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I had a TikTok moment this weekend. **deep sigh**

I tried to wrestle a fitted sheet back into a neat little square instead of wadding it up in a ball + shoving it in my linen cabinet, like I usually do (and should have done).

I don’t know why I do this shit to myself. 🤷‍♀️

Everything started off great. I was full of “KonMari” energy—feeling like I’m going to fold this bastard into submission with style + grace.

Then corners start slipping out. The sides puffed up + took flight like a goddamn parachute.

Before I knew it, I was wrapped up in this thing like a baby deer playing Twister.

No one tells you that it’s impossible until you remember the entire process by heart, so you don’t have to stop + start the video 692 times to try to wrap your mind around this deceptively complex fabric origami they call sheet folding while juggling more corners than you have hands.

I can barely remember what I said 30 seconds ago.

Remembering some forbidden domestic sorcery like this is NOT in my wheelhouse.

It all ended in utter defeat.

I rage-balled the sumabitch into a wad of shame (like I should have done in the first place) + shoved it in the back of the closet, pretending it never happened.

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It’s giving me shades of trying to follow the guru advice.

It looks simple.
It sounds logical.
Creative geniuses like us can definitely do this—it’s not rocket science.

Yet, every time we try to fit ourselves into their systems + blueprints, we end up in a tangled mess, wondering what’s wrong with us.

We’ve spent years getting suckered into thinking there’s a system that will make this easy.

The perfect funnel.
The viral content strategy.
The magic email sequence that unlocks unlimited income.

And all of it is bullshit.

Worse than bullshit—it's expensive bullshit. It costs us a lot more than the inflated price tag.

This year alone, there are at least 20 different persuasion campaigns coming for your wallet, promising that if you just follow their steps, you’ll be raking in six figures in your sleep.

They'll absolutely leave out the part where YOU need a huge audience and to fundamentally change who you are + become a soulless, conversion-optimized sales bot to make it work.

Oh, and the real underlying truth: They make more money selling you the system than anyone’s actually made using it.

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We keep buying the fix, even though we were never broken.

The Guru Pipeline thrives on convincing us that WE are the problem.

That we just haven’t cracked the code yet. 🙄

In reality?

The whole system was never built for people like us—people who actually give a shit about their work, their people, and their goddamn integrity.

But here’s the part that really makes my soul buffer like bad WiFi: We keep looking for the next “code-cracking thing” anyway.

Not because the last 5 we bought helped us crack any morsel of the code, but because deep down, we still think we need fixing.

And that’s the real mindfuck.

It’s easier to believe the 90-day blueprint is the answer than to sit in + work through the discomfort of reconciling all the ways we’ve morphed into people-pleasing origami swans to be more likable, marketable, and “professional.”

👉 To make peace with the mountain of times we trusted the wrong people, got burned, and still blamed ourselves.

👉 To acknowledge how many times we abandoned our own instincts in favor of someone else’s “proven process.”

👉 To accept the reality that we’ve worked harder to be strategic than we ever did to be seen.

👉 To stop pretending we don’t already know the answer—because we do. We just don’t want to trust it yet.

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Being yourself isn’t a marketing gimmick; it’s the entire strategy.

It’s a sobering phase of business + life when you’re realizing that it’s not enough to play the game, optimize, niche down, and be strategic. Because none of that shit has ever actually worked or made you happy.

Solopreneurs + small creators like us don’t just want to make a living doing what we love.

We want to make a life we love.

We want the freedom to just BE, say the things, take up the space, and build our business the way WE want to.

We want to show up, share our work, be seen + understood, and make a real damn difference—without getting trapped in sleazy-ass “scalable” business models that damage us.

And that’s why I started Brandishing You.

❌ Not because we need another entrepreneur community.
❌ Not because I need a hobby.
❌ Not because I want to coach you into a personal development bender with no exit strategy.

🫶 But because we need somewhere that'll keep us from getting sucked into another persuasion-laced, confidence-eroding pitch-fest with promises we want to believe.

🫶 Somewhere that’ll stop us from reaching for another damaging system or blueprint every time we start to panic about money.

🫶 Somewhere that'll make it easier to make a great living having fun + being fearless.

Because success looks different for people like us.
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If success were that simple, my linen closet wouldn’t be a war zone.

Every guru out there will swear up + down that success is just a matter of following the right steps. 🙄

But so is folding a fitted sheet.

And we all know how that goes.

Success isn’t about finding a proven system or winning blueprint and following it into a black hole.

It’s about finally trusting that showing up as your real, imperfect, chaotic, wildly brilliant self is the only thing that was ever going to work in the first place.

But that’s hard to accept when we’ve been conditioned to believe that business, like a fitted sheet, is something we’re "doing wrong.”

The gurus have been out here making millions off of convincing us we’re one paid masterclass away from cracking the code—knowing damn well the code is just a tangled wad of propaganda + deception.

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I say, fuck trying to “fold it neatly.”

Let’s rage-ball the guru BS into a wad of freedom + shove it in the wood stove (not even forgotten in the back of the closet is far enough)... and build businesses OUR way.

And finally, finally stop blaming ourselves for a system that was never designed for us.

Because I can’t find YOU if you’re out here trying to be a cardboard cutout of a marketer.

And YOU can’t find your kindreds if you’re rebranding yourself into a sales funnel with arms.

We need to see each other.

To hear each other.

To build businesses that don’t make us feel like shells of human beings.

And that starts by staying the hell away from anything that tells us we need to be “fixed.”

Brandishing You is my way of keeping us out of this vicious, damaging cycle.

Keeping us focused on the only thing that’s ever actually worked: being true to who WE are.

If that sounds like what you need? Cool. Let’s do this.

Brandishing YOU is officially reopened + my 61 barflies and I are ready to shower you with the healing, support, and growth that’s going to get you on the other side of all of this garbage we’ve been putting into our thoughts.

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If not? That’s ok, too.

But please, for the love of everything that has Havarti cheese in it, do NOT buy another $5K code-cracker. I’m begging you! 🙏

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To businesses that don’t make us feel like we’re wrestling a fitted sheet with one hand,

Dre ‘100% Pro Wad-It-Up-and-Walk-Away’ Beltrami