You Are Enough.

"All I can tell you is if you get to the point where someone is telling you that you are not great or not good enough, just follow your heart and don't let anybody crush your dream." — Patti LaBelle

While we have heard Maya Angelou’s quote, “You are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody" often — especially if, like me, you grew up watching Oprah — it has not sunk in for me fully until now.  I’m 55.

We grow up awaiting approval through offers — Dating.  Job.  Marriage.  Sometime in my 4^th decade (I got married at 39; I’m a late bloomer), it was cemented that as I had pivoted to freelance writing, and risks were plentiful, I could start taking control of approvals; publications may be examining my work, but I was also evaluating their assets.  Overtime, I didn’t have anything to prove and did not need to accept every assignment that would take me.  I stopped writing for free or on spec.  At the start of this year, I raised my rate.  And today, I have made the final declaration to explore options to publish my fashion essay collection without an agent. Without a big five publisher. 

I am enough.

This epiphany is not without merit.  It’s not that I haven’t been trained to write (a Journalism degree from the “Pulitzers of collegiate journalism” university says otherwise) and over 15 years since I pivoted from beauty and fashion marketing to freelance writing have strengthened the muscle.  I have done extensive legwork to understand publishing.  Since taking the inimitable Kim Perel’s book proposal development class in the midst of Covid, summer of 2020, I have finessed the heart of this book and I have listened — and learned immensely — from 8x author, NYT best seller and killer publisher Anna David, who was the first person to celebrate my book’s concept and writing saying, “You may never look at fashion the same way again.”  She began telling me I need to get moving sans traditional publishing three years ago.  What can I say, I am a slow learner when trying to break into a field with 1-2% likelihood of getting work published.

But I am nothing but patient.  The book in development began from a heartfelt moment in 1998 where my adoration (or extreme devotion?) of wearing white button down shirts and taking notes during Elsa Klensch’s show each Saturday morning ultimately led to a breakup.  I was not feeling seen (a topic I now write about often) for who I was by a beau.  While it appeared to be about fashion, it was about being naked — vulnerable — and true to myself; the self that I was only just discovering.  Uncovering.  I realized I could not evolve when I had already been pinpointed.  I was just carving out my authentic self and fashion — more than boys — was shaping me. To him, I was not good enough.

Today, to agents who reject me, I am not good enough.

But I am finally finding — as I did in 1998 when I dumped the beau — the gallantry to walk away.

If I have learned anything from the women I interview — founders who have scratched their way through the paltry 2% of VC funding to build companies and forge ahead despite years of rejection — it’s that sometimes it’s better to go it alone. 

But I know I am not alone here.  I have so many women who have reached out asking to pre-order a book I have yet to finish writing.  Women who have said they want to build a book club meeting around it (invite me please!).  Women who, years ago, read sample chapters and said, “This is exactly what we all want to read.  There is nothing like this out there that captures growing into ourselves through what we wore.”

Spoiler alert — this book is not just about me, but about all of us.  We’ve all endured this journey shaping who we are by what we wore.  Chapters are crafted by decade;  there are Ann Taylor suits, low slung jeans and going out tops, inaugural Tory Burch caftans, so much Marc by Marc Jacobs and more.  I worked at Calvin Klein post CBK but her essence never left the building. While fashion once shaped who I was and who I strived to be, today, in my minimalist uniform heading to carpool, I am influenced more by who is surrounding me and the woman I’ve become.  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, I want you to read the whole book.

So, stay tuned.

After a family filled summer of travel, I expect to make this a reality.

In the interim, ask yourself if you are holding back — wondering if you are enough.

You are.