I spent a glorious working weekend with my friend on a beach, exploring business ideas and creating content. In just a couple of days, I managed to complete about three months of content. Then I found out this is not what I actually want.
There was a minor temptation to feel like all of this was a waste of time, but instead, I called my friend and celebrated the realization. I thought I was creating for one audience, but once everything was articulated on paper, I realized I was doing the wrong things. I had an inverted idea of the people I wanted to serve and what they actually needed.
This could have been a moment of massive disappointment. In the past, when desperation and shame were driving me, I probably would have been angry at myself. But I saw this as an opportunity to see clearly and pivot. You can’t pivot without putting something on paper.
So many of us believe our first draft should be our best draft, but that kind of thinking often keeps us from ever starting. I think about this a lot when I see businesses that grew quickly without much strategy. Their success happened because of the natural goodness they have to offer, which is incredible—I’ve seen it firsthand: million-dollar businesses that were simply in the right place at the right time. But I’ve also seen how afraid these same businesses can become. They worry that the next step might not be the correct one, so they don’t put anything on paper at all.
It might seem safer to keep going with what you’ve been doing, especially if you never planned for it to get this big in the first place. But when you operate this way, you miss the chance to truly plan your next steps with intention and to make a deliberate effort toward strategic growth.
This is especially for those of you who were once the hidden power behind someone else’s brand — the strategists, operators, directors, and experts who built your brilliance inside corporate walls or large organizations. In those spaces, you were rewarded for perfection and punished for public exploration. Now, as you build your own brand, the idea of articulating your deepest ideas and testing them out loud can feel risky and exposing. But this is the hallmark of visionary leadership. True category creators don’t test because they’re uncertain of their worth; they test because they’re secure in their expertise and willing to discover what’s next.
Iterating publicly becomes your new power suit, tailored by your own vision, not someone else’s brand.
Articulate: Giving Language to What You Know
To articulate is to name what you do in a way that others can understand, connect with, and desire. That sounds simple, but it’s where many brilliant founders get stuck. Naming something means owning it. Once it’s named, it can be questioned, challenged, or misunderstood. That can feel risky.
But your articulation is the first bridge between your expertise and someone else’s breakthrough. It’s how you separate passing curiosities from the powerful through-lines that define your brand and shape your solutions. If your language hasn’t evolved in the last year, there’s a good chance your problem-solving hasn’t either.
This is why getting things on paper — even if it turns out to be the wrong direction — is never a waste. It gives you something to measure against. It forces clarity. It shows you what to refine.
As Toni Morrison said:
“Sometimes you’re nudged and sometimes you’re just searching to make the writing interesting to me. It’s not just writing it. It’s I don’t know what this means, but I have to find out and I have to explore all the characters attitudes and so on. I gotta know. I really have to know. And the only way I can know and own what I know is to write it and then let you read it so we both know.”
That’s exactly it. You can’t fully own what you know until you write it down — and then let others engage with it so you both discover it together. That’s the real power of articulation and iteration.
Iterate: The Courage to Test It Publicly
Once you’ve articulated your ideas, you can’t keep them locked up in private documents or pretty decks. You have to get them out in front of people, including those who might not like them or even understand them at first. That’s where iteration comes in.
Tech companies understand this instinctively. They build MVPs, test groups, and beta rollouts to see if something is worth going all in on. Amazon famously requires teams to write a press release before they ever build. If the idea isn’t compelling enough to announce, it’s probably not compelling enough to fund. That’s not just good business. That’s vision with discipline.
This is how you figure out what actually sticks. It’s how you avoid wasting years refining an idea no one really needs. It’s also how you learn to see objections and confusion as data instead of personal failures.
Don’t Fear Competition; Iteration Is Your Moat
There’s a temptation to hold your ideas too tightly, worried that competitors might see them and try to build something similar. Yes, some people will mimic you. Yes, some people won’t get it. But they are not your threat.
Stagnation is.
Because in your iteration lives your expert questioning. It’s the nuanced decisions, adjustments, and insights that only you can make because of how deeply you understand the problem you’re solving. That’s why imitation is never competition. They can copy your last version, but they can’t out-iterate you. They can’t out-question you. They can’t out-evolve you.
Keep Testing Bolder
If you’ve been feeling stagnant, overlooked, or unsure of your next move, you don’t need to start over. You just need to articulate again and then iterate with purpose.
Growth isn’t found in repeating what’s safe. It’s found in saying something clearer and testing something bolder than you ever have before.
This is how you build a brand that grows because it’s alive. Because it’s paying attention. Because it’s brave enough to keep experimenting.
Join me on July 16th for a Free Brand Workshop For Women Founders On The Rise – Click Here For No More Flustered Hustling: Brand Strategy for Profit & Peace
