Sometimes the next version is not a reinvention. It is finally naming what you have already become.

It's been raining a lot lately, and while I love the smell and feel of it, the clouds and lack of sunshine also make getting out of bed a challenge. Especially when the days are getting shorter and it's still dark at 7 a.m.

But rain brings cleansing and growth. Very fitting for where I'm currently sitting in life.

I've been doing a lot of pondering lately. Looking back over 2026, the Year of the Horse, the year I was going to figure all this stuff out.

And it's definitely been reflective, that's for sure.

Reflective. Showing back to you what is, not what you wish it was, or what you thought it would be. Just what is.

You get to decide how to perceive what you see.

And as I look back at the last seven years, and particularly the last ten months, I'm beginning to understand something I couldn't see while I was living through it.

Sometimes the next version is not a reinvention. It is finally naming what you have already become.

Seven Years Ago, Reinvention Wasn't Optional

Seven years ago, I had to reinvent myself.

Reinvent: to change something so much that it appears entirely new.

The story I had lived for the previous 26 years had ended without my control. Survival required that I start a brand-new story. In the same saga, yes. I mean, it was still me. But the previous me had been squashed into unrecognizable goo, set on fire, and burned to nothing but ash.

There's a reason the phoenix and butterfly have become such powerful symbols of transformation.

The phoenix rises from the ashes of her former self. And the butterfly… The caterpillar must undergo an extraordinary transformation inside its chrysalis breaking down before emerging as something entirely different.

The butterfly has become my personal symbol over the last seven years.

I had a tiny one tattooed on my wrist three years ago. If you look closely, the butterfly is actually the letters EYW shaped into its wings.

EYW stands for Embrace Your Wings, a phrase that came to me during a particularly dark and frightening moment in Switzerland, when I was facing the reality of having to rebuild my life and had absolutely no idea how I was going to do it.

I've always believed those words were a message from God.

I didn't know then just how much they would come to mean to me. That butterfly eventually became the logo for EYW Marketing and Design, a business that would become another significant part of my transformation.

The me in that first story had gone through all the things that would be necessary for the next level. A level that was going to require a complete rebirth and some really strong wings.

A close friend of mine once described life like a video game. Each level has its own challenges, and as we move through them, we gather information, training, tools, and experiences. In the really good games, you get to take everything you've earned into the next level, where even bigger challenges await.

Thank God life works that way, too.

The difference is that in real life, having those strengths doesn't automatically mean we'll use them.

It takes real, tangible courage and faith in ourselves to trust what we've learned, especially when everything familiar is calling us backward.

And familiar isn't necessarily safe.

Years of therapy have taught me that what feels safe to our subconscious is often simply what it recognizes. We can find ourselves drawn back to situations that hurt us because at least we know what to expect.

The point?

It's when we finally learn to use what's already within us, what God created us to be, along with all the lessons, gifts, talents, experiences, courage, and faith we've gathered, that we begin to succeed.

Whatever form that success takes.

Seven years ago, I hadn't been in the traditional workforce for more than 20 years. I'd cut hair in my basement while we raised our two boys. I didn't have a college degree, and I hadn't worked under a manager in 24 years.

But a stack of signed papers and the new title of "divorcee" suddenly required me to create a resume that would take a séance for a prospective employer to speak with my previous managers.

I also needed to find somewhere to live and figure out how the hell I was going to keep it together for my two teenage boys, who felt just as blindsided by our circumstances as I did.

So, I started over.

Here's the short version (of the career side) of the next several years as I began rising from the ashes and building my wings.

• September 2019: I got a job at a manufacturing plant making $11 an hour. It was the only place that would hire me with my incredibly impressive resume. At least it offered the insurance I needed, something the salon jobs I found at the time didn't.
• March 2020: Just before COVID shut the world down, my bestie took me to Switzerland. That trip saved me, and at the same time nearly killed me. I was terrified. That's a whole other story. But while I was there, I decided to go to college and chase a dream I hadn't seriously considered since I was 15.
• May 2020: I started university.
• August 2020: I talked myself into a job in the university's publication and design department based on my experience in "marketing and publishing." Translation: I'd written and published books and taught myself how to build websites and email lists.
• April 2021: A local business owner recruited me after hearing about my work at the university. Despite my lack of formal marketing education and traditional experience, I became his marketing director.
• January 2022: I was recruited by a high-end salon to become its marketing director. The owner happened to be the same bestie who'd taken me to Switzerland. An interview with her for a college entrepreneurship class led to questions about her marketing, which led to a job offer. How had we never discussed what I was doing before? We both laughed. Timing, I suppose.
• October 2022: I officially opened EYW Marketing and Design. My bestie and my previous employer my first clients. I wanted to take what I'd learned and achieved for these businesses and help more people do the same.
• May 2023: I earned my StoryBrand certification and began growing my client list through a combination of consulting and implementation, which eventually meant building a team.
• May 2024: We'd reached a point where growing the business required more people, more capacity, and more cash. So I started looking for financing.
• January 2025: I graduated with my associate degree in business fundamentals and two certificates in social media marketing and business leadership.

That last one was a big deal for the girl who'd spent more than two decades believing college was a dream she'd never get to pursue.

But by graduation, I was also carrying substantial school loan and credit card debt and still hadn't secured the funding I needed to grow the business.

And the process of trying to get that funding?

Let's just say it was an education of its own.

I experienced firsthand what I'd previously only heard about: how difficult it could be as a single woman in Utah to secure a business loan.

I literally had a lender chuckle and tell me, "Don't sue me because I'm only telling you what everyone else will be thinking, but it was an instant no for me the moment you walked in the door because you're a woman and you're single."

Yes. He actually said that.

I had a similarly discouraging conversation with my own bank.

Did I have a husband? No.

A business partner? No.

Could my mom co-sign? I asked.

No.

Interesting, isn't it?

But I kept building.

And then discouragement led me to what could be seen as either the worst business decision I'd ever made or a very, very necessary lesson.

As I reflect on it now, I'm choosing the latter.

When Fear Started Making My Decisions

In May 2025, someone who owned part of a marketing agency approached me, and we started talking about our businesses and how our services could complement each other.

Some white-label trials eventually turned into discussions about merging our businesses.

In June 2025, I "sold" 80% of EYW to the three owners of the agency through their holdings company.

I know. Some of you are cringing right now.

Hindsight tells me I shouldn't have stopped looking for ways to fund my own growth.

But I also know I wouldn't be who I am today without what happened next.

The remainder of 2025 became one of the hardest periods of my life, including when the life I knew crumbled seven years ago.

Within weeks, I was working repeated, life-sucking 70-hour weeks, and I could see that the reality of what I'd entered was nothing like what I'd believed it would be.

By November, I was ready to leave.

But I was terrified.

What would happen if I walked away? Would I lose everything I'd built? Would I have to move in with my parents? Would I end up filing bankruptcy?

I'd already invested so much of myself, my time, and my financial resources into building EYW. Walking away felt like giving up everything I'd fought so hard to create.

So I stayed.

But by the end of the year, I knew staying was going to cost me something I couldn't afford to lose.

My soul.

In January 2026, I went to Mexico for a networking event.

Thank God for that event and the people who were there to teach, connect, and share their experiences.

Being away from the environment I'd been living in gave me something I desperately needed.

Clarity.

I realized there was no price I could put on my soul. I could no longer live with integrity while remaining in a situation that felt so deeply out of alignment with who I was.

The morning after I came home, I woke up flooded with inspiration.

The Embedded Analyst.

I knew what it would be called. I knew what I wanted to do, who I wanted to work with, and what it needed to look like to align with who God knew me to be.

It felt so clear.

But clarity doesn't necessarily eliminate fear.

I knew that resigning would mean walking away from the business I'd spent years building. I'd be relying on the owner-financing payments from the acquisition while trying to establish a new business, and I was still carrying a tremendous amount of personal debt from growing EYW.

The possibilities I'd feared in November were still very real.

I could lose my home. I could end up living with my parents. I could have to file bankruptcy.

I could lose the very life I'd fought so hard to build.

But I could no longer put a price on saving my soul.

So I submitted my resignation the moment my contract allowed.

Two days later, the majority shareholder elected to dissolve the company, leaving a substantial amount of the acquisition payments I was still owed unpaid.

Talk about terror!

I met with my lawyer. I researched. I tried to understand what options were available.

Ultimately, regardless of the legal questions surrounding the dissolution, pursuing action wasn't financially feasible for me at the time.

I was facing the possibility of having practically nothing to my name and thousands of dollars in debt.

I tried to keep things going with some of the clients and team members from the previous business. I felt responsible for the people who would lose their jobs if I didn't at least try.

But I was attempting to build something new while holding on to a structure and relationships that were deeply connected to the very situation I'd left.

Within a couple of months, I made the painful decision to close out those client contracts and let the team go.

And yes… I began the bankruptcy process.

Meanwhile, life wasn't exactly giving me a break on the personal front.

My father's dementia and COPD had progressed to the point that my mother could no longer care for him alone. We needed to move them into assisted living, and I spent much of September helping make that transition.

By this point, I'd been through enough change, loss, and uncertainty to last me several lifetimes.

Yet, there was still a lesson I hadn't fully learned.

I was making decisions out of fear.

I had received this beautiful, clear inspiration for The Embedded Analyst in January, but instead of trusting what I'd seen, I kept trying to make it fit inside a version of the business I already knew.

I was terrified to let go of anything that might provide income.

I was also terrified to trust that everything I'd learned and built over the previous seven years might actually be enough.

Want to know the craziest part?

I hadn't really stopped believing in the vision. I just wasn't making decisions as though I believed in it.

The Pain of Trying to Become Someone I'd Already Outgrown

After closing out that first version of The Embedded Analyst, I didn't immediately stop choosing from fear.

Instead, I started applying for every job I could think of. Seriously, everything, anything.

I ended up accepting a job at a local salon making, yep, $12 an hour.

I barely made it through nine days.

Nine.

On what would turn out to be my last day, the despair had become so overwhelming that I knew something was very, very wrong.

I had taken the job because I was afraid. I needed income. I needed stability. I needed something familiar.

But the place I'd gone looking for safety had become a place of tremendous emotional pain.

I resigned and started reaching out to potential clients I'd been putting off contacting.

Two weeks later, I had enough business coming in to cover my overhead.

Two. Freaking. Weeks.

I couldn't stop thinking about what had happened at the salon.

I'd spent decades doing hair. I'd been good at it. I'd genuinely enjoyed it while raising my boys.

I knew how to do that job. And yes, I'd been ready to leave it behind and chase other dreams, but it was familiar.

So why did going back feel so incredibly painful? Mentally. Emotionally. Even physically.

My whole body hurt after each day at the salon, even on the days when all I'd done was sit at a computer for training.

I asked my therapist about it. She helped me recognize that I was attempting to squeeze myself back into an identity I'd spent years growing beyond.

From her perspective, the distress I was experiencing wasn't just emotional. My body was responding to the conflict between the life I'd worked so hard to create and the decision I'd made to return to something that no longer fit.

It wasn't that doing hair was a bad job. It can be incredibly rewarding when it's what someone wants to do.

It was that I'd made a choice to go in a different direction, and now, out of fear, I was trying to undo that choice.

I'd spent seven years fighting to become me.

Yet, there I was, trying to convince myself to go backward because backward felt familiar.

Remember what I said earlier about familiar not necessarily meaning safe?

Well, apparently, I needed an extremely painful reminder.

Thank God I got one.

That experience finally brought me back to the inspiration I'd received in January.

There was a reason the acquisition had never fit who I was becoming, beyond the business practices and experiences that had made it so difficult.

There was a reason I'd struggled to make the first iteration of The Embedded Analyst work.

There was a reason going back to being a stylist felt so deeply wrong for me.

In each situation, I'd made choices based, at least in part, on what I was afraid would happen if I trusted myself.

I was more willing to believe in my fears than in the faith I claimed to have.

I kept searching for safety in places I'd already outgrown.

Every time I tried to make myself smaller to fit inside something familiar, I ended up further away from the life I actually wanted.

I Didn't Need to Reinvent Myself Again

Here's where the reflection gets a little uncomfortable.

For a long time, I’d believed I'd somehow manifested every single fear I'd been carrying.

The loss of EYW.

The bankruptcy.

The possibility of having to return to work I'd already left behind.

But looking at it now, and I mean seriously just figuring this out in the last few days, I see an important distinction.

I didn't cause every painful thing that happened to me. I didn't control other people's choices, their actions, or the circumstances that followed.

What I did control, at least to some degree, was how I responded.

Far too often, I allowed fear to determine my next move.

I entered the acquisition because I was afraid I couldn't grow EYW on my own.

I tried to force The Embedded Analyst into a version of the business that wasn't right for it because I was afraid to let go of the income and responsibilities tied to the old one.

I applied for jobs I was overqualified for because I was afraid I couldn't generate enough income doing what I actually wanted to do.

The truth?

I was terrified to admit who I had already become.

Because admitting it would require a whole other level of commitment, strength, and courage I wasn't sure I was ready to embrace.

It also meant I might fail.

Not because I hadn't learned enough.

Not because I lacked the experience or ability.

But because I'd have to believe in myself, what I'd learned, and what I could contribute without anyone else dictating the how, who, and when.

I'd have to stop asking the world to validate what I already knew.

That is a whole different level of courage.

Another truth? I've never really felt brave. Ever.

People have called me that over the years, but survival has never felt like bravery. Only necessary.

Seven years ago, I had two teenage boys watching me navigate the destruction of the life we'd known.

I had to keep going. The only other option was to give up and I couldn’t do that to them.

If my children ever face anything similar, or God forbid something worse, I want them to know that their mom didn't give up. Not then. Not now.

Despite the abuse, the pain, the losses, the humiliation, the failures, and the terror of the last seven years, I chose to keep going.

My family has always been my anchor. I want my boys to know that life can get excruciatingly hard, but that doesn't mean it's over.

I'm realizing that surviving and becoming aren't quite the same thing.

Survival required me to keep moving when everything around me was falling apart.

Becoming requires me to trust the person those experiences have made me.

I don't need to start over again.

I need to stop pretending I haven't already grown.

It doesn’t mean I don’t still have a lot of growing to do, it just means it’s time to

Embrace My Wings

So here I am.

Iteration number two of The Embedded Analyst.

Although the more I think about it, the less I believe this is really a second version of anything.

It's a loving blend of EYW (Embrace Your Wings) Marketing and Design, and everything I've learned and become through the experience of building it.

For more than 30 years, I've been a business owner. Over the last decade, I've immersed myself in marketing, business strategy, research, messaging, and the work of helping other business owners grow.

I've learned to spot the gaps that are difficult to see when you're the one inside the business, trying to make the dream happen.

I've learned how to research, analyze, build messaging and strategies, and create plans that turn ideas into action.

But I think, more importantly, I've learned what it means to be a true partner.

To genuinely care about someone else's success.

To encourage them when they're discouraged.

To be straightforward when they need to hear something difficult.

To understand that growth isn't always about doing more. Sometimes it's about finally seeing clearly what needs to change.

And how extremely important it is to be intentional about what we build and why.

That's what The Embedded Analyst is.

I embed myself in my clients' businesses, analyze the gaps that are stalling their growth, and help them create a plan and the support to move forward.

I help them build businesses that support their dreams instead of consuming them.

In a way, I like to think I help them embrace their own wings.

Which brings me back to that butterfly.

The one tattooed on my wrist.

The one made from the letters EYW.

The one that represented my personal growth and my business long before I understood everything that business, and the experiences surrounding it, would teach me.

EYW Marketing and Design hasn't really been reinvented.

She's metamorphosed.

She finally has a name for who she's become.

And the most interesting part is that now, standing at the beginning of this next level, I'm less afraid than I was a year ago.

I have barely anything to show for it financially compared to what I had then.

I'm still rebuilding. I'm still dealing with the consequences of the last year. There are still plenty of unknowns ahead.

But I'm less afraid now than I was when I was desperately trying to prove myself.

Prove my worth.

Prove the worth of EYW.

Because I finally understand that I don't have to.

I’ve been thinking a lot about something Dallas Jenkins, the creator of The Chosen, said about reaching a place where he was no longer concerned with either criticism or praise. He was simply focused on doing what he believed he was supposed to do.

That idea feels so powerful right now.

It's how I want to approach The Embedded Analyst… really, my whole life.

Not because I suddenly won't care what anyone thinks. I'm human, and my historical patterns are plenty of evidence that I can still crave praise or struggle with criticism.

But I'm going to try.

I'm going to practice trusting what I know, who I've become, and what I believe God has called me to do.

This time feels different.

I'm writing again. Creatively. Something I have not done in nearly 8 years.

I'm going to share what I have to say without feeling that every word needs to prove something about me or my business.

It will reach whoever needs it, God willing.

I'm not entirely sure what this new version of my life and business will become.

But maybe that's part of the beauty of it.

There's something powerful about the fertile emptiness, the space where the old has fallen away and the new hasn't fully emerged.

After all, seeds need to be planted before they can grow.

The butterfly doesn't emerge from the chrysalis looking anything like the caterpillar that entered it.

It doesn't need to become a caterpillar again to prove it knows how to survive.

It already did that.

Now it gets to fly.

There's a quote often attributed to Joan of Arc that feels especially meaningful to me right now:

I am not afraid. I was born to do this.

I'm not quite ready to claim that I'll never be afraid again.

But I am ready to stop letting fear make my decisions.

It's time to manifest my faith instead of my fear.

If you're reading this while facing your own loss, discouragement, or the burning down of a life you thought you'd always have, I hope you'll remember something.

You don't have to know exactly what comes next.

You don't have to understand why everything happened the way it did.

And you don't have to become an entirely different person to move forward.

You may already be carrying the strength, wisdom, and courage you'll need for the next chapter. Even if you can't see it yet.

Sometimes the very experiences that feel as though they're destroying everything you know are also revealing what you've been becoming all along.

Maybe the next chapter isn't asking you to start over.

Maybe it's asking you to finally trust your wings.

Because sometimes the story isn't really about starting over. It's about the moment you realize you no longer need to.