From Glossed Over to Glowed Up: Reclaiming a Growth Mindset When the World Wants You Small
This past year tried to break me.
I watched an agency I helped build dissolve because hubris got in the way of humility. Leadership decided that ego was more important than outcomes, and a client relationship that took years to build vanished overnight. I didn’t just lose a contract. I lost a network, a reputation by association and my momentum.
Then came the unpaid work. The well-intentioned startup that quietly disappeared. The "let's circle back next quarter" that never circled back. And perhaps most maddening: interviews. Dozens of them. Some went nowhere. Others ended with praise, but no offer. I was told I was overqualified, too strategic, too direct, too "BOLD."
And then came the kicker: "Maybe you should dumb down your resume. Make it more demure." Demure? What are we trending with keywords on TikTok? NO. I’m not here to be demure. I’m here to drive outcomes, shape futures and make the brands and systems I touch better, stronger and more human. So, no. I won’t shrink.
But let me be honest, it took everything in me not to. Because when your confidence is rattled, when rejection becomes routine and when you feel unseen despite your efforts, a fixed mindset becomes very tempting. It whispers, "They don’t get it because you don’t belong." It nudges you toward playing small. It tells you to stop trying so hard. It wants you to stop learning, experiencing, questioning the answers and tells you to conform.
That’s the trap. A fixed mindset masquerades as realism. It tells you to protect yourself by lowering your expectations. It convinces you that effort is futile, that risk is foolish and that maybe you really ARE too much. It tempts you to start editing yourself, not for clarity, but for palatability.
But growth? Growth is defiant. It means looking at rejection and saying, "Not yet." It means turning pain into pattern recognition. It means learning, refining and continuing. Even when it would be easier to ghost your own goals. This isn’t about toxic positivity by any means because that isn’t me. This is about truth-telling and forward motion. Saying bye to my savings (temporarily) and staying the course, still chasing down the money I’m owed.
I had to rewrite the story in my head. From "Why didn’t they pick me?" to "I’m not for everyone, and that’s my power." From "Am I slipping?" to "I’m evolving." From "I need to prove myself again" to "My work speaks for itself."
Here’s what choosing a growth mindset really looked like this year:
Writing unabashedly from my own POV when I felt like disappearing, never once holding back
Creating new things and testing audiences
Surrounding myself with truth-tellers, not just cheerleaders
Saying no to opportunities that required me to dim my light
Betting on myself in rooms where I was the underdog
Saying bye-bye to savings and keeping the course, continuing to get my cash money that I’m owed because you’re gonna be served if you don’t pay me
Because staying in motion matters. Not the performative kind. The kind where you’re actually showing up, for yourself, for your ideas, for your voice, even when it feels like you’re shouting into the void. A growth mindset isn’t some old inspirational and motivational 90’s poster art in an office. It’s a practice. A commitment. A choice you make when the feedback loop goes silent and the wins feel scarce.
But let’s talk about what that motion looks like for those of us in the trenches of growth work.
The Thrill AND the Risk of Building From Scratch
Strategic growth work for startups can be electric. You get to build the plane and fly it. Define the vision, test the assumptions, refine the model, light up the path. You’re not just one function, you’re the bridge between insight and impact.
You map the business model. You interrogate the audience until you know them. You write the brand’s DNA from scratch. Then comes the go-to-market fire: the messaging, the channel testing, the experiments, the wins, the tweaks, the lift. And finally? The moment of truth: when the founders are grinning, the board is nodding, and the customers are actually connecting.
That’s the high. That’s why we do it. Because building from scratch, when it works, is magic. But here’s the part nobody glamorizes: You can do all of that… and still not get paid. Maybe it’s bad bookkeeping. Maybe the founder ghosted. Maybe the term “contractor” triggered selective amnesia.
And the real kicker? The work still lives out in the world. The results still roll in. Your impact is measurable, traceable, visible. But your bank account? Crickets. That’s the risk. You bring your whole brain, your process, your strategy. They bring… a handshake and a delayed wire transfer. Maybe.
And still, I’d do it again. (Smarter contracts, though.) Because the work matters. And I didn’t come this far to shrink now.
And here’s another truth: Life is a perpetual audition.
I spoke with an actor yesterday, and we had one of those conversations that just lands. She said, “Every day, I’m selling myself. Every audition, every role, it’s selling myself and my soul. Every moment is a shot at being seen.”
And it hit me: That’s not just acting. That’s all of us. Whether you're in strategy, sales, design, operations, or engineering, you’re constantly pitching. You’re selling a version of yourself every day. You’re making a case for your worth, your thinking, your presence. It’s exhausting. But when you stop resisting it and start owning it? It’s powerful, purposeful and exciting.
Because reinvention isn’t reinvention if it’s rooted in self-erasure. It has to be rooted in self-expansion. So keep auditioning. Keep evolving. Keep showing up, even when the stage feels shaky. It’s how you reclaim yourself when the world tells you to make yourself smaller. And if that’s the cost of being bold, strategic and relentlessly curious? I’ll gladly pay it, even if the companies in my accounts receivables are slow to paying me.
This isn’t my comeback story. I never left. It’s just the next chapter and I’m writing it in BOLD.