Are you a square peg like me?

Most of my corporate career, I felt like a “square peg in round hole,” so when I started my own business, you’d think that would change.

It did, and it didn’t.

I didn’t know what I didn’t know about running my own business, including how to have an online presence. So when I first got started, I jumped in with both feet and set out to learn what I didn’t know. I hired coaches and took courses, and although I am grateful for what I learned in each case, none of them completely aligned with how I’m designed.

When I wrote my last book, Author Stylist Guide: Own Your Greatness, Get Visible, and Share Your Message, I would create a very cozy, dark, candle-lit space to create. What I realized later was that this cave environment is actually how I love to engage with people – one-on-one or small intimate groups. And my kind of design is not built for the online business model of using a megaphone, lots of automations and sequences, or lots of offers even. Yet, until I got still and clear on how I’m wired such that I could realign my business to support, I tried all those things. And it was exhausting.

When I not only accepted but embraced that my square peg in a round hole feeling was not a flaw, but rather what made me stand out as decidedly different, I stopped applying modalities that worked against me and started doing what worked with me. Which ultimately boiled down to owning my own authority fully, design and all. And that if that made me a “square peg in a round world,” then that meant I was there to add something that wasn’t currently there.

Just like you.

You have your own expertise, design, and gifts, yet have you watered them down to fit somewhere? Or when you’re excited about the threshold you’re facing, does the Quiet Critic start dimming those exact things that make you stand out “just in case” you might be “too much?”

The threshold you're facing is presenting itself right now because you are ready, even if you feel a little scared. It's presenting itself because your expertise, design, and gifts are exactly what's needed.

If this is bringing something to the forefront for you, then find out where the Quiet Critic is running the show, so your light can stop being covered.

If you'd like to go deeper:

You Know It's a Verb, Right?

Leadership isn't something you earn once and then have. It's something you practice — every day, in every interaction, at every level of the work.

This book (which I had the joy of co-authoring) is for anyone who senses there's more to leadership than their title reflects — whether you're early in your journey, already leading a team, or running a business and realizing that leading yourself and your clients is its own kind of leadership. Using everyday language and real-life examples, it's a roadmap for the practice of becoming the leader you're already capable of being.

Because leadership doesn't happen because you sat in a classroom or earned a credential. It happens because you prepare for it.

Author Stylist Guide: Own Your Greatness, Get Visible, and Share Your Message

You published the book. Now the opportunity arrives — a book signing, a podcast invitation, a speaking engagement — and suddenly it's not about the writing anymore. It's about you, showing up, in real time, as the person behind the work.

The Author Stylist Guide is for that moment. Not how to get more opportunities — how to make the most of the ones that come to you, so you show up with confidence, shine in the room, and let your book and message reach the people who actually need them.

You already have the courage and the gifts that got you here. This book helps you use them.