first is the Law of Creativity, aka the spark.

If you’re anything like me, you may have the immediate thought that the Law of Creativity is about art, or some other form of creative outlet, and I suppose in some ways it sort of is, but in this sense, and for the purpose of the framework, creativity isn’t about being artistic or clever. It’s about being in a generative state where new ideas can actually land.

Think of it as the spark that opens your mind and invites in possibilities you weren’t seeing before. When you’re in creative energy, you’re not grinding through a content calendar or forcing yourself to show up in ways that feel uncomfortable or fake. You’re just simply responding to what wants to be made.

Creativity isn’t just about having ideas. It’s actually more about creating the conditions where ideas can find you. When we clear out the noise, the comparison, the “best practices”, you allow creative flow into your whitespace.

And, when you’re truly in creative flow, you’re not asking “what will get me the sale?”. You’re actually asking “what wants to exist?”. It’s almost as though you’re standing at a buffet of options, with all the time you need to choose. It’s in this space that the way you create shifts, and therefore so does the way people respond to it.

The second Law you should know is the Law of Vibration, or as I like to call it the “atmosphere”.

If you’ve been around me long enough, you’ll know that the atmosphere is hands down where everything begins.

Vibration is the emotional frequency you’re operating from, and the atmosphere you create, both internally and in how you show up externally.

This isn’t about toxic positivity or pretending everything is great. It’s about being honest with what energy you’re bringing to your work. Are you creating from scarcity or abundance? Are you making content just because you feel like you need to post every day, or are you actually curious about something, and feel the need to share it?

Your vibration is the feeling behind everything you do, and people pick up on it, even if they can’t name it. I’m sure you’ve felt that too at times, when you know something’s off, but you just can’t place it? Ya, that’s not the vibe, literally. When you experience that misalignment, things feel stuck, hard, and can leave you with feelings of anxiety and stress.

That said, there should be zero expectation about trying to maintain some perfect high frequency all the time. That’s exhausting and fake. Instead, be aware of your energy and make intentional choices about how you want to show up, even on the hard days.

Last month, even though it was financially my best yet, I wasn’t in some magical state of constant positivity. In fact, quite the opposite, but I was clear about my energy. I detached from expectation, and created when things felt easy. I gave myself extra room to breathe and I created space for it.

When you allow yourself to mellow, the vibration of your energy has time to match what you truly desire, creating this beautiful attraction with creativity.

Attraction isn’t magic. It’s alignment and it’s what our third Law, the Law of Attraction, is all about.

Think about this as the law of results because when your creativity is flowing and your vibration is clear, you naturally draw in the opportunities, people, and circumstances that match that energy. This is where strategy actually gets to do its job, because you’re not fighting against your own misalignment.

When you’re operating from a frequency of desperation, overwhelm, or force, you’re going to attract people who resonate with that energy, and honestly, ew.

Attraction is what happens when your inner world matches what you’re calling in externally. Things feel pretty effortless and ideas tend to show up right when you need them.

And please don’t think of this as manifestation, it’s not. It’s more about getting so clear on your creative energy and your vibration that the aligned action becomes more like a pull than a push.

And while these three Laws are pretty powerful in themselves, some magical shit tends to happen when you’ve got them working together. This harmonious threesome actually compounds and creates momentum.

Creative energy opens you up and invites new possibilities, elevated vibration sets the tone for how you show up and what you call in, and aligned action moves things forward in a way that feels natural rather than forced. And when good things are flowing to you, it just simply reinforces this cycle, and like a flywheel, the more in harmony they are the more creative energy is available to you because you’re not depleted from forcing things that don’t fit.

This is what flow state feels like in business.

It’s when ideas, people, and opportunities show up at exactly the right time, and you’re not forcing any of it. You’re in the current, moving with it rather than swimming against it.

Strategy only enhances the pace of the flow. You still need strategy to run your business, that’s just a smart business owner kind of thing, but when you layer in the Laws, and you’re operating from this loop, it all starts to feel like a natural structure that supports what wants to happen.

Subscribe now

So, as I thought about how to continuously create more flow into my business in this upcoming year, I’m calling it the Creative Freak Framework.

It’s a three-part system for building a business that attracts aligned clients and opportunities without burning yourself out.

Part One: Spark (Activating Creative Energy)

This is about creating the conditions for ideas to find you and giving yourself permission to follow what feels generative rather than what you think you “should” do.

In practice, this means identifying what actually puts you in creative flow. Not what works for someone else, but what actually opens up your mind and makes ideas want to land.

For some people, it’s a long walk without their phone or cooking a good meal. For me, it’s giving myself time to clear the office and give myself space to create without an agenda.

This part of the framework is about building creative rituals into your business, not as a luxury but as a non-negotiable because protecting your time the same way you’d protect a client meeting is an absolute must. I want you to become bullish about this because your creative energy is what makes everything else possible. This is why we start here.

When you’re done reading this, go clear a few things from your calendar and give yourself time to just be, and create only when it feels right.

Part Two: Atmosphere (Cultivating Your Vibration)

Ok this is where you get honest about the energy you’re bringing to your business and make intentional choices about how you want to show up.

You’ve probably heard me say “it’s just me against me” and I absolutely stand by that. The only person I have to battle every day is myself, so I’m trying to be really mindful about how I show up every day in my business. I want you to do the same.

Maybe that means you’re doing regular check-ins with yourself, asking yourself what frequency am I operating from right now? Or, when you’re making decisions you can ask “is this decision from fear or from possibility?” If the vibe feels off, it probably is.

This part of the framework should include practices for managing your energy, clearing out what’s weighing you down, and consciously choosing the atmosphere you want to create. No one is asking you to be positive all the time, that would just be annoying. Instead, just be intentional and honest with yourself, and understand that your vibration directly impacts what you attract.

If you’re showing up from a place of scarcity, you’ll attract scarcity-minded clients. If you’re showing up from genuine excitement and confidence in what you offer, you’ll attract people who match that energy. I don’t know about you, but I know exactly what type of atmosphere I want to spend my time in, and it isn’t at a bar with Debbie Downer.

Part Three: Magnetism (Aligned Attraction)

This isn’t meant to sound so “woo woo” but this is where strategy meets energetics. Where you take everything you’ve activated in parts one and two and direct it toward specific outcomes.

Focus on creating offers, messaging, and systems that are aligned with your creative energy and your vibration. Make strategic choices that feel like a hell yes rather than a ugh, fine.

This is where you get to see the results of the first two parts and you start to get a sense that things are working just as they should.

But one note on this part, it really only works when you’ve done the work in parts one and two. You can’t magnetize aligned opportunities if you’re creating from depletion or operating from a frequency of desperation. The magnetism is the natural result of the spark and the atmosphere working together, like besties.

Every January, we’re sold the same story: New year, who dis? There’s a rally cry for us all to just set bigger goals, do more, and optimize everythingggggg, but what if instead of adding more tactics to your absurdly long list, you just focused on the energy you’re bringing to your business?

I’d like to challenge you to spend more time asking yourself things like “Am I in creative flow, or am I forcing productivity? What’s the vibration I’m operating from? Am I attracting what I actually want, or just what I think I should want?”

Put together, these 3 Laws make sure your strategy is built on a foundation that actually works with how you’re wired.

So as you head into this new year, bring both. Bring the strategy and the systems, but also bring the spark, the atmosphere, and the magnetic electricity.

Your best work is waiting for you.

xo

jess

Giving.

Giving more than is reasonable.

Giving without the expectation to receive.

Giving, just ‘cause.

I love giving gifts. I tend to go a bit nuts during holidays and birthdays, because I just love to see people’s faces light up when you give them the gift you know is just so perfect for them.

My “over-giving” was confirmed the other day by both a peer and a client, who both shared that the amount of value I tend to include in my offers, are hands down more than most.

Not only did that make me feel good, the recognition that my gifts are being received, but it also made me realize that I always approach my offers with a “just give it to them, it’s fine, they’ll love it” vibe.

And when I was thinking about this in the context of my business, I also realized that it’s true in my personal life, which got me even more curious and thinking about our love languages.

Could our love languages, you know, the ones that are supposed to help us “better understand our partner so we can have better relationships” kind, also be our best business strategy?

And the answer just suddenly burned into a full body, YES.

Our love language isn’t just how we show up in relationships, it’s our entire business operating system.

And I don’t mean that metaphorically.

I mean it literally shapes how we naturally create value.

What kind of offers we build, how we market and sell, where we struggle in business, and why certain strategies feel impossible while others feel effortless.

When it comes to business strategy, you can learn tactics, copy frameworks, and hire people to fill your gaps, but at your core, you’re going to build your business the way you naturally create value in the world.

And for me that is gifts.

The act of giving.

When you go against your natural tendencies, everything becomes harder. You burn out, imposter syndrome gets louder, and you start to envy what others have and you “don’t”.

But when you align with the way you naturally and organically operate, business gets weirdly easier.

The more I think about this, the more I see this pattern over and over.

It’s happening live inside my new community CO-LAB. It’s clearly apparent in a workshop I just put together, and as I start to think about how to share this idea, it’s also here. (yes, here, in these very words you’re reading).

Instead of feeling like I need to keep this strategy all to myself, I want to gift this message to you, for you to consider, so that you can evaluate your own business operating system and make adjustments to align your natural state.

So, let’s walk through what each love language looks like when it becomes your business strategy, and why trying to operate outside your natural language might just be the thing that’s been holding you back.

And just to make sure we’re all #samepage, a quick refresher on the five love languages:

Words of Affirmation is about verbal recognition, encouragement, and genuine praise. You feel loved when someone tells you they appreciate you or acknowledges what you’ve done.

Acts of Service is about doing helpful things for others. You feel loved when someone takes action to make your life easier or solves a problem for you.

Quality Time is about giving someone your full, undivided attention. You feel loved when someone is truly present with you, whether that’s in conversation or shared activities.

Physical Touch is about appropriate physical connection—handshakes, hugs, or simply being in the same space. You feel loved through tangible presence and hands-on interaction.

Receiving Gifts is about thoughtful gestures and tokens of care. You feel loved when someone gives you something that shows they understand you and were thinking about you.

Now here’s how these translate into your best business strategy:

Words of Affirmation: The Storyteller Strategy

If this is you, you build businesses through the power of communication. You can’t help but share ideas, inspire people, and create narratives that resonate. Marketing doesn’t feel like marketing to you, it feels like connecting. You’re probably great at brand building, content creation, sales conversations, team motivation, and thought leadership. You make people feel things through your words.

This works because people don’t actually buy products or services. They buy stories, identities, and transformations, and you speak that language fluently.

But here’s where you might struggle: you could spend more time talking about your plans than executing them. You might over-promise because you’re so good at seeing possibilities. And sometimes, you focus so much on perfecting your message that you forget to ship.

If you’re a “Words” person trying to build a business that requires zero communication or marketing, you’re going to hate your life. Stop trying to be the behind-the-scenes person. Get out front. That’s where you shine.

Acts of Service: The Problem-Solver Strategy

If this is you, you can’t see a problem without wanting to fix it. Your business exists because you genuinely want to help people. You measure success by impact, not just income. You’re naturally good at operations, building customer loyalty, developing products that work, and creating solutions that actually deliver results. Your customers become raving fans because you actually serve them.

This works because in a world full of empty promises and surface-level solutions, you’re the real deal. People feel it. They trust you. They refer you.

But here’s your trap: you probably undercharge. You give away too much for free. You struggle to say no. And you might be burning out because you’re trying to help everyone. If you’re an Acts of Service person trying to build a business based on hype and flash with minimal substance, it’s going to feel gross. Your entire soul will rebel.

Build something that actually helps people, charge what you’re worth, and watch how loyalty becomes your competitive advantage.

ps: this is mine 🥹

Quality Time: The Relationship Builder Strategy

If this is you, business is fundamentally about relationships. You don’t network, you build genuine connections. Your best clients come from referrals because people genuinely like working with you. You excel at deep customer relationships, creating strong company culture, developing partnerships, and consultative selling. People don’t just buy from you, they want to be around you.

This works because in an increasingly digital world, genuine human connection is rare and valuable. You create loyalty that can’t be disrupted by cheaper competitors.

And while all this is good, here’s where it starts to feel off. Tell me if this resonates? Scaling feels impossible because everything seems too personal to systematize. You might avoid marketing altogether, and you can burn out from being always “on” for everyone.

If you’re a Quality Time person trying to build a fully automated, hands-off business, you’re going to feel empty. Yes, you need systems, but build a high-touch business model and charge accordingly. Your attention is the product :)

Physical Touch: The Experience Creator Strategy

If this is you, you build businesses people can feel. Whether it’s a physical product, an in-person service, or an immersive experience, the “so good I can almost taste it” vibe matters to you. You’re naturally great at product design, experiential marketing, in-person sales, craftsmanship, and creating memorable customer experiences. You understand that business isn’t just intellectual, it’s sensory.

This works because in a digital-first world, physical experiences stand out. People crave tangible value and real-world interactions. You deliver what others overlook.

But your blind spot is this: you might resist online marketing or struggle with remote work. You could be leaving money on the table by avoiding online opportunities.

If you’re a Physical Touch person trying to build a purely digital business with no tangible element, you’re going to feel disconnected from your work. Find ways to bring the physical into your business model, even if the business is online.

Receiving Gifts: The Value Curator Strategy

If this is you, you have an uncanny ability to know what people want before they know it themselves. You create products and experiences that feel like perfect gifts. Quality and thoughtfulness aren’t optional to you, they’re fundamental. You excel at product curation, understanding market timing, creating wow moments, and building premium experiences. You make customers feel special.

This works because people don’t just want products, they want to feel valued and understood. You create that feeling naturally.

But here’s where you get stuck: perfectionism can paralyze you. You might struggle with pricing because you over-invest in quality. And you can get caught in endless refinement instead of launching.

If you’re a Receiving Gifts person trying to build a good enough or MVP-first business, it’s going to feel wrong. Your attention to detail is your advantage. Build it into your business model and price accordingly.

Here’s the shift I want you to make: stop dismissing your love language as some sort of bullshit relationship therapy and start building a business around it.

Everyone talks about working on your weaknesses, but what if your weaknesses aren’t weak at all? What if they’re features of your entire operating system?

What if instead of trying to become someone you’re not, you built a business that needs exactly who you are?

If you’re Words of Affirmation, stop hiding behind the scenes. Get out front.

If you’re Acts of Service, stop undercharging. Your help is worth premium prices.

If you’re Quality Time, stop trying to automate everything. High-touch is your moat.

If you’re Physical Touch, stop avoiding in-person opportunities. That’s your advantage.

If you’re Receiving Gifts, stop launching before you’re proud. Quality is your brand.

And here’s sugar on top: hire or partner with people who have different love languages to cover your blind spots. You don’t need to be good at everything, you just need to be exceptional at your thing and smart enough to build a team that complements you.

So, tell me in the comments, which love language are you?

Leave a comment

When I first built my Substack, I was very strategic in how I wanted to set it up, what I wanted to write about, and how I wanted it to look, feel, and sound.

I spent a lot of time curating the vibe and making it a space that I felt excited to spend time, and invite others to join.

As a business owner, I was also thoughtful and intentional about putting a paywall up at the beginning so that later on the down the road, I wouldn’t feel the need to overly explain or justify why I was going to now charge subscribers for content that they were originally getting for free.

But it’s funny. What I was so worried about, the justifying part, has come to bite me in the ass regardless.

These days, I find myself completely stressed out when life and business gets busy and messy, and I haven’t written my weekly Sub for my paid subscribers. I scramble for a topic, writing feels harder, and frankly, I know it’s not my best work.

And lately, this messy middle of life and business, has just well, been messy. A shit show really, and what was once a very thoughtful approach has turned me into a little stressed out monster.

And so, with much thought, and lots of money mindset affirmations, I’ve decided to un-paywall all of my Substack content and just get back to enjoying the process of writing, not because someone is paying me for it, but because I fully enjoy it, and I want you to get the best version of me, not the stressy-jessy version as of late.

So, if you were a paid subscriber, first, THANK YOU. The fact that you would opt to pay for my writing means more than I can possibly say in this publication. I’m deeply honored that you enjoy my work, or me as a human, enough to actually pay for it. So thank you, from the bottom of my heart, and I promise to always keep you in mind as I write.

And secondly, the mechanics of this, is that if you were owed any money back (say, you were an annual subscriber and well, it’s not been a full year), you will be receiving a refund for any prorated amount owed. Substack is lovely in the sense that it figured all that for me, so that I can get to work on writing this.

I’ve always preached that business should be done differently. And well, this is a good example of one of those moments. Just because you can charge, doesn’t always mean you need to.

I still plan on writing here. I still plan on sharing everything that I’m learning, doing, and apparently, undoing, with you, in hopes that it’s helpful to you and your business.

And, to ensure you get the best of my writing, regardless of where you are, I’ve also made the decision to incorporate my Substack subscribers into my email list, because frankly, we’ve got some good shit coming down the email pipeline, and I don’t want you to miss it. Substack is one of the only platforms that actually lets you gather your audience and take them with you, so pack your bags, we’re going on a little trip.

(don’t worry, you don’t actually have to pack your bags, we’ll do all that for you. You just sip your cocktail and open our emails when they arrive, regardless of which tool I wrote them from).

So, that’s it. That’s life. That’s business. And this is the messy middle.

Special thanks to all my paid subscribers for supporting my work, and thank you to ALL subscribers for supporting the ebbs and flows of a real small business owner crazy enough to share all her non-buttoned up thoughts along the way.

ilysm

xo

jess

Leave a comment

They're selling courses on "passive income" while lounging poolside in Bali, preaching about "working smarter, not harder."

They’re getting their nails done at exotic places where little tiny fish nibble at their perfectly smooth, never-walked-a-day-on-concrete toes, while someone buffs out their G-Wagon.

And maybe they are making six figures. Maybe they actually enjoy having a live animal chomp on their skin. Maybe their ride isn’t the courtesy vehicle they’ve been assigned while their Subi is in the shop.

For the sake of not assuming I know them personally, let’s just assume they are telling you the truth when they say the pull in six figs and take most of their life off. But while we assume that part is true, let’s not assume that how they got there is at all true.

In fact, I’m probably safe by saying that they are leaving the mountain of shit they had to slog through to get to said fish eating toes moments.

And as I sit at my desk, day after day, week after week, drunk off of coffee, trying to figure out how to keep all the plates spinning, I feel called to share the actual truth about what it’s like to build a six figure business in one quarter.

And trust me, there are no easy mornings, nice cars, or things fucking eating me piece by piece, unless you count the comments on facebook, the endless discovery calls I take, or the 1000000000000 notes, post-its, and dirty napkins on my desk.

It’s time to normalize what it’s like to actually crip walk the path to our ideal schedule.

Let me start by saying that it’s not impossible to eventually work fewer hours for more money.

That's actually the goal we should all be working toward.

But the toxic part of this narrative is the implication that you can skip the grind entirely, or that there's some secret hack that lets you leapfrog straight to the easy life.

There isn't.

What these "4-hour workday" honies aren't telling you is that they probably spent years, sometimes decades, putting in 12+ hour days. They built systems, hired teams, failed repeatedly, and yes, worked their asses off to get to that enviable position.

But that doesn't sell courses, does it?

Starting a business feels a lot like slinging burgers over a hot stove for less than minimum wage. I know this first hand because I actually did sling burgers over a hot stove and let me tell you, that shit is actually easier than building your own business.

But the two are similar.

You’re working weekends while your friends and family are out having fun. You’re questioning your sanity at 2am while you’re troubleshooting your website…again. You’re eating shit out of a cardboard box over a trash can because you’ve invested every penny you earned back into your business, and most days you barely recognize yourself.

But here's the thing.. These “rush” type weeks you’re having, that basically make you feel like you’re being hazed at the Frat house called “entrepreneurship”, isn’t actually punishment, it’s the price of admission to eventual freedom.

And while most of the toe-fish girlies of the Instagram six-fix club would like to try and convince you that you can have this life too (if you just buy their course), the truth is you don’t get to skip this part.

And even if you could, you wouldn’t want to.

Because the grind actually matters.

Instead of chasing the fantasy, if you just embrace the suck, cool shit happens.

You know, things like:

You build real skills. Every late night, every failed experiment, every moment of feeling completely overwhelmed, it's all building your entrepreneurial muscle. You can't outsource experience.

You create sustainable systems. When you do the work yourself first, you understand every moving piece. Later, when you do hire help, you'll know exactly what good work looks like.

You develop stamina. Business is a marathon, not a sprint. The ability to push through when things get tough isn't optional, it's the difference between those who make it and those who quit after the first real challenge.

These “hard times” that make most people quit are what will ensure you get to actually, one day, walk the path to your matcha mornings.

Pulling from my days working in tech startups in the Valley of Silicon…the real path looks like this:

1. Grind Phase (Year 1-2ish): You are the business. You're wearing every hat, learning every lesson the hard way, and yes, working way more than 40 50 60 hours a week.

2. Systems Phase (Year 2-5): You start documenting processes, hiring key people, and building systems that don't require your constant attention.

3. Scale Phase (Year 3+): Now you can start stepping back, slowly. Your systems work. Your team is capable. You've earned the right to work fewer hours.

The timeline varies, but the sequence doesn't.

The entrepreneurs posting about their 4-hour days aren't scamming you about their current lifestyle, they're scamming you about the path to get there.

They want you to believe there's a shortcut because that's what sells. But shortcuts in business are like shortcuts in fitness: they promise quick results but deliver long-term disappointment.

The unsexy truth about being able to work less and earn more is simple.

You just have to work your ass off now, so you can Netflix and chill, later.

Build something valuable enough that it can run without you constantly pulling the levers.

Become so good at what you do that people will pay premium prices.

Start early by creating systems so solid that your business can thrive while you sleep.

But first?

Roll up your sleeves and get comfortable with the heat of the burger grill.

Because the view from the top is incredible, but only if you actually climb the mountain instead of looking for the helicopter.

xo

jess

PS: If you’re wanting support on your path to match mornings, I’d love to invite you to CO-LAB, my private consulting container for entrepreneurs in motion. This is where you’ll work directly with me (and my team) inside a creative, collaborative space alongside other business owners who are actively building, refining, or repositioning their next chapter. This isn’t some stuffy, structured program. This is real work, with real folks, coming together to work on your business, exactly where you need it.

P.S. lurking encouraged…

• 👉🏻 ​COME HANG WITH US ON INSTAGRAM​

• 📌 ​COME BE INSPIRED BY OUR PINTEREST​​

• 🥷 ​JOIN THE ANTI-BRAND MOVEMENT

• 🚀 ​BUILD WITH US IN THE LAB

As someone who has been part of many business start ups, from restaurants to private member club grand openings, and D2C food-tech hockey stick style launches, I thought I was fully prepared for anything my own business could throw at me.

But let me tell you, I’ve been pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised at just how hard starting your own business is, especially when shit hits the fan.

When you work for someone else, building things at the directive of other people in charge, there is an invisible emotional disconnect to the entire process. Sure, you may care about what you’re working on. You may be passionate about the product you’re helping bring to market because it’s going to literally change the market/mood/industry/yada yada, but underneath it all, the invisible disconnect is there.

You don’t see it, smell it, taste it. You’re not losing sleep over it, and you’re certainly not questioning every inch of your entire existence every.single.day as it starts to gain traction.

But this is the exact opposite of what happens when you launch your own business. Now, layer on the online aspect, where there is no brick and mortar, no live humans to interact with, and well, welcome to the arena of your very own mindset Hunger Games.

Inside the squishy little blob in my head there are literal hunger games going on between my mindset and my reality and it’s a toss up on a daily basis as to who is actually ahead.

And while the tennis match between mindset and reality continues to play out like Serena and Venus in the early 2000s, it doesn’t help when new characters enter the playing field.

Because let’s face it, mindset vs. reality is already enough. But when you layer in a Thief, a Viral Post, and and Army of Bots, you realize pretty quick just how visibly connected you are emotionally to the entire fucking thing.

Let me explain.

At the time I’m writing this, I’m 92 days into my new-ish online business. I say new-ish because 92 days ago I launched a $27 workshop that has changed my life. Prior to those 92 days I’d spent 5 years tinkering and toying with the online biz space as more of a side hustle, as I worked in my invisibly disconnected corporate job. So, while not fully starting from scratch, this new venture that kicked off 92 days ago has reminded me just how hard starting a business actually is, especially when you go “all in” and have zero back up plan.

I thought I was prepared.

I thought I could handle anything that was thrown at me, and while that is mostly true thus far, it is safe to say that I’m fully emotionally attached to every single-fucking-thing that happens.

Sure, I’d like not to be, and honestly, I’m learning to art of separation anxiety because at the end of the day “it’s just business”. But when someone steals my shit, a post goes viral, and then causes major bot activity on my social accounts, you learn really quickly that business IS emotional, but how you react is what separates you from the pack.

Here’s how it all went down.

Two weeks ago I received a DM from someone I didn’t know, who sent me a Facebook Ad of someone selling an “Anti-Branding Workshop”.

Curious, I clicked. Horrified I became.

This m*therf*cker wasn’t just selling a workshop, he was selling MY workshop. Along with the other products that were available in my funnel.

And the worst part, he didn’t even bother to really change anything. He screenshot images off of my website to use in his marketing. He turned my worksheet a different color and then put his logo on it, but didn’t even bother to try and “make it his own”.

Same content, same format, same copywriting, all the same, including my copyright statements.

Literally a rush of heat came over me. Tears thought about entering my bloodred eye balls, but all I could do was sit there in the middle of this hotflash, internally freaking the fuck out, frozen like a stupid disney princess. I’ve heard of this happening to other people, but not to me. Nothing like this has ever happened to me, and my community has been literally the best.

So where did this snake come from?

Oh, he was one of my very first customers who bought my Anti-Branding workshop. Yup, there he was, right there in my database, which was good because now I have his contact information and proof he bought my products, and was now illegally re-selling them as his own.

One of the few things that my corporate experience gave me was the gift of crisis management. Every day Jess would have taken her hoops off, pulled her hair back, put her hoodie up and would have thrown down.

But business owner Jess had a decision to make. Do we scream, cry, yell, and blast this piece of 💩 and feed him to the wolves of social media, or do we put our corporate skills to work and put together our very first cease and desist letter.

Of course we did the latter. And of course it felt fucking good to write, and then send, and then almost immediately be notified that he would take it down, which he did.

I could have freaked out, but I was aware enough to know that this was a pivotal moment for me in my business. Freak out or handle it like “it’s just business”.

“the choice is yours, Jess” my inner voice is screaming.

So I made the boss move and handled that shit, and that loser is no longer occupying my energy.

And now that said shit was handled, I now had the mental space to watch one of my recent posts go viral. Maybe you’ve seen it?

Yes, this little innocent post about business and ice cream started to take off.

The comments were getting hot. Half the audience thinks this is actually about ice cream, while the other half thinks it's about sex and other weird shit.

Regardless, it’s picking up speed. It ends up on the explore page, it has over 750k views and wham bam thank you ma’am, I start to see spam bot accounts follow me.

Like a lot. Like a lot a lot.

And I’m like fuck, can I catch a break?

So I Google & Reddit (yes, these are verbs now). And let me tell you the horror of what I read.

Did you know that people have actually experienced this same thing, and it was because some other lousy human bought the bots and was trying to destroy their account??? Can you imagine?

And yes, of course I immediately thought of the thief who shall not be named. Could this be him? Why is this happening? Can’t I catch a friggin’ break?

I immediately pinged my (extremely talented and killer) truster partner in crime and we went down all the rabbit holes:

• We should change the name of my IG account

• We should make my IG account private

• We should close my IG account

• We should do all the shoulds

But the truth is I didn’t know what to do. Changing anything to my accounts means lots of extra work, broken links, lost sales, more headaches, and all the things.

Doing nothing also means a bigger army of bots and the risk of Meta thinking I did this to myself to grow my account (ps: I would never ever fucking do such a thing, ewe).

So, I did nothing.

Well, actually, I spent 2 hours blocking/reporting said bots to FB, and then I put a time hold on my calendar the next day to really give this some space and decide best path forward.

It’s funny what a little white space to a crisis can do.

As I let the situation breathe, I noticed that my IG post continues to grow and is on the explore page. Which got me thinking.

Do bots like ice cream?

Sure as shit they do. They love it.

So, I had a choice to make. Let me feed my ego that one of my posts was actually going viral or, take that post down, knowing that I can just rinse/repeat it later, and pray that this was the solution to stopping the bots.

So with a few clicks, I took the post down, and just like hairspray and a lighter can take down any size spider, the bots stopped.

Literally gone.

Subscribe now

While I had hoped this would work, I wasn’t actually sure. In fact, I had no freaking clue because nowhere on google or reddit, which is where all sound advice comes from 😂, did anyone say “do you have a viral post that is attracting bots like flies to shit?”.

Sometimes in business you just have to give yourself some whitespace. You need to let your logical squishy blob take over your emotionally squishy blob so that “cooler head can prevail”.

Business is hard enough, but when you layer in thieves and bots, you need to be able to take a step back and think.

This is “just business” after all, and “everything is figureoutable”, right Marie?

Hope this helps your cooler head prevail.

Xo

jess

P.S. lurking encouraged…

• 👉🏻 ​COME HANG WITH US ON INSTAGRAM​

• 📌 ​COME BE INSPIRED BY OUR PINTEREST​​

• 🥷 ​JOIN THE ANTI-BRAND MOVEMENT

• 🚀 ​BUILD WITH US IN THE LAB

  ---

The more shit you know, the more you realize you don't know shit.

I think this is probably why true experts are often the most hesitant to call themselves experts because they understand the depth of their field.

Meanwhile, people with surface-level knowledge are out running loose, confident AF because they don't yet know what they don't know.

This creates a bizarre situation where the most qualified people feel the least qualified, while the least qualified people feel the most confident.

Funny how life works.

If you feel like an impostor, it might mean:

• You have enough knowledge to recognize how much you don't know (self-awareness)

• You care about doing good work and not misleading people (integrity)

• You're committed to continuous learning (growth mindset)

• You understand the weight of responsibility in helping others (humility)

These are exactly the qualities you want in someone who's going to help you solve a problem.

Social media has created this illusion that experts appear fully formed. You see someone's polished LinkedIn posts, their confident YouTube videos, their bestselling books, and your squishy brain has you convinced they've always been an expert.

But that's just highlight reel thinking and no one has time for that.

But what if we took the old “fuck around and find out approach”?

What if we just shared what we were learning, as we are learning it?

What if we built our “expertise in public, helping others help themselves?

Here's the cycle that actually creates expertise:

learn something new 👉 apply it to get results 👉 teach what you learned 👉get feedback from teaching 👉 refine your understanding 👉 learn the next thing 👉 rinse & repeat.

Teaching comes before mastery, not after it. Teaching actually accelerates your learning because it forces you to organize your thoughts, anticipate questions, and see your knowledge from different angles.

It’s time for us to let go of the need to be a traditional "expert." Instead, let’s focus on these three types of expertise that are immediately valuable:

1. "I've Been There"

This is knowledge gained from doing, not studying. You don't need 10 years of experience, you just need more experience than the person you're helping.

maybe you relate:

• You've launched a product (even if it didn’t make you famous)

• You've built an email list (even if it's small)

• You've hired employees (even if you made mistakes)

• You've raised funding (even if it was just friends and family)

• You've pivoted a business (even if it was messy as hell)

Your failures are often more valuable than your successes because they help others avoid the same mistakes. You know where the bodies are buried and that alone is worth its weight in gold.

2. "I've Studied This"

This is knowledge gained from learning what others have done. You become the person who's read all the books, listened to all the podcasts, and synthesized the information.

maybe you relate:

• You've researched every email marketing platform and can recommend the best ones for different needs

• You've studied 50 successful product launches and identified the common patterns

• You've analyzed hundreds of high-converting sales pages and know what works

• You've researched the legal requirements for different business structures

You're not creating new knowledge, you're organizing existing knowledge in a way that's useful (and digestible) for others.

3. "I See Things Differently"

This is the ability to see solutions that others miss, ask questions that others don't think to ask, or approach problems from a unique angle.

maybe you relate:

• You can spot patterns in someone's business that they can't see themselves

• You ask questions that help people clarify their thinking

• You can translate complex concepts into simple language

• You can connect ideas from different fields in useful ways

This type of expertise often comes naturally and doesn't require years of study or experience. It just requires a little faith in oneself.

Here's your permission slip: You don't need to be the world's leading expert to start helping people and building a business around your knowledge.

You need to be honest about what you know and what you don't know. You need to be clear about who you can help and how. You need to be committed to delivering value and getting results. You need to be willing to learn and improve as you go.

That's it.

But how? I thought you’d never ask.

First, identify your "further along" areas. What have you figured out that others are struggling with? Then, go find your first student. Who do you know that's facing a problem you've solved? Once you find said person, share your learning knowledge. Be sure to document what you're figuring out as you figure it out. This will be helpful later. Just embrace the beginner’s mind, because your fresh perspective might be exactly what people need.

Remember no one is going to tap you on the shoulder and whisper in your ear “you’re expert enough, you may start now”. That would be amazing, but also insane. Stop waiting for permission. Sign your own slip, and simply start. With where you’re at and with what you have. Tomorrow you’ll be further along.

The world doesn't need another perfect expert. It needs more humans who are brave enough to help with what they know, honest enough to admit what they don't, and resourceful enough to figure out the rest. Your imperfect knowledge is infinitely more valuable than perfect knowledge that never gets shared.

Read it again☝️☝️☝️it’s important!

The gap between where you are and where someone else wants to be is your business opportunity.

You'll never be expert enough if "expert enough" means knowing everything. But you're already expert enough if "expert enough" means being able to help someone take their next step forward.

Stop waiting to be discovered as an expert. Start building expertise by helping people with what you already know.

What's one thing you know more about than most people, even if you don't consider yourself an expert? Hit reply and let me know!

Dear Paid Subscribers… I realize that this post is a day late and my sincerest apologies. I try really hard to be consistent with my weekly writing schedule, but well, family matters pulled me away yesterday. Thank you for the grace in allowing me the space and time I needed to write this piece, it’s been on my mind a lot lately. It’s also fitting that this is a day late… considering the content :)

If you can't fix it, feature it.

This might be the most counterintuitive business advice you'll ever hear, but it's also the most liberating: your flaws aren't bugs in your personal operating system that need to be patched. They're features that, when owned authentically, become your competitive advantage.

We’re human.

Imperfect little squishy blobs that do weird things on a daily basis. We start as babies, grow up, then return to babies. Somewhere along the way, there is all this pressure to be perfect, but that's literally impossible, so it’s time to let that go. When you stop trying to hide your imperfections and start owning them openly, something magical happens. You build trust, attract the right people, and differentiate yourself in a world full of fake perfection.

I like to think we’re all living through an authenticity revolution, and most people are still fighting the villain.

While everyone else is trying to project perfect expertise, polished professionalism, and flawless execution, there's a massive opportunity for the entrepreneurs brave enough to just be genuinely human.

I see it everywhere. I lived it daily in my corporate life. Perfectly crafted emails, social media posts that don’t have a point of view, “about me” website pages that are about anything but you, actually. It just feels like everyone's trying so hard to be perfectly professional that they've forgotten to be human.

Perfect people are boring.

Perfect businesses are forgettable.

Perfect marketing feels fake (because it is)

Your flaws make you relatable.

Your struggles make your victories meaningful.

Your imperfections make your advice trustworthy because it comes from someone who's actually been in the trenches, not someone theorizing from an ivory tower.

Here's what I've learned about trust: the more you try to appear perfect, the less people trust you. The more you own your flaws, the more credible you become.

Think about the last time someone tried to sell you something with a perfect pitch. No downsides, no limitations, no risks, no problems they couldn't solve.

Yafuckingright.

Our brains are wired to detect incongruence. When someone's external presentation doesn't match what we intuitively sense, it creates this weird cognitive dissonance that makes us uncomfortable and less likely to trust.

But when someone's authentic, when their external representation aligns with their internal reality, our brains chill out. We feel safe. We tend to trust faster and harder.

Let me tell you about the flaw that became my secret weapon.

I'm terrible at remembering anything. It’s terrible. I can have a 30-minute conversation with someone, learn their entire life story, understand their business challenges, connect on a deep level, and completely forget what we agreed to do next by the next morning.

For years, I tried to hide this. I'd use all the tricks, write shit down, name associate things, post it notes all over the place, voice notes to myself, all.the.things. It was exhausting.

But after enough moments of eating my words, I started to just own my shit. Instead of feeling like I was expected to remember all the things, I’d just let people know “I have a terrible memory” so please forgive me if I forget things”.

It’s funny what a little honesty can do for ya in these moments.

For one, it made me feel like I wasn’t alone because more often than not, the person I was talking to had the same or similar feelings. But more importantly, it set the stage. It allowed me to basically say “hey, I’m gonna mess this up… just so you know”.

Now, embracing & disclosing my CRAFT (can’t remember a fucking thing) isn’t to get me off the hook and a permission slip to be a shit. But it's a name badge to say “hey, I’m not perfect, I have flaws, and I need you to know that I care enough about what we're discussing to share this with you, and because what we’re discussing is important (in case I forget something).”

As I’m building my own personal brand, and a Creative Studio, it’s important to let my clients and my team know that “hey, there will be moments of forgetfulness” but it’s not because I don’t care, but because that’s just how my squishy brain operate, so feel free to let me know if I get it wrong.

And while I do believe that if we can’t fix it, we should feature it… there are definitely some flaws not worth featuring. Some actually do need to be fixed because they hurt your ability to serve people well.

If you consistently miss deadlines, that's not a quirky personality trait to own, that's a problem that's costing you clients and damaging your reputation. If you deliver subpar work or don't follow through on commitments, those aren't endearing human qualities, they're operational issues that need addressing.

But there's this whole other category of "flaws" that aren't actually flaws at all. They're just ways you're different from what people expect, and when you own them authentically, they become differentiators.

Maybe you're more casual than formal. Maybe you have strong opinions on certain topics. Maybe you prefer direct communication over diplomatic language. Maybe you work better in creative spurts than steady, consistent schedules.

These aren't bugs in your system, they're features of who you are. And when you own them instead of hiding them, you attract the right people and repel the wrong ones.

The shift from apologizing for your differences to owning them as features is profound, but it takes practice.

In the past I used to start conversations with things like "Sorry, I'm not very organized" or "I'm afraid I may have missed something" or "Unfortunately, I'm not great at this stuff."

Every conversation began with an apology for who I wasn't instead of confidence in who I was.

Now I've learned to reframe these completely. Instead of "Sorry, I'm not very organized," I say "I work better with big-picture strategy than detailed execution, so I partner with implementers for the tactical stuff."

The magic happens when you add the phrase "here's why that's good news for you" to any perceived limitation.

"I only work with three clients at a time, which means you get my full attention."

"I don't have a big team, which means you work directly with me, not some account manager."

"I'm new to this industry, which means I bring a fresh perspective without being stuck in how things have always been done."

I took this exact approach when I launched The Anti-Branding Workshop. In my video, I call out that I don’t have a big fancy design degree or a marketing background, but that’s a good thing because I’m not bound by my traditional teachings or “rules” and so I can just be myself and share what has worked for me. I also share that I’m not comfortable being on camera in this setting, so when you see the Workshop, you won’t see me, and that is on purpose. I’d rather you focus on the teaching than me feeling awkward on camera.

And let me tell you, I get a lot of comments telling me how refreshing it is that I bring that up. It’s added non-monetary value to my workshop.

I’m taking the same approach with my new consulting program CO-LAB. I didn’t build this space because I know everything and I’m the best consultant out there.

Not at all.

I built CO-LAB because I'm comfortable with not having all the answers and I believe that two people working together can accomplish anything they set their imperfect minds to.

Business is beautifully flawed. It's one big experiment, constantly trying to be improved upon. We're all figuring it out as we go, making mistakes, learning lessons, and hopefully getting a little better along the way.

The magic isn't in achieving perfection, it's in being honest about the journey, authentic about the struggles, and transparent about both what we know and what we're still figuring out.

If you’ve been hiding your “flaws”, consider this your permission slip to turn them into features. To allow yourself to own what makes you uniquely you, and to turn this into an opportunity to strengthen your brand.

The world doesn't need another polished expert pretending to have it all figured out. It needs more humans who are brave enough to be themselves, honest about their limitations, and confident in their unique way of adding value.

What's one "flaw" about yourself or your business that you typically try to hide? Tell me in the comments and let’s all exhale at the same time.

Xo

jess

Leave a comment

P.S. lurking encouraged…

• 👉🏻 ​COME HANG WITH US ON INSTAGRAM​

• 📌 ​COME BE INSPIRED BY OUR PINTEREST​​

• 🥷 ​JOIN THE ANTI-BRAND MOVEMENT

• 🚀 ​BUILD WITH US IN THE LAB

Humans are funny. We’d love to live in a world where all things worked like a well oiled machine. Where 2+2 = 4 and life was just one big efficient machine. There is peace in systems, in things being automatic. The rolodex was probably every business persons dream desk accessory for decades. People ate up (literally) the Automat (personal note: i’m slightly obsessed with this concept- so see, I’m proof that efficiency is a bad habit that needs to be let go of :).

We live in a world obsessed with optimization. Every business “expert” pushes systems and processes like they’re a drug…because they are. LinkedIn is flooded with posts about "10x-ing your productivity" and "optimizing every workflow." YouTube and Etsy are full of entrepreneurs showing off their color-coded calendars and perfectly organized Notion dashboards.

Hate to break it to you…. but sometimes the pursuit of perfection is the enemy of profit.

(pause and read that ☝️☝️ again, because I really want this to sink in with you. It’s that important).

Sometimes the most strategic thing you can do is let certain things stay fucked.

Your business will never be perfect.

Ever.

Something will always be fucked, something can always be improved, tweaked, or changed, and something is probably operating at 80% when it could theoretically run at 100%.

Right now, I guarantee there are a bajillion things "wrong" with your business.

Raise your hand if any of this sounds familiar?:

• Your website could load [insert any number] seconds faster,

• Your blogs could have have better SEO

• Your offer could be better

• Your product delivery could be more efficient

• You could get back to people in your DMs faster (or at all)

• You could rewrite your sales page (again)

• Your welcome email sequence could have one more touchpoint, or sound more like you

• Your intake form could ask better questions

• Your filing system could be more organized (where are my 80 tabs open, 2 windows minimized friends)?

• Your social media posts could have better graphics, engagement, or hooks

• You could do more reels

• Your invoicing process could be automated

• Your meeting notes could be better organized and not look like a 4th grader wrote them

• Your CRM could be color coded and automated

• Your social media bio could be better, more optimized, more precise

And of course the perfectionist in you wants to tackle all.the.things. But the entrepreneur in you should be asking a different question entirely: "Which of these actually matters for my bottom line?"

Because here's what I know after running my (messy) online business for the past few years: the only thing that should be keeping you up at night are the things that are directly or indirectly impacting your ability to add more dollars to your bank account.

Instead of asking yourself, what do I need to do today/this week/this blah blah blah, you should be asking yourself:

"Will fixing this bring in more money, either directly or indirectly?"

If the answer is yes, it goes on the priority list. If the answer is no, it can stay fucked (at least for now).

Let me give you some examples of what passes this smell test:

Direct money makers:

• Fixing that checkout process where 20% of people abandon their cart

• Writing sales emails that convert followers into paying clients

• Optimizing your pricing because you're losing deals on price objections

• Setting up a retargeting campaign to encourage those on the fence to buy

• Creating a referral system that turns customers into a sales force

• Building an upsell sequence that increases average order value

Indirect money makers:

• Fixing that automation flow that's causing 15% customer churn (saves revenue)

• Setting up proper analytics so you can see what actually works (improves ROI)

• Creating an onboarding sequence that sets clients up to get better results (increases retention and referrals)

• Streamlining your proposal process so you can respond to more opportunities (increases deal volume)

• Building systems that free up your time for high-value activities (multiplies your impact)

• Hiring someone that can help you bring in more customers, do more work more efficiently, or do some of these tasks so that you can create the next big money maker.

Now here's what doesn't pass the test:

• Redesigning your logo for the fourth time because you saw a cool design on Dribbble

• Reorganizing your computer files into the "perfect" folder structure

• Color-coding your calendar because you read about it in a productivity blog

• Perfecting your email signature format

• Organizing your bookmarks alphabetically

• Choosing the "perfect" font for your google doc

• Cleaning up your desktop background

• Not launching your website just yet because you don’t have all the bells and whistles

• Doom scrolling social media and calling it “research”

• Spending hours in Canva trying to make the perfect graphic

• Buying another course that promises you the most efficient way track to being more efficient.

The difference?

One set of tasks has a clear, traceable line to revenue.

The other set strokes out your productivity ego while actually keeping you poor.

Along with our optimization obsession, we also have a “busy” problem. I see this everywhere, and it's an epidemic among entrepreneurs. We confuse motion with progress.

And I get it. It feels good to check things off a list. It feels productive to be "improving" your business. But busy work is often just procrastination in a short skirt and nothing else.

Distracting, easy, and probably not good for the health of our business.

When I created The Anti-Branding Workshop, I wanted with everything in my body to make a fully robust recorded masterpiece, the perfect sales page, and the most thoughtful automated delivery flow.

But I also wanted (and needed) to make money, fast, and so I decided to take the “fuck around and find out” approach.

I built the sales page in away I’d never done before. I wrote it directly on the landing page. I made messy graphics I’d never use in other design work, and I created ads around things I found funny, or a bit off-kilter. I leaned into my love for polarizing content, and when I felt like “this is good enough to at least test”, I turned that puppy on.

I had zero expectations and I also had zero workshop built or fancy delivery system set up for the non-existent workshop, because honestly I didn’t think it would work because it was so “fucked”.

But it did.

The first few sales started coming in and I manually sent folks an email. Actually, I manually sent about 80 emails and stayed up well past my bed time, unfucking myself since I knew it was working and money was coming in.

The lesson here is that we need to live in a world where “good enough” is actually perfect because the counterintuitive truth is that sometimes "good enough" actually performs better than "perfect."

This my friends is the 80/20 Rule in action.

In most cases, getting something to 80% functionality takes 20% of the effort. Getting it from 80% to 100% takes the other 80% of your effort.

That means you could ship five "good enough" solutions in the time it takes to perfect one, which also means you could increase your probability of having 5 more sales than zero. I like this math.

The market doesn’t care about your perfectionism. Your customers don't care if your files are perfectly organized if they can't easily buy from you.

Your leads don't care if your file naming convention is immaculate if your sales process is broken.

Your audience doesn't care if your social media templates are pixel-perfect if your content doesn't provide value.

The market cares about whether you can solve their pain point right now, with whatever imperfect tools you have available.

They are in pain. You are the medicine. Stop driving around the block trying to find the closest parking spot to the hospital and just pull the fuck over on the side of the road and give them the friggin’ meds.

In my messy pursuit of cash flow and growth, I’m learning to master what I call "the strategic art of selective neglect", which is my way of tricking my squishy scared little brain that the the strategic decision to let certain things stay fucked is critically important so that I can intensively focus on what matters (to my bottom line or my customer experience (which obvi impacts my bottom line)).

Subscribe now

Here's how to implement strategic neglect in your own business:

Level 1, Code Red Neglect: Revenue Blockers (Fix this shit immediately)

• Anything preventing people from buying

• Systems causing customer churn

• Processes losing you money (leaky buckets)

• Missing sales opportunities

Level 2 Neglect : Revenue Multipliers (Fix soon-ish)

• Systems that save you time for high-value work

• Processes that improve customer results

• Tools that help you scale

• Analytics that improve decision-making

Level 3 Neglect: Nice-to-Haves (these get to stay fucked (for now))

• Aesthetic improvements with no functional or monetary impact

• Organizational systems that only benefit you

• Optimization of already-working processes

• Perfectionist tweaks to finished work

Level 4 Neglect: Procrastination Projects (ctr + alt + del like immediately)

• Tasks that feel productive but create no value

• Reorganization for the sake of reorganization

• Research that never leads to action

• Planning that becomes a substitute for doing

There's something incredibly liberating about giving yourself permission to let things stay fucked. When you stop trying to fix everything, you start focusing on what actually matters. When you embrace "good enough" for most things, you can pursue excellence in the few things that count.

Your logo can be mediocre if your product is amazing. Your office can be messy if your customer service is exceptional. Your systems can be basic if your marketing is brilliant. Your website can be simple if your sales process is smooth.

The bottom line is that some things in your business need to stay fucked, at least for now, and maybe forever. The question isn't whether something could be better, but rather will making it better make you money.

Remember, you’re running a business. Not a charity, not a hobby, and not some “cute” thing. Focus on the fixes that pay you or your bottom line in some way.

Everything else can stay fucked.

While you're debating whether your email signature needs another line, someone else is writing emails that actually sell.

While you're perfecting your filing system, someone else is building relationships with your customers.

While you're organizing your digital workspace, someone else is creating content that attracts and converts your customers.

The world doesn't reward the most organized entrepreneur. It rewards the one who solves problems and creates value, now.

I’m giving you homework. Look at your to-do list right now. Find three things that feel urgent but won't directly impact your revenue. Cross them the fuck off. Let them stay fucked for another month.

Then find the one thing that, if you fixed it this week, would directly put more money in your bank account, either today or in the near future.

Do that instead.

Perfect is the enemy of profit, and sometimes the best business strategy is knowing what needs to stay fucked.

xo,

jess

PS: We opened up spots in CO-LAB to help you unfuck your business. Perfectionists need not apply.

What's one thing in your business that you've been trying to perfect that maybe just needs to stay fucked for now? Hit reply and tell me about it, I'd love to hear what you're going to stop fixing so you can start focusing on what actually matters.

Leave a comment

And while this is a completely loaded (and probably subjective) question, and the answer is no different, if I had to narrow it down, it comes down to one thing: polarization.

Being polarizing isn't just effective for building an audience online, but it's practically required if you want to make serious money.

While everyone else is trying to be liked by everyone, my bet is always going to be on doubling down on being absolutely loved by some people and completely loathed by others.

Let’s get into it.

Houston, we have a vanilla problem.

I suppose the simple way to say this is that when you’re trying to appeal to everyone, you end up appealing to no one. You end up with a vanilla problem. Generic, basic, and designed “for all”.

The brands that are actually making (lots) of money online aren't the ones playing it safe.

They're the ones making you pick a flavor.

I’m currently residing in Portland Oregon (US), so naturally Nike comes to mind. Nike didn't become a $200 billion company by making shoes everyone could agree on. They doubled down and put Colin Kaepernick in an ad that literally had people burning their products in the streets. But sales went up 31%.

When you force people to choose a side, something magical happens in their squishy little brains. It's called cognitive dissonance, and in the sport of online business, it's your secret weapon.

Once someone decides they're "with you," they need to justify that decision. Their squishy little brains need to justify the emotional pull they are feeling, by logical reasoning. They start looking for evidence that you're right and they made the smart choice. They become invested in your success because your failure would mean they were wrong, and trust me, no one wants to be wrong.

This is why political campaigns work. This is why sports fans spend thousands on jerseys for folks they've never met. And this is why polarizing brands create customers who will defend them in internet comment sections for free. [special shout out to all those who defend my honor on my facebook ads - your commitment does not go unnoticed 😂🤟🏻].

Every great story needs an antagonist. Your brand needs an enemy. It’s time for you to pick your villain.

• Liquid Death picked boring water brands as their enemy. Result? A $700 million valuation for selling water in a can.

• Dollar Shave Club picked overpriced razor companies. Sold for $1 billion.

• Patagonia picked fast fashion and environmental destruction. Annual revenue: $1 billion.

• The anti-brand picked expensive marketing agencies. Made $75k in 76 days.

Your enemy doesn't have to be a company. It can be a way of thinking, a common practice, or a widely accepted belief in your industry.

Moderate positions don't go viral. Extreme ones do.

Instead of saying "exercise is good for you," say "feeling like shit is optional”.

Instead of "saving money is important," try "being broke is a choice in 2025."

Instead of "you should run ads" go with "you’re going to die broke spending all of your time trying to beat the algorithm and grow organically"

By changing the approach, you’re changing the flavor. You’re no longer vanilla. Some will love you. Others will hate you. And that my friend is exactly where we want to be.

In the online space, its all about breaking through the noise by building a community, and the fastest way to build those ride-or-die fans is to pick a side.

• "While everyone else is [insert vanilla thing], we’re over here [insert rainbow sherbert thing]"

• "Most people will never understand... we feel strongly that…."

• "The uncomfortable truth they don't want you to know…[insert any bullshit advice you’ve ever received]"

• "This isn't for everyone…and that’s exactly the point"

This language creates instant in-groups and out-groups. Your audience starts to see themselves as part of an exclusive club of people who "get it."

It's probably the one time where you actually do want to be exclusive, because exclusivity = FOMO, and FOMO = Sales.

The relationship between polarization and profit isn't just correlation, it's causation. When you take strong positions, you fundamentally change the buying psychology of your audience in ways that directly impact your bottom line.

By challenging conventional wisdom and forcing people to question what they thought they knew, some really magical shit happens. I can personally attest to this because it’s exactly why the Anti-Brand Workshop sells on average, 20x per day. The approach was simple. I just asked folks to toss out everything they thought they knew about conventional branding, and boom. Cash cow.

People who strongly agree with your worldview convert at dramatically higher rates than those who are lukewarm about your message.

Read that again, it’s wildly important ☝️☝️☝️

This happens because agreement creates emotional investment, and we all know that we buy with our hearts first. When someone sees your content and thinks "yes, exactly!" they're not just agreeing with your product, they're actually validating their own beliefs and identity. That emotional connection shortcuts the typical buyer's journey. Instead of comparing features and prices, they're thinking about how buying from you reinforces who they are as a person.

This dynamic also allows you to command premium prices in ways that traditional businesses simply can't. When you're the only person in your space willing to say what everyone else is thinking, you create a monopoly on that perspective.

Customers aren't just buying your products, they're buying access to ideas and viewpoints they can't get anywhere else. That exclusivity justifies higher prices because there's literally no substitute for what you're offering.

The viral nature of controversial content creates a marketing engine that runs itself. Your most passionate customers don't just buy from you, they evangelize for you. They share your content, argue with your facebook haters, and bring you new customers without you having to spend a fucking dime on advertising. This isn't just word-of-mouth marketing; it's mob-mentality-driven marketing where your customers see promoting you as being “in the know”. Status points.

Perhaps most importantly, polarization turns normal folks into raging fans. When people don't just like your product but believe in everything you stand for, they become incredibly sticky customers. They'll forgive mistakes, pay higher prices, and stick with you through tough times because abandoning you would mean abandoning part of their own identity. This is why there is a divide in the market when it comes to Apple. You’re either an Apple person, or you’re a “that other robot-thing person”.

But I can’t spend this much time trying to convince you that the best way to stand out in a crowded market is by taking a polarizing stance, without also telling you that when you decide to not play it safe, you are opening yourself up to the haters. Well, let’s not call them haters. Let’s just call them the ones who “don’t get it” (and that’s exactly the point).

Personally, I forgot how quickly the nails come out when you really dig in and own your lane. Ever since I launched the workshop and world wide ads, I’ve received countless messages about various things I am terrible at 😂. At first it was shocking, that folks had nothing better to do with their time than to shit on little ole me who they don’t even know. But then I sat up straight, put my hair in a bun, took my hoops off, hoodie up, and realized that this was exactly what I wanted. Sticky, gooey, stuck to your fucking face polarization. It worked. And it clearly worked well enough to have the ones “who don’t get it” feel the need to let me know.

But here's what I've learned after navigating this path: the customers you lose through polarization were never going to be profitable anyway. These are the customers who view your business as a commodity rather than a solution to their problems. They evaluate you purely on price and features, which means they'll never develop the kind of connection and loyalty that drives long-term business growth. When you make everyone happy, you attract everyone, including people who will make you fucking miserable.

The customers you gain through polarization, however, are fundamentally different. They literally force you to take their money (this happened to me the other day), they pay full price without negotiating, and they're way more forgiving when things go wrong because they believe in YOU. They’re the ones that will refer others because they want to share businesses that align who they are. They buy multiple products because they trust your judgment, but most importantly, they stick around because leaving would mean having to find someone else who shares their worldview, and we all know how hard it is to make friends as an adult.

The math of polarization is compelling: losing 70% of potential customers while tripling the lifetime value of the remaining 30% is clearly an objectively better business model. You make more money, deal with fewer headaches, and build a business that you actually fucking like.

But where to begin?

Implementing a polarization strategy requires more nuance than simply starting fights on the internet, although that is one way 😂. The goal isn't to be controversial for controversy's sake, it's to take authentic positions that resonate deeply with your ideal customers while naturally repelling people who aren't a good fit. See, we can play nice while cutting you to the ground.

Begin by examining the conventional wisdom in your industry that you genuinely disagree with. Every field has accepted practices, common beliefs, or standard approaches that aren't actually serving customers well. These are your opportunities. Maybe you believe that most marketing advice is outdated (wink wink- Anti-Branding Workshop), that industry certifications are totally worthless, or that the "standard" way of delivering your service is fundamentally flawed. The key is finding something you can argue against passionately because you truly believe there's a better way.

Pay close attention to the debates already happening in your space. What are people arguing about in comments, on Threads, on the Reddit feeds? These existing controversies show you where people already have strong feelings. Rather than trying to create controversy from scratch, identify which side of these existing debates aligns with your values and experience, then make the strongest possible case for your position.

The other way to do this, and my personal fave, is to think about your own experiences. Where have you had a shit experience, knowing damn well you could have done this 10x better? That’s your lane. That’s your edge.

Study your competitors not for what they're saying, but for what they're carefully not saying. Find the vanilla. Most businesses are terrified of alienating potential customers, which means they're probably staying silent on topics where you could take a clear stand. Look for the elephants in the room that everyone acknowledges privately but no one discusses publicly. These gaps in the conversation represent opportunities to say what everyone else is thinking but afraid to actually say.

TL;DR?

Nice doesn't scale.

Being universally likable is a luxury you can’t afford.

Deep connections that drive real revenue.

When you try to appeal to everyone, you appeal to absolutely no one.

Polite engagement doesn't move people to action.

Polarization and profit go hand in hand

Strong opinions create strong connections.

So the real question is, what do you stand for? Tell me in the comments.

Leave a comment

P.S. lurking encouraged…

• 👉🏻 ​COME HANG WITH US ON INSTAGRAM​

• 📌 ​COME BE INSPIRED BY OUR PINTEREST​​

• 🥷 ​JOIN THE ANTI-BRAND MOVEMENT

• 🚀 ​BUILD WITH US IN THE LAB

They've placed you in a nice little box in their mind, and the good news is that nice little box has opened doors, created opportunities, and maybe even changed your life.

Until one day you wake up and something shifts. You realize the box you've built around yourself has become too small. The brand that once felt like a natural extension of who you were now feels like Kim K’s corset at the Met Gala circa 2024.

When we talk about personal branding, we often focus on the construction phase, how to build something authentic, how to find your voice, how to stand out in an oversaturated market.

What we talk about less is what happens when that version of self evolves and when what once felt so true starts to feel like you’re in bed with a total stranger.

This isn't failure.

It's growth.

But growth, paradoxically, can feel like a death. When you've built a community around being the "productivity guru" and you're no longer obsessed with optimization, when you've established yourself as the "bootstrap entrepreneur" but you're craving collaboration and community, when you've become known for your certainty but you're entering a season of questions, the gap between who you were and who you're becoming can feel like a the wild west.

There's a psychological phenomenon called the sunk cost fallacy, where we continue investing in something because we've already invested so much, even when it's no longer serving us. This happens with businesses, relationships, and career paths. It also happens with the versions of ourselves we've built.

You've spent years creating a business around a particular expertise. Maybe you’ve written the book, given the talks, and built the email list and at some point, it all felt so aligned. If I had to bet, your LinkedIn profile probably tells a coherent story and your IG feed probably doesn’t look like hot garbage. All that time spent being known for something, which all the sudden feels like that something is all that you are.

Welcome to the business version of The Midlife Crisis, or shall we just call this The MidBiz Crisis.

Identity isn't static.

We’re not a fixed entity to be discovered once and then lived out forever.

We’re more like a river that rages at times, and at other points, mellows out and is deep enough for a full cannon ball off a rope swing. The point is, we’re continuous, ever flowing, ever changing. It's a continuous creation, a river that keeps flowing.

So, the question isn’t whether you’ll change, it’s more about when you do, will you embrace and accept it, and ultimately, share it with others.

One of the reasons we stay stuck in our old selves, our old brands, our offers we don’t really love is because what we fear more than change is that we’ll let other people down.

Your community came to you for a specific reason. They expect things from you, and what happens when you change that? What if they don’t accept this new version of you? What if they’re not interested in “new you, who ‘dis?” What if they unsubscribe, unfollow, or start to question who you are becoming?

OMG, What IF???

These fears are real, and some of them may stick around longer than others, but consider the alternative: living every day out of alignment with who or what you want to be. Do you know how hard it is to show up as your best self, when you’re pretending to be something you’re not.

Let’s just clear the air now and spare ourselves the “what ifs”.

When we evolve, change, turn left, when we’ve always turned right, people will notice, and they will decide for themselves if they’re on this journey for the real you, or if they we’re only interested in the former you.

Your genuine community is not just following your content. They're following you. And if they're following you, they want to see you grow, evolve, and become more fully yourself, not less.

We should all have the courage to begin again.

Reinvention doesn't have to mean demolition. You don't have to burn everything down and start from scratch. You can build bridges between who you were and who you're becoming. In fact, when you can acknowledge the journey, honor the growth, and invite people to come along, it actually builds your positioning and strengthens what they already loved about you.

Here’s what that may look like:

Share your evolution openly. Let your audience see behind the curtain of your growth. The vulnerability of admitting you're changing can be more impactful than you know.

You don't have to announce a complete pivot overnight. In fact, it may be too whip-lashy. Start by weaving new interests, perspectives, and questions into your existing content. Let your audience get used to seeing different facets of who you're becoming.

Honor your past while embracing your future. Your previous work wasn't wrong just because you've grown beyond it. It was right for who you were then. Acknowledge the value of that while giving yourself permission to move forward. Everyone starts at zero. No one stays at zero.

Create space for experimentation. Maybe you start a new newsletter, launch a podcast, or simply designate certain days for exploring new creative outlets. Give yourself permission to try things that don't fit your established brand and listen to your internal narrative when new things start to light you up.

When you have the courage to change in front of others, you give others permission to do the same (let’s get naked thoughts are racing through my mind rn…). You model what it looks like to just be fully human rather than remaining trapped in a professional persona. You show that it's possible to be both consistent and evolving, both reliable and someone who isn’t afraid to shake their tail feathers.

And hell, who knows, maybe your story and process will inspire someone else to leave a job that no longer fits, or explore a creative pursuit they've been dying to get into, but too scared to try. Your willingness to “go first” becomes a gift to everyone who's been afraid to outgrow their own carefully constructed boxes.

Building a brand around being a complete, finished person is a losing game because people aren't complete or finished. Even when we’re dead, are we completely finished or do we carry on and return to earth? The million dollar question of evolution.

But in all seriousness, we're all works in progress, constantly becoming, continuously changing. Your personal brand is no different. Your business can follow this fluidity, so long as you’re willing to share it with your audience.

Think about the artists, writers, and thought leaders you most admire. I guarantee they're not the same as when they first started. They took risks, failed a bunch of fcking times, and kept tinkering until they found themselves, wholly.

Your brand doesn't have to be a prison. It can be a living, breathing reflection of who you are in this moment, with room to grow into who you're becoming.

If you're feeling the tension between who you were and who you want to be, listen to the discomfort. That restless feeling isn't something to push away, it's information. It’s telling you the parts that are feeling called to change.

Be curious about your evolution. Start small. You don't need to make dramatic announcements. Share your thoughts, your feelings, and how things are shifting for you. Bring your community along for the ride and allow them to find new ways and reasons to fall in love with you all over again.

But most importantly, know that the people who matter the most, will want to see you grow. They're not following you to watch you stay the same forever, they're following you to see where you'll go next.

I left my corporate job, cushy salary, and fancy title because it no longer served who I wanted to be. My true gift, I believe, is to lead the way with empathy, curiosity, love, and a dash of fck you. But I’d never let that person be wholly true in my corporate veil, and you’d never read this article if I had never trusted myself to let go in pursuit of something new (and better).

It’s so easy for us to get comfortable and just accept things as they are. But if we just accept things the way they are, we’ll never know just how good it can be.

Cheers to new adventures and new beginnings.

Xo

jess

P.S. lurking encouraged…

• 👉🏻 ​COME HANG WITH US ON INSTAGRAM​

• 📌 ​COME BE INSPIRED BY OUR PINTEREST​​

• 🥷 ​JOIN THE ANTI-BRAND MOVEMENT

• 🚀 ​BUILD WITH US IN THE LAB

"Who am I?" has become the obsession of our time.

We take personality tests, attend workshops, hire coaches, read self-help books, and journal endlessly, all in pursuit of some mystical moment of self-discovery where everything clicks into place and we finally understand our true identity. I know I’ve personally spent way too much time deep in books & websites claiming to be able to help me discover my why, show me my true self, or help me figure out why I'm on this spinning planet.

But what if the answer simply comes not from discovering who you are, but from getting crystal clear about who you're NOT?

The pressure to "find yourself" is everywhere. Social media feeds are flooded with people who seem to have it all figured out, their personal brand perfectly curated, their purpose clearly defined, their authentic self confidently displayed for all to see. Meanwhile, you're still trying to figure out if you're an introvert or an extrovert, whether you're creative or analytical, whether you should follow your passion or your practicality.

The issue I have with the traditional approach to self-discovery is that it assumes there's a fixed, complete version of yourself waiting to be uncovered, like some archaeological dig where you just need to brush away enough shit to reveal your true self. But identity isn't a statue frozen in time waiting to be discovered. It's a living, breathing thing that's never finished, constantly being shaped by your choices, experiences, and yes, by what we choose to say “no thanks” to.

We spend so much time trying to figure out who we are, that we never really stop to consider who we most definitely are not. And I believe that's where the real clarity lives.

I think artists and creatives probably understand something that the rest of us often miss, and that is that sometimes creation is about removal, not addition. Michelangelo famously said he didn't create David, he just removed everything from the marble that wasn't David. The statue was revealed through subtraction, not addition.

What if your authentic self works the same way?

You don't need to add more personality traits, more skills, more interests, more fancy titles, or more hats to become who you're meant to be. You just need to subtract everything that isn't you.

You need to get clear about what doesn't fit, what doesn't energize you, what doesn't align with your values, and then systematically kick those things out of your life. For good.

This process of elimination is faster, clearer, and more actionable than trying to figure out who you are from scratch. It's easier to know what makes you effing miserable than to pin point exactly what makes you happy. If you’re anything like me, you know exactly when something feels wrong or off and most of the time you second guess anything that feels “perfectly right”.

Most of us are walking around carrying a collection of false selves, versions of who we think we should be based on other people's expectations, societal pressures, past experiences, or outdated beliefs about ourselves. These false selves accumulate over time like layers of old paint, obscuring the person underneath.

When I was in my corporate job, I always felt like I was living 2 lives. Work Jess, and real Jess. At work, I never really felt like I could just be myself. Always wearing a mask trying to be “professional” or more reserved. Then, I’d get home, and just be my lazy creative self, who swears a bit too much and goes to bed way too early for a normal person.

Maybe you’re also living a few different lives. One of you is the "responsible one" because your family needs you to be stable, even though you're naturally more spontaneous and creative. Maybe you're the "people pleaser" because conflict feels like an ick, even though you have strong opinions and natural leadership abilities. Maybe you're clinging to the "practical person" because following your artistic impulses feels too “all over the place”, even though creativity is what actually energizes you.

These “false selves” aren't necessarily bad, they probably serve a purpose at some point in your life, but they become an issue when you start to believe this is who you actually are, until one day you’re waking up going who TF am I?

The liberation of “that’s not for me” is a form of self-respect that we should be treating like an extreme sport.

It comes from knowing your own boundaries, your likes and dislikes, and your personal “non-negotiables”. Or, as I like to call it, “the shit you won’t tolerate”.

When you get clear about who you're not, several things happen:

First, making decisions becomes a whole lot easier. All of the sudden you stop wrestling with choices that were never really choices for you. When someone offers you an opportunity that involves extensive public speaking and you know you're not a public speaker, you can decline quickly and confidently instead of agonizing over whether you should push yourself outside your comfort zone.

Your energy increases. You stop wasting mental and emotional energy trying to be something you're not. The exhaustion that comes from living out of alignment with yourself starts to feel less like a hundred pound elephant sitting on your neck.

Your relationships improve. When you stop pretending to be someone you're not, you attract people who you actually like and want to be around. Relationships built on false selves tend to fade, while the relationships built on your authentic self typically tend to stick around and last longer.

Your work becomes more fulfilling (and better). You stop pursuing opportunities that look good on paper but deep down, you know you don’t want to do. Instead, you start gravitating toward work that actually lights you up, and the output is 10x better.

So how do you actually figure out who you're not?

Start by paying attention to your reactions. Your body and your emotions are constantly giving you feedback about what fits and what doesn't, but most of us have learned to override these signals in favor of logic, shoulds, and external expectations.

Notice what drains you, not just what's difficult. Difficulty can be energizing when it's in service of something you care about, so just because it’s hard, doesn’t mean it’s not for you. Ask yourself what actually depletes you, or leaves you feeling empty rather than energized? What makes you want to escape rather than engage?

Resentment is often a sign that you're doing something that doesn't align with who you are. When we force ourselves to do something that we really don’t want to do, a little burning of resentment starts to build, and instantly we turn into little monsters. We put pressure on ourselves to play a role, or meet expectations that aren’t actually ours. So when you feel a ping of resentment creep in, stop and take note (and then never agree to do that shit again :).

Pay attention to when you feel fake AF. I know we all have moments when we feel like we're putting on a show. Like the clothes we’re wearing don’t quite fit, or you catch yourself saying things you don’t really mean or believe in. It’s in these moments that we need to be fully alert because there is nothing worse than trying to be someone you’re not.

Notice what you admire in others. Not in a jealous fellas kind of way, but true admiration. Sometimes the things we admire most in other people are the things we want to express in ourselves but we don’t because they don't fit the current version of who we’re pretending to be. So when you feel that “I wish I could [be more, say more, act more]” moment creep in, make a mental note that you’re having these feels, and then work to get to a place of “I am”, rather than I wish.

And listen, we all have patterns of behavior that feel automatic but aren't necessarily authentic. Those robotic tasks we kill ourselves over because well, that’s just what you’ve always done. But isn’t it time to just do what you’ve always wanted to do, versus what you have to do? Playing it safe or taking the easy way out is our squishy little brains running full speed at the safety zone, but little does it know that if we just followed our instincts just a bit more, we’d be rolling around in a field of alignment, which naturally is the safest place we can be.

But knowing who you are NOT, doesn’t come without a bit of fear, specifically the fear of disappointing others. If you've built relationships, career success, or a social identity around being a certain way, admitting that's not really who you are can feel like betrayal or that you’re letting someone down.

But the truth is, the people who love you want you to just be yourself. And frankly, the only relationships worth keeping are the ones that can handle your authenticity. So, let’s reframe this idea that we think we’re going to disappoint others by being more ourselves. Because really, we need to let go of the disappointment and embrace the courage it takes to just be who you are. Even if it’s weird. Especially if it’s weird. Your weird is the beauty in the world.

And listen, you’ve read this far, so please know that understanding who you're not doesn't mean creating another rigid box for yourself. Identity is fluid, and who you're not may change as you grow and evolve. The person you're not at 25 might be different from the person you're not at 45. The key is to stay attuned to what feels authentic now, not to lock yourself into an identity that worked for a previous version of yourself.

This is why the process of elimination needs to be ongoing. Regularly checking in with yourself about what's still true and what's no longer serving you. Being willing to shed identities that were once accurate but no longer fit, and being open to discovering new aspects of who you're not you age and grow as a human.

Ultimately this is about becoming skilled at saying no, not just to opportunities and requests, but to versions of yourself that aren't authentic. It's about being able to distinguish between growth that expands who you are and growth that distorts who you are.

This doesn't mean you never do things that are challenging or outside your comfort zone. It means you develop the ability to know which challenges will help you become more yourself and which ones will take you further away from yourself.

When you get good at identifying and rejecting what's not you, you inch close to your true self, because remember that the true path to yourself isn't through addition, it's through subtraction.

You don't need to have it all figured out to start this process. You just need to find one thing that doesn't fit and stop that shit. Pay attention to what happens when you subtract instead of add. Notice how much clearer things become when you stop trying to be everything to everyone and start being something specific…to yourself.

The question isn't "Who am I?" The question is "Who am I NOT?" And once you start answering that question honestly, everything else becomes much clearer.

Start subtracting. Start saying no. Start disappointing the people who need you to be someone you're not in order to start attracting the people who love who you actually are.

Xo

Jess

PS: I am NOT someone who thrives on processes or step by steps. I prefer to skip around, get a little messy, and do things because my gut says “yes, do that shit”.. and so I do :)

P.S. lurking encouraged…

• 👉🏻 ​COME HANG WITH US ON INSTAGRAM​

• 📌 ​COME BE INSPIRED BY OUR PINTEREST​​

• 🥷 ​JOIN THE ANTI-BRAND MOVEMENT

• 🚀 ​BUILD WITH US IN THE LAB

Here's the reality: humans are involved in your business. Mind-blowing, I know.

And the best part is that humans are beautifully, messily, wonderfully non-linear. (also mind-blowing)

But before I start skipping down the non-linear path, let me first say that there is a place for linear processes, frameworks, and the like. I’ll get to that in a bit. But first, let’s get into why this “one path fits all” is just a bad way to do business.

Linear thinking tells us to build our brand in sequential steps, create one perfect funnel, develop a single signature offer, and follow the same customer journey for everyone.

This approach feels safe. In fact, our little squishy brains really love this shit.

But it's predictable. It’s repeatable. It’s easier (for you).

It promises that if you just follow steps A, B, and C, you'll get result D every time.

But businesses built this way often feel sterile, robotic, and ultimately forgettable. They work for a while, until market conditions shift, customer needs evolve, your ads stop working, or competition intensifies.

Then they break, because they were built for a world that doesn't exist: one where variables stay constant and humans behave predictably.

When you’re building a brand, you’re literally bringing something to life. And life, by its very nature, is non-linear.

When you embrace a non-linear approach to your business strategy, you create space for interpretation, inspiration, and growth.Your brand becomes a living atmosphere rather than a rigid structure, with customers able to see themselves in your story because there's room for their own interpretation and connection.

Rigid systems crush creativity, while fluid approaches allow for those magical moments when inspiration strikes, and you can actually act on it without breaking your entire framework. Non-linear businesses can evolve organically, adapting without requiring a complete overhaul as you learn more about your customers and refine your understanding of the problems you solve.

Let’s face it. Your customers aren't all at the same stage of their journey. They don't all have identical problems or identical budgets. Yet most businesses try to funnel everyone through the same experience.

Instead, consider creating multiple pathways in your business. You might offer a DIY path for those who want to learn and implement themselves, a done-with-you path for those who want guidance and support, a done-for-you path for those who want to hand it off entirely, or a hybrid path for those who want some combination of approaches.

This isn't about overcomplicating your business, it's about meeting people where they are.

When you create multiple entry points and pathways, you can capture customers at different price points, serve people at different stages of readiness, create surprise and delight through unexpected touchpoints, and build deeper relationships by offering exactly what someone needs, when they need it.

Business suddenly becomes a lot more fun when we’re able to create flexibility within our systems.

Non-linear businesses are anti-fragile. They don't just survive change, they thrive because of it.

This flexibility isn't chaos, it's intelligent design. You're building a business that can dance with uncertainty rather than being paralyzed by it.

And while your overarching business strategy should be non-linear, your individual tasks must be linear. This might sound contradictory, but it's actually the secret to making non-linear businesses work.

Parallel priorities are productivity poison. (say that 10x fast)

When you try to build your email list, launch a new program, revamp your website, and create a podcast all at the same time, everything suffers. Your attention is split, your energy is scattered, and your progress on each front feels (and is) glacial.

Instead, embrace linear task execution by focusing on one major initiative at a time, completing projects before starting new ones, giving your full attention to the task at hand, and measuring progress sequentially rather than simultaneously.

This creates a beautiful paradox: by being linear with your tasks, you can actually be more non-linear with your strategy. You have the bandwidth to respond to opportunities, pivot when needed, and maintain the flexibility that makes your business antifragile.

If you know anything about me, you know that I wholly believe that building a thriving business isn't about following someone else's blueprint. It's about creating your own unique ecosystem that can evolve, adapt, and grow alongside your customers' changing needs.

Embrace the non-linear path. Create multiple ways for people to work with you. Build in flexibility from the start. But when it comes to execution, be ruthlessly linear. Focus on one thing at a time, do it well, and then move to the next.

Your business, and your squishy little brain will thank you for it.

xo,

jess

• P.S. lurking encouraged…

  • 👉🏻 ​COME HANG WITH US ON INSTAGRAM​

  • 📌 ​COME BE INSPIRED BY OUR PINTEREST​​

  • 🥷 ​JOIN THE ANTI-BRAND MOVEMENT

  • 🚀 ​BUILD WITH US IN THE LAB

It’s the part most people don't talk about: which is trying hard feels a lot like doing nobel shit.

It gives me “productive, responsible, accomplished” vibes. Like I’m doing the right thing, checking all the boxes, being the entrepreneur I’m supposed to be.

In fact, if I’m being really honest with you, I’m the effing queen of working myself to the bone. I tend to over complicate everything, and “work 16 hours in a day” is a slippery slope, which is why I need to surround myself with human design Projectors or else I’m in a danger zone of burn out.

In my corporate job I would literally pride myself on being able to juggle a thousand fire balls, run a big team, work through a lay off, all while ordering lunch and processing a work comp claim.

But honestly, that shit is is completely insane.

So why do we work like this in our own business? Didn’t we set out to build something different that gave us our freedoms back?

Why are we trying to force this all to work?

Forcing things is a subtle act of distrust, with ourselves, our ideas, and honestly, of the entire process itself. And if I’ve learned anything, its that forcing things kills the vibe of your business before it ever gets a chance to breathe.

When you fill every open space with effort, cramming your calendar with tactics and your brain with strategies, you kill the thing that actually matters: clarity. Instead, you’re burying your instinct and leaving no room for your real magic to emerge.

This came up in a conversation with a client last week. She's legit brilliant, and has this incredible way of seeing things that others miss, but even she’s asking the same question: "What else should I be doing?"

The truth?

Nothing.

She doesn’t need a new strategy, another funnel, or one more optimization.

She needs oxygen.

She needs space to actually see what was already working, to notice the threads that were naturally pulling together, and to trust that her instincts had been right all along.

Most of us are sitting on a body of work that could be iconic if we'd just stop fucking with it and let it breath.

Read that again ☝️☝️☝️. It’s really important.

We've been brainwashed to distrust simplicity. To complicate in the name of proving our worth. To add layer upon layer until the original essence, the thing that made it special in the first place, gets buried under all our good intentions.

I see this everywhere. I see it in myself at times.

The coach who has seven different programs when one would change lives. The web designer who keeps adding services instead of becoming known for the one thing they do better than anyone else. The designer who launches three new offers before the first one has had time to find its legs (hello, here’s to looking my old self in the mirror).

We mistake motion for progress, as though being busy means we’re being productive and of course, that by doing more it must be better…right?

But here's what I've learned from watching businesses that seem to grow almost effortlessly: they understand that subtraction is often the most radical act of all. They know that saying no to good opportunities creates space for great ones. They trust that depth beats breadth, that mastery comes from focus, and that their customers would rather have one extraordinary experience over ten half-baked ones.

That's the part I want you to notice this week.

Where are you over-doing? Where are you trying to earn your own value instead of simply claiming it? Where are you adding complexity because sitting with simplicity feels too vulnerable, too exposed, too much like you might not be doing enough?

And what would it look like if you didn't?

What if, instead of asking "What else should I be doing?" you asked "What can I stop doing?"

What if, instead of launching the next thing, you doubled down on what's already working and just made that even better?

What if, instead of trying to be everything to everyone, you became irreplaceable to the right someone?

I know this goes against everything we've been taught about entrepreneurship. Shit, most of the time we don’t know what to do with ourselves when we’re still.

And it doesn’t help that the hustle culture mythology says more effort equals more results, and that if you're not constantly pushing, you're falling behind.

Trust me when I say that I’ve seen what happens when you stop believing that story. I’m living proof that when you stop chasing shiny objects, and make space for doing one thing really well, good things happen. Magic appears. Channels open.

When you create space for your business to breathe, it finds its own rhythm.

Ease is not lazy and rest is required if you want to go the distance.

The businesses that last and grow sustainably are not the ones built on force.

They're the ones built on flow and flow requires something most of us are terrified to give it: white space.

White space in your calendar.

White space in your strategy.

White space in your mind to actually think.

It’s time for us to stop trying to optimize every.damn.thing.

I know this email isn't a how-to and there's no five-step framework or tactical blueprint you can implement by Friday on how to go about obtaining more space…but maybe that's exactly the point.

Maybe what you need isn't another system to execute. Maybe what you need is to just close your phone, your laptop, your brain, and just stop executing for a minute and start observing. (obvi do all that after you finish reading this :)

This is a pattern interrupt.

One that's asking you to stop, step back, and notice if all your doing is actually, without even realizing it, slowly undoing the very thing you're trying to build.

Because here's what I suspect…you're not behind. You're not late. You're not missing some super duper secret strategy that everyone else figured out.

You're just in need of a little white space. A little trust that what you've already built will be incredible if you'll just stop shoving it in a packed conference hall with all your other bajillion ideas.

Let it breathe.

The magic you're looking for is probably right in front of you, waiting for you to get out of its way.

More soon.

xo

jess

• P.S. lurking encouraged…

  • 👉🏻 ​COME HANG WITH US ON INSTAGRAM​

  • 📌 ​COME BE INSPIRED BY OUR PINTEREST​​

  • 🥷 ​JOIN THE ANTI-BRAND MOVEMENT

  • 🚀 ​BUILD WITH US IN THE LAB

Most folks trying to build their brands are trying to position themselves as the alternative. The one that's "different."

But when you look closer, they're basically all doing so in exactly the same way. They’re following the same playbook for how to be disruptive and using the same framework for how to position against the competition.

It's like that scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian where the crowd chants back "We are all individuals!" in perfect unison.

Individuality is a paradox. We feel more like individuals when we belong to a group.

It sounds ass-backwards, but it's absolutely true.

You don't feel most yourself when you're completely alone. You feel most yourself when you're with your people. The ones who get your weird. Who appreciate your specific flavor of strange.

This is why subcultures exist. Why fandoms form. And why we’re bringing back the slouchy “old boy” money rugby shirts from the 80s and 90s (iykyk).

The thought is that “society doesn't get me, but if I find the right group of people, then I can be my true self”.

This isn't weakness. It's human nature. Identity in itself is antagonistic. We are, in that which we are not.

Maybe you recall the Apple’s legendary Superbowl ad where the hammer was thrown through the screen and then the screen reads “…. you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984”?

Apple didn't just sell computers. They sold rebellion against the gray, corporate sameness of IBM. We're not the totalitarian big blue company. We are the people who throw the hammer at the screen.

To me, this is exactly what anti-branding is about.

We're not rebelling against branding itself. We're rebelling against the mainstream version of branding that says you have to follow the same tired playbook.

Define your mission. Your vision. Your Values. How old is your ICA and where does she grab her Starbucks coffee? Post 3x a day to feed the algo. Be different, but not too different.

But what if instead of building something different, you just built something real? Something intuitive, built from a deep internal understanding that you aren’t for everybody and that is exactly the point?

What if you created a tiny city for people to live in, instead of trying to create planet earth where all things reside?

What if you attracted people who actually belonged in your tiny city instead of trying to convince everyone to move Perfectville?

The brands that spread and become the ones people actually talk about aren't the ones trying to appeal to everyone.

They're the ones bold enough to express their weird.

They’re specific weird.

The weird that makes certain people say "Yes, finally, someone who gets it" and other people say "This definitely isn't for me."

Both reactions are valuable.

In fact, the second one might be even more valuable than the first.

Because when you repel the wrong people, you attract the right ones with laser precision.

I’ve done a lot of internalizing about what I believe anti-branding to be. What it means to me, and what I want this movement to stand for.

Asking myself questions like:

• What is the advice that feels very mainstream and no longer makes sense?

• What conventional wisdom am I throwing the hammer at… and why?

• What rules no longer apply because this is frigging 2025 and the “internet is Tokyo”?

There’s another dozen questions that flutter through my head at any given time, but you get the picture.

For me, the answers typically sound like “it's the idea that you have to look like every other brand to succeed”. (calling bullshit)

Or that “you have to follow formulas created by people who don't understand what you're actually building”. (formulas are for replacing breast milk)

Or my fave “You have to have professional training to be professional at [insert thing you’re really good at] in order to be seen as an expert. (Um, define "professional” please).

The bottom line is, you may think you’re rebelling against something, but if you look just beneath the surface, you may just be following the crowd.

Even if that crowd calls itself contrarian.

Even if that crowd thinks it's different.

Even if that crowd chants "We are all individuals!" while doing exactly what everyone else is doing.

You don't build a cult following based on personality or hype.

You build a cult based on belonging.

A place where the people who think like you, see like you, and value what you value can finally exhale and say, "these are my people and this is my place."

Because identity is antagonistic.

We define ourselves by what we're not, more than by what we are.

Your brand should help people define themselves in opposition to everything that doesn't serve them.

The question isn't "How do I appeal to more people?”, but rather, “what tiny city am I creating that repels everyone but the ones it was created for”?

xo

jess

PS: If this resonated with you, and you’re ready to skip the perfectly polished programs flooding the internet with promises of exotic transformations, and instead, want to work side by side with someone who understands how to intuitively push the boundaries in branding and business (hi, that’s me), I’d love to have you join me in the CO-LAB.

PSS: this isn’t for everyone. Professionals need not apply 😛

• P.S. lurking encouraged…

  • 👉🏻 ​COME HANG WITH US ON INSTAGRAM​

  • 📌 ​COME BE INSPIRED BY OUR PINTEREST​​

  • 🥷 ​JOIN THE ANTI-BRAND MOVEMENT

  • 🚀 ​BUILD WITH US IN THE LAB

But honestly, this place is such a vibe.

Every time I walk in, I feel like I belong. Like I’ve got some special table ear-marked just for me (I don’t) or that the barista and I share some secret code about the tourists (we don’t).

It’s just the kind of place where I feel right at home. Maybe its the clean lines of the stadium seating, or the endless rows of books that tower all around me while I’m sipping. Maybe its the fact that their play list is somewhere along the lines of the best of Guru mixed with Ahmad Jamal and Nina Simone. I appreciate that the conversations happen at just the right volume and everyone seems to be working on something meaningful.

I’m sure it’s a mix of everything all at once but sitting here this morning, it made me realize that this place had created something most brands never even attempt.

An atmosphere so specific, so intentional, that it naturally attracts exactly their people.

Most of us are building brands ass-backwards.

We start with demographics. Target audiences. Personas with names like "Busy Mom Sarah" or "Copywriter Mike." We create content for them, hoping to catch their attention in an over-crowded feed.

But this coffee shop didn’t think about demographics.

It thought about atmosphere.

What if your brand wasn't a message you broadcast, but an atmosphere you build for your people to take up space?

What if instead of trying to appeal to "your ideal client," you simply created the kind of space where your ideal client naturally feels at home?

What if we just simply focused on the art of atmospheric design instead of all the other marketing bullshit?

Creating atmosphere isn't about aesthetics, though visuals do matter. It's about the invisible architecture of how things feel.

It's the difference between a sterile hotel lobby and your best friend's living room. Same basic function, places to sit, places to gather, but entirely different energies.

Your brand has the same choice.

Are you creating a lobby that is polished, professional, and designed to impress but not necessarily to connect?

Or are you creating a living room? Warm, specific, and a place where people want to linger and get cozy?

The living room has books with dog-eared pages, and is filled with music that reveals something about the person that lives there, and somehow the lighting makes everyone look a little better.

The space is filled with comfortable silences and inside jokes that emerge naturally.

The living room is a vibe. It has a point of view. Actually, it literally has a view. Ha.

We should be creating the living room.

Here's what scares most people about atmospheric branding: it requires you to choose.

You can't create an atmosphere that appeals to everyone (I mean, unless you’re Ikea, then you probably have a pretty good shot at it).

Atmosphere is inherently specific.

It has a temperature, a rhythm, a way of being that some people will love and others will find completely wrong for them.

That's not a bug. That's the feature, and one that deserves to be highlighted.

When you try to create an atmosphere that offends no one, you simultaneously create one that moves no one.

But when you have the courage to create something specific, something that reflects your actual values, your real aesthetic, your genuine way of seeing the world, something magical happens.

The people who belong there feel it immediately. They don't just become customers, they become inhabitants. They claim their table. They take up space. They never leave.

Most marketing strategies are about using words to try and get someone's attention.

Atmospheric branding is about invitation. Creating something so compelling, so aligned with who certain people are, that they're drawn to it naturally. It takes very little messaging to let people know if you’re for them, or not.

One is about force. The other is about magnetic pull.

My coffee shop doesn't advertise. It doesn't need to because the atmosphere does the work.

So how do you actually create atmosphere online?

It starts with asking different questions.

Instead of "What does my audience want to hear?" ask "What kind of energy do I want to create?"

Instead of "How do I stand out?" ask "What would make the right person feel immediately at home here?"

Instead of "What's my message?" ask "What's my vibe?"

Atmosphere lives in the details. The colors that make you feel a certain way. The words you choose and the ones you don't. The pace of your sentences. The topics you return to. The assumptions you make about your reader's intelligence and curiosity.

It's the difference between writing like you're on stage and writing like you're having coffee with someone who gets it (me:).

The internet is vast and loud and often overwhelming. But within it, there are corners, little tiny spaces that feel intentional and specific, like someone with a clear point of view created them.

Those are the places we bookmark and save.

They’re the Substacks we actually read.

The accounts we follow not because they're the biggest, but because they feel like home.

Your brand can (and should) be one of those corners.

Not by trying to be everything to everyone, but by being exactly what you are, so specifically, so unapologetically that the right people recognize it as the place they've been looking for.

The atmosphere you create is the first conversation you have with someone, before you even exchange words. It happens in an instant, before they read your copy, before they understand your offer, before they even know what you do.

That first conversation happens in the space between their expectation and your reality.

In the gap between what they've seen everywhere else and what they discover in your particular corner of the world.

Make that first conversation count.

xo

Jess

P.S. I’ve opened a few spots to the CO-LAB, a creative immersion for people who are done with cookie-cutter branding and ready to build something that actually reflects who they are. If you’re ready to get expert help in building your atmosphere, you belong here.

P.S. lurking encouraged…

• 👉🏻 ​COME HANG WITH US ON INSTAGRAM​

• 📌 ​COME BE INSPIRED BY OUR PINTEREST​​

• 🥷 ​JOIN THE ANTI-BRAND MOVEMENT

• 🚀 ​BUILD WITH US IN THE LAB