I had an interesting coffee meeting this morning that I wanted to share with you. This person was a consultant for me last year, but since then, he’s also become a friend. He asked to have coffee because he had recently lost his job.

As we talked, he surprised me by saying that, while he never would have chosen this circumstance, it had forced him to ask questions he’d been avoiding for years. At 42 years old, he realized he’d spent much of his life being who he thought he was supposed to be. He had built a successful career doing something he was good at. It paid well, it was stable, and it was predictable. So he should be happy, right? But it wasn’t really him.

At one point he looked at me and said, “You and I are sitting here having coffee, but we’re not showing our real selves. We’re showing the professional version of ourselves…which is fine. But I want the courage to be the real, unfiltered me, no matter where I am in my life.”

It was like a lightbulb went off in my head as I nodded vigorously, because this is what I want for HerHaus. We should be a place where no one feels they have to perform, where it’s okay to arrive joyful one month and heartbroken the next, and where we can be ambitious, accomplished, uncertain, goofy, exhausted, hopeful, or completely lost—and know we’ll still belong.

Life has a way of humbling all of us eventually, and I’ve heard from a few of you lately that you’re going through that currently: family medical issues, partner troubles, house renovations… We all have seasons that don’t fit neatly into a social media caption. My hope is that HerHaus is the place where you don’t have to pretend otherwise.

So if you’re walking through something right now—whether it’s exciting, confusing, painful, or simply feels too heavy to carry alone—please reach out. Even if you don’t think I can help. If I don’t have the answer, there’s a good chance I know someone who does. More than anything, I want you to know that you’re not meant to navigate life’s hardest moments by yourself. That’s what this community is for.

xoxo,

Lindsay