Hi Visionary,

Last week I asked you to take the block you fought for in August and give it one named job.

What I did not tell you is that naming it is the easy half, and I sat on the hard half for weeks.

In 2022, I had the entire Level Up Summit built in my head only months after founding Pretty Damn Ambitious in February of that year. The format, the speakers I wanted, who it was for, what it needed to do. Fully formed. Told to no one.

That fall, I went to a sip-and-throw pottery class with my friend Keshia, who has a razor-sharp mind and is an executive coach whose opinion I value enormously. The class was genuinely fun and full of the things you learn to absorb as a minority, including the moment when two other Black people walked in, and two separate White people turned to ask whether we knew them. Which of course we did not, because news flash, all Black people do not know each other, just as all white people do not know each other.

Sadly, there were more instances of insensitivities like this before the night was over.

After our car arrived, we hopped in the back seat, and we talked about all of it. Enjoying the process of creating with clay. What we wanted to make next. What we had just sat through, and what we sit through constantly, and how tired we both were of the arithmetic of the microaggressions we seemingly have to endure.

After our venting session, I said the other thing. I'm thinking about creating a virtual global summit. Then I told her all of it, the whole thing I had been carrying for weeks.

She went straight into planning mode with me, right there in the back seat. By the time the car pulled up to my house, we had a format, a rough date, and a list of names. Keshia was one of the first speakers I booked.

The summit lived in my head for weeks and produced nothing. It became real the night one person knew about it. I go into more detail on Ep. 12 Self Doubt + Ambition.

Four summits have convened with global attendance and incredible reviews from attendees and speakers alike since that car ride.

I want to be precise about what actually changed, because I had it backward, because like some of you, I thought for years I needed maybe just one more degree, certification, and a heaping dash of experience before “I’m ready.” Ready for what, I still have no clue. I had to decide that I was ready and then move forward, not the other way around.

No organization called and asked me to convene that room. Nobody gave me a reason to believe I was the person who gets to gather 20-plus speakers and hold a room full of women for two days.

And the deciding was never the bottleneck. I had decided weeks earlier, alone, with complete clarity, and it moved exactly nowhere.

So look at what you did last week. The block is defended. The entry is renamed. The thing has a name and the name is real.

And it lives in one head and one calendar, which is the same place my summit lived while it was doing nothing.

You are allowed to have stopped there.

Deciding is the harder half and you finished it. If that’s where you are today, know that's real progress. And when you're ready for the next move, consider sharing what you've named with someone else who matters.

Naming it is a win; letting even one other person hold it beside you is how it starts to grow.

I need to correct something, because I think this quarter may have taught you the wrong lesson.

In July I wrote about the chasing pattern, about being everywhere, saying yes to everything, and coming back with nothing. I told you that pull cannot be performed. I meant it and I stand behind all of it.

A careful woman reads that and goes quiet.

Restraint was always about how you ask for attention. It said nothing about whether people know what you do. Those are two different questions, and collapsing them is expensive. You end up protecting your energy so well that your business goes unreadable and unrelatable from the outside.

Nobody is owed a launch, a countdown, or a carousel about your process. That is not what we are discussing here.

Yes, we all know this.

Let me name the actual thing stopping this, because it is not modesty.

You have said something large out loud before and watched it land in uncomfortable silence.

Or you have watched it land in a safe question. How would you fund that? Have you thought about the timing?

Reasonable questions, every one of them, and each arrives as a small tax on a sentence you worked up the nerve to say.

Last year, researchers Johanna Peetz, Roger Buehler, and Tayler Wells published four longitudinal studies in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, following more than a thousand people and their personal goals.

Telling someone predicted two things: more support coming back, and more effort going in. What determined whether that happened was who they told and how they told it.

Which is to say the telling is not the variable. Who you tell is the variable.

So the wrong audience is not the person who pushes back. The wrong audience is the room that nods, because a nod lets you feel finished before you have started.

In eighteen years of building this work, I have never once had a nodding room produce anything. What has moved things is narrower and less impressive. One person in a car asked me about my mission and purpose, which were behind the thing I wanted to do, and helped me start planning it.

This is the move; find the person who has something at stake in your success. Not a supporter or cheerleader. Someone whose own work or reputation brushes against yours, or who will still be in your life in three years and would notice if this thing existed.

If you’re trying to identify who that is, ask yourself a few questions: Who would be affected if this project succeeds or fails? Who would ask you about it six months from now, and genuinely care about the answer? Whose goals could overlap with yours, or who stands to benefit when you achieve this? Who has given you thoughtful feedback in the past or challenged your thinking in a way that moved you forward? Look for the person who will hold you accountable because your outcome is intertwined with theirs.

Then say the sentence. Here is what I am building between now and the end of the year. Then tell her the whole thing, the way I did in that car.

One person is the assignment. If saying it out loud is more than you have in you this week, send it as a message. If naming the whole thing feels premature, name the block and say what it is for.

What you are listening for is whether she brings it up again without being prompted. That is how you know it landed somewhere other than politeness.

If you are not sure whether your problem is protection or visibility, that is a scoring question. The Elevation Assessment maps four domains: Identity, Revenue, Sovereignty, and Capacity. Your results will show you where you are strong and where there is room for growth, helping you see specifically which areas might be holding you back and where to focus next. The assessment also offers practical recommendations after each section, so you can take clear and guided steps toward your next move.

Look at Sovereignty on its own this time. If that score is strong and nothing has changed about who comes toward you, the gap is not protection. You have built the room beautifully and nobody knows what it is for.

You named the thing last week and then you kept it, which is what I did for weeks with a summit that was already finished in my head. The naming was real work. It starts paying once another person is carrying it around, too.

If this feels uncomfortable or vulnerable, you are not alone. Many people hesitate to share something that feels newly real or still in progress; that reluctance is natural, and it matters. If you feel any hesitation, know this is a safe ask and there is no judgment here. When you are ready, hit reply and tell me who your one person is. Her role, not her name. Or if you're brave, what is the one thing you're working on that lights you up that you have not shared? I read every response.

To your continued success,

Bianca