Women Entrepreneurs Deserve to Be Celebrated. Today I Got Something Better.

A commitment to show up and write my truth | Day 266 of 365

Friends, today is American Business Women's Day.

I didn't plan anything special to mark it. It started out like any other Tuesday, with a full to-do list and more on my mind than I could fit on it.

But by the end of it, I realized I'd been celebrated after all, just not in the way I would have pictured. It was quieter than that and a whole lot better, and almost all of it came from people.

Why Women Entrepreneurs Remember the People Who Were Kind to Them

This afternoon I had a coaching and mentoring call with one of the finest sales and strategy minds in the industry, someone who has every reason to guard their time and offered it generously anyway. They shared what they know, answered everything I asked, and gave me advice I didn't even realize I needed. I got off that call so, so grateful, inspired, and excited to implement so many new ideas.

If you've ever run a business of your own, you probably know the moment right before you ask a question. You hesitate. You wonder whether you're supposed to know the answer by now. You tidy up the messy part a little before you say it out loud, so it sounds more like a strategy and less like I have no idea what I'm doing here. And if someone once made you feel foolish for not knowing, you carry that into every room after it. You remember the look on their face. You remember deciding you'd just figure out the next thing alone.

I think a lot of women entrepreneurs are carrying some version of that memory. We celebrate the launches and the revenue and the big wins, but underneath so much of it is a woman sitting at her desk, or her kitchen table, or in her car in a parking lot, wondering if she's allowed to not know yet.

That's why a conversation like the one I had today means so much. Yes, I came away with so much advice I can actually use. What stayed with me, though, was the way it was given: patiently, warmly, and with real care. Knowledge shared that freely is a gift. Being treated like you belong in the conversation while you're still learning is another gift entirely.

The People Who Build It With You

My team was on my mind today, too.

My name is on this blog, and I'm the one typing these words, but I am not building any of this alone. There are people beside me doing the work, and they don't just do it. They bring their own care to it, their own ideas, and strengths I simply don't have. They catch things I'd miss. They make the load lighter in ways I'm not sure they even notice. (I wrote about the people who become part of the story back in Business Growth Is Personal: The People Who Become Part of the Story, and I meant every word.) I'm grateful I get to build this with them. Some days I'm just grateful I get to build it at all.

Bagels, a Table, and Four Happy People

And then there was lunch.

Wait for it, friends.

We were blessed to have a babysitter today, which meant the four of us got to sit down together, at the same time, and eat freshly baked bagels.

Are bagels a lunch food? They were today. It was the best time.

I keep coming back to that little stretch of the afternoon. Nothing about it was fancy. We had food we actually wanted to eat and time to sit and enjoy it, and nobody had to jump up in the middle of a bite. I could easily have spent that whole lunch halfway into the next task, nodding along while my mind made lists. I'm really glad I didn't. I'm glad I stayed for this one.

Maybe you've had a day like that. The to-do list didn't shrink. The business was still a work in progress, and honestly, so were you. But somebody was kind to you. Somebody helped. You got a few minutes around a table with people you like, and it was only later, driving home or lying in bed that night, that you realized you'd been happy while you were sitting there.

Those are the days I think we remember longest. Not always the milestones. The ordinary Tuesday when someone was generous, the bread was warm, and for half an hour nothing was on fire.

What I'm Holding Onto Today

So this is my version of a celebration.

I'm grateful for the person who shared their knowledge with me so openly and has already helped me more than they probably realize. I'm grateful for my team, who show up with so much more than any job description could ask of them. I'm grateful for the babysitter who gave us room to breathe and sit down. And I'm grateful for all four of us around that table, happily agreeing that bagels are a perfectly reasonable lunch.

If you're a woman building something of your own, whether it's a company, a side business, a practice, or the first rough draft of an idea, today is your day too. Even if nobody said it out loud today. Especially then.

And if someone was generous with you back when you were still figuring it out, maybe today is a good day to tell them it mattered. It probably mattered more than they know.

I didn't need anything bigger. This was a lovely day.

About the Author | Day 266 of 365

I'm a soul-led coach, entrepreneur, mother, and recovering perfectionist, currently navigating healing, uncertainty, temporary chapters, motherhood, work, big transitions, grief, nervous system healing, overstimulation, emotional growth, and the ongoing lesson that life works a whole lot better when we stop trying to carry everything alone. Today that lesson looked like learning from someone generous, feeling grateful for my team, and sitting down with three other people to eat freshly baked bagels for lunch.

Day 266 of 365. Still building. Still learning. Still defending bagels as lunch. 🐧