What's the real ROI?

Letters From The In-Between: What's the real ROI?

​Vanessa Santos

Hola {{ subscriber.first_name }}, I'm coming to you from Medellín, alongside twelve women in a beautiful two-story home in the hills of Poblado.

Our dearest friend Paula, who has a gift for gathering people who were always supposed to find each other, brought us together to celebrate her. And somewhere between last night and this morning, something shifted in me that I didn't expect.

Last night I shared a bed with Natalie, one of the great loves of my life in the way that only certain friendships can be. Every time we come together it's like the stars remember that two of their children need to hold each other, because we have spent so much of our lives holding everyone else.

I told her things I've kept private. For as much as I share in these letters, there is still so much I hold within. How sensitive I actually am. How many times my heart broke last year. How many times I allowed myself to receive love without trying to self-sabotage it, and let the people who see me help piece it back together. Natalie didn't just understand, she offered her own vulnerable truths.

And then after our yap session, we finally fell asleep. But I fell asleep with the kind of joy you can't manufacture, the kind that comes from two women who have lived different lives, survived different seasons, and still manage to meet each other in every version without judgment.

Then this morning we had yoga and I was mid downward dog when the tears came. Sweaty and crying, not what I expected to happen on day 2 of our trip.

I've been so hard on myself for so long and I rarely stop to acknowledge how much has actually happened, how much I've released, and how much I have actually built. You know about Glow Up Hour but there is so much more that I'm building that I haven't shared yet because there is no greater mirror than being the outlier and figuring shit out as you go. And somewhere in that span of time I realized I had never really given myself credit for any of it. (The strong ones rarely do… so really quickly, give yourself a hug and thank yourself. You are here and you are doing great.)

The more time I spend with brilliant, powerful women, the more I realize we are all somewhere on this journey and we rarely give ourselves the space to move through it freely, without the filter of saying the right thing and without the performance of having it together. Because I don't know about you, but that performance is fucking exhausting. There is so much we carry in isolation that we don't let even the people closest to us see. Why is that?

After yoga we walked through Comuna 13, a neighborhood that was once considered one of the most dangerous places in Latin America and is now a vibrant, living, breathing artist hub. Resilience in real form. We walked through curvy streets, up and down stairs, and we had just finished dancing to Bad Bunny and a coffee tasting at Waikao.

And as we kept walking the tears just kept coming. Everyone around me was trying to make it happen for themselves. Street artists, artisanal vendors, our tour guide who loves this neighborhood like it raised him, because it did. And I stood there in deep gratitude that I made it happen so I could be here, that I invested in this trip and in these friendships and in this version of myself that actually shows up and lets herself be held.

I walked next to Paula, tears streaming down my face and I said, I am overwhelmed with gratitude, gracias amiguis for seeing me and wanting me to be a part of this special moment in your life.

And then I wondered about the street vendors packing up at night. Who do they get to talk to? Does anyone in their life see them, not just what they sell, but the dream behind it? Because building anything, building anything at all, is isolating and the loneliness of that is something we almost never say out loud.

That question is why I show up every month for Glow Up Hour, a free gathering for women who are building something and refuse to abandon themselves in the process, women who don’t want to move in isolation. If you haven't been in the room yet, this is your invitation. Join us here.

A year ago this week I was a shell. I was working around the clock to get the #WeAllGrow sale across the finish line and I was up until 2am writing the newsletter to announce it to our community because it truly was the end of an era and I needed to get it right. I was going through the motions of what my life was requiring of me, grieving what was ending, quietly terrified of what I was becoming, no idea who I'd be on the other side. Standing on those steps in Comuna 13 this morning I am so vastly different from that woman. And I almost missed it. I almost let another accomplishment pass without pausing to feel it.

So many women are shamed for not knowing what's next, like the in-between is a problem to solve instead of a season to move through with intention, like we're supposed to have the polished version of ourselves ready at all times.

This season has cracked open a whole new way of living, of not making my entire life about building, of making room for the people who want to be there for all my seasons and not just the ones that are easy to celebrate.

Take a moment today to thank the people who are like home. Who see you when you've closed yourself off to your own heart. Who open their hearts when you have closed yourself off to yours. Investing in yourself isn't what they sell you on social. It's letting yourself be held by the right people, in the right rooms, before you've figured it all out.

Your circle is a return on investment that no spreadsheet can capture. But you have to let yourself be seen first.

What is the real ROI of your life? Not just the financial return. The return on the friendships you showed up for fully. The trips you almost didn't take. The vulnerability you almost kept locked inside because you weren't sure it would be received. The spaces you let yourself be a part of.

The ROI of this trip has created peace in places of my heart I thought would carry a small mark forever. Maybe the mark is still there, but now it's art.

We build so we can have this. We build so others can too.

Until the next letter,
Vanessa

P.S. The Table’s April cohort is almost full. It's the room where you walk out knowing, not hoping, knowing, that you can absolutely accomplish the thing you came here to do. We all have a purpose. Stop leaving it behind. Pull up a seat. Claim your spot →

P.P.S. This one does not have an audio (YET), I need to leave now to go to dinner to celebrate the birthday girl!! And imagine trying to record an audio with 13 women in one house 😅

These letters are for women who refuse to erase themselves on the way to success.

But if it is, welcome to the syndicate.