Dear Reader,

Last month, I asked what you still want.

This month, I want to ask what you are waiting for.

Not in a hurry-up way. In an honest way.

Because so many of the women I know are not short on vision, talent, preparation, or proof.

They are waiting.

Waiting for the title that makes it official.
Waiting for the invitation.
Waiting for someone with more authority to say, 'Yes, you are ready.'

I know that kind of waiting well.

For much of my career, the next step required someone else’s yes. A promotion. A title. A seat at the table. An invitation to lead.

So I learned how to earn it.

Prepared. Credentialed. Undeniable.

Then I stepped into a season where no one was standing at the door.

Legacy Rising. Dear Daughter. The decision to publish this book through my own imprint instead of waiting for a publisher to choose it.

And I noticed I was still waiting anyway.

I want to be careful here, because this is not a “just believe in yourself” letter.

Some doors really are guarded. Many of us learned early that we would have to be invited, approved, and vouched for before we were allowed in.

In many rooms, that was true. We learned how to navigate systems we did not design because we had to.

But not every door is guarded.

And it can take a long time to stop knocking when you have spent a lifetime learning that someone else decides whether you get in.

Sometimes we keep waiting long after the decision has become ours.

We wait for permission to raise our rate.
To start the thing.
To say the thing in the meeting.
To call ourselves what we already are.

We have been asking for so long that we forget to check whether anyone is still holding the key.

You do not need permission.

I have been sitting with that sentence as I write Dear Daughter. It is one of the simplest lines in the book. It has also been one of the hardest for me to believe.

So let me ask you the question I keep asking myself:

Not where you have been overlooked. That is real, and it deserves its own honesty.

I mean the place where you already know what you want, already have what it takes, and are still waiting for someone to wave you through.

Name it.

You do not have to walk through the door today.

But you deserve to know which doors are actually locked, and which ones you have simply been waiting at.

Today in Legacy Circles

Sometimes we know the truth before we are ready to say it out loud.

That is where this letter and today's conversation meet.

The Courage to Tell the Truth

🗓 Thursday, October 22
🕛 Noon to 12:45 p.m. Central
💻 Live in Legacy Circles

Maybe it is something you want. Something that is not working anymore. A boundary you need to set. A change you are considering. Or something you have finally admitted to yourself.

We will spend 45 minutes reflecting on what it takes to recognize our truth, trust what we know, and give it a voice.

No preparation. No perfect answers. Come to talk, listen, or simply be in the room.

New to Legacy Circles? It is a free community for women who want a room where they do not have to perform. Join us and be part of today's conversation.

The Leaders Who Told the Truth

This month on the Legacy Rising blog, I wrote about three leaders whose words I still carry.

A mentor who admitted, in the middle of an ordinary afternoon, that she was tired. An executive who stopped a very careful meeting to say we got this wrong. A speaker who set her notes aside and let a room see her.

None of them were the most polished leaders I have known.

Each of them told the truth when it would have been easier not to.

And each one gave something to the people around them:

Language. Accountability. Permission.

That last one stays with me.

Sometimes the permission we are waiting for arrives because someone else was willing to go first. Read the reflection on the Legacy Rising blog.

A Story I’m Ready to Share

I have a little author news to share.

My essay, The Puzzle, will be included in Between Worlds, a new anthology book from Publish Her that brings together women's stories of living between worlds.

Mine is about adoption, identity, and growing up with questions about the missing pieces of who I am. It's about being biracial, searching for belonging, and a journey that eventually took me all the way to Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

It begins with a letter I wrote at sixteen, hoping someone would give me permission.

And here's the part that feels especially fitting for this month's letter:

Sometimes not waiting for permission looks like something big. Sometimes it looks like finally putting your words into the world and trusting that they deserve to be there.

The book is available for preorder now and ships this fall. Proceeds support initiatives for immigrant and Indigenous women.

If you'd like to support this project and the women whose stories are included, you can preorder Between Worlds here →​

A Tool for Going Deeper

Sometimes the permission we are waiting for is permission to stop performing.

The Code-Switch Cost is a Dear Daughter Reflection Guide for women who have become very good at adjusting who they are to belong.

It is a quiet place to notice where you shift, what that shifting costs, and where you might be ready to stop translating yourself.

If someone you love has been carrying this too, pass it along.

One Week from Today

On October 29, I will give the opening keynote at Ecomm Forum, presented by Irish Titan at Glass House in Minneapolis.

It will be the first time I bring Say the Hard Things Out Loud to the stage.

Everything this letter circles lives somewhere inside that keynote.

If you are in the Twin Cities, I would love to see you in the room. 💚

A Gentle Invitation

Where are you waiting to be chosen?

Write down one place.

Then ask yourself:

Maybe you will be chosen. Maybe the invitation will come. Maybe someone will finally see what you are ready for.

But what if you stopped making that the prerequisite?

You do not need permission.

With Intention,