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Dearest Reader,

I just returned from California, where I just attended an invigorating conference for female entrepreneurs.

Wasfia Nazreen, one of the keynote speakers, is the inspiration for this email. Her story will make you laugh, cry and want to spend more time outside.

Wasfia is a mountaineer, activist, and the first Bangladeshi woman to climb all Seven Summits. (Everest, Kilimanjaro...the tallest peak on each continent, including Antartica.)

She told a story from when she was seven years old, hula hooping, when her aunt said, “Good girls don’t move their hips like that.”

She put down the hula hoop (and the very essence that made her a kid).

Years later, after refusing to be married off, Wasfia was climbing mountains around the world. And at the top of each climb...she hula hoops!

It is her way of reclaiming her joy. Not just for herself, but for the little girl who was told to shrink, to behave, to be “nice."

And for all of us who still hear that quiet voice, whispering “Don’t take up too much space,” "That's not how we do things here"...

This is an invitation to quiet that voice and choose a more supportive one.

I see examples of to this every day in my coaching practice. Most of us are still carrying around these old rules and stories. And guess what? You get to choose which stories you listen tell yourself and believe.

I can only imagine how exhilarating summiting a mountain would be. And the real summit is:
🏔️ The moment you decide to stop shrinking
🏔️ The moment you choose joy again
🏔️ The moment you pick up the hula hoop

What joy did you set down that it’s time to reclaim?​
What dream, got labeled as “too much,” “too big" and "not for someone like you"?

And what might happen if you reclaim that dream?

✨ To your boldest, truest dreams,
​Megan

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