The Cost of the Conversion
āāWe didn’t step into this space to perform.
Most of us started our businesses with something deeply real. A vision for our lives that felt expansive. A desire to create freedom, to support others, to build something that mattered. We wanted purpose, autonomy, impact. And for a while, that was enough.
But over time, the messages changed. We were no longer just building from truth - we were learning how to “position” it. We were taught that success came from visibility, leverage, and strategic proximity. We were coached to initiate relationships that were framed as connection but fuelled by outcome. We were handed frameworks that turned intimacy into tactics. And because everyone around us was doing it, we didn’t question it. It was positioned as how the industry works.
We were told to make friends, but only if they could help us grow.
To share value, but only if it converted.
To be visible, but only in ways that felt palatable and clickable.
And for many of us - it worked. Until it didn’t.
What we’re feeling now is the quiet cost of those years.
The slow erosion of trust… Not just in others, but in ourselves.
There are women right now who are pulling back from the very communities they helped build. Not because they don’t care, not because they’ve lost the fire, but because their nervous systems no longer feel safe here. The spaces that once felt nourishing now feel transactional. The relationships that once felt close now carry an edge, and the content that once felt like creative expression now feels like pressure.
And I want to say this clearly - we didn’t all arrive here as victims of the system. Many of us were participants.
Not maliciously, not with poor intentions, but because we were following what we were taught. We were trying to create something meaningful inside a culture that quietly rewarded manipulation. We learned how to speak in a way that sells, how to position vulnerability, how to create resonance with a goal already in mind and most of it was normalised, encouraged even, by the very mentors we trusted.
It’s not that we were insincere. It’s that we hadn’t been shown another way.
Now we’re waking up to it.
And it’s uncomfortable to realise that parts of our business were built on strategies that no longer feel clean. It’s confronting to acknowledge that while our intention may have been service, our actions sometimes mirrored performance. It takes courage to admit that what looked like authenticity may have been templated. And that what felt like support may have been quietly strategic.
But this is the work. This is where we choose to lead ourselves through the discomfort, not around it.
We are not just recalibrating our marketing, we’re reorienting our values.
We’re not just tweaking our content, we’re untangling from conditioning that told us our worth was tied to how consumable we were.
I see so many women returning to purpose right now - but not the kind that’s polished or packaged for the sake of optics. There is a real desire to create movements that mean something, to build businesses that feel deeply aligned, to lead in a way that actually reflects who we are.
But even here, we have to stay honest with ourselves.
Because some of what we are calling movements are still being built from the same energy we say we’re walking away from. The language has changed, but the intention hasn’t. And if we are not willing to sit with the truth of that, then we risk recreating the same cycles in new clothing.
So where does that leave us?
It leaves us here - in a moment that asks for radical honesty. Not to shame ourselves for the past, but to take full ownership of the present. To recognise what we’ve absorbed, what we’ve repeated, and what we are no longer willing to carry forward.
We are not just unlearning strategy. We are remembering what it feels like to connect without an agenda, to create without performing, and to lead without needing to be seen as someone we are not.
That return starts in the quiet moments. In how we speak, in how we witness others, in how we show up when no one is watching. It starts with the decisions we make now - not louder, not bigger, just more truthful.
This space can be different, but only if we are.
Because this isn’t just about rebuilding trust in the industry.
It’s about reclaiming trust in ourselves.
It’s about choosing to build from alignment - not as a buzzword, but as a lived experience.
Alignment in the way we connect.
Alignment in how we sell.
Alignment in the energy behind our offers, our content, our presence.
When the strategy, the visibility, the relationships, and the growth are rooted in alignment, everything holds differently. It doesn’t just look good from the outside. It feels true on the inside.
That’s the recalibration.
That’s the real return.
And it starts with us.
