You are not alone in what you are feeling

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After two weeks away, something interesting happened. I wasn't building, planning, or launching anything. I was merely existing. And the most interesting thing happens when you let yourself sit in the present moment, you take everything in differently than when you're moving through life just trying to get to the next thing.

🎧 Listen on Spotify / Apple — reflection at the end.

I'm clear on what I'm building next. Among that, Thrive & Lead again, even doper, next year. But before I run towards it, I want to sit in what we just did, because the messages haven't stopped coming in.

Women and men, telling me what it felt like to be in a room where no one was expected to perform, where they could express freely, and how it made them want so much more of that. (See the photos of T&L at the bottom of this email)

T&L was the room where Patty and I got to show people exactly who we are and what we are capable of. Because there are a lot of people who doubt women the second we put something new or different into the world, and even more when we're Latinas, like it must be some cute little side hustle. No. Patty and I are both insanely accomplished businesswomen, and every single person who took that stage is hella accomplished too.

And it has nothing to do with a follower count. And everything to do with how they choose to show up in their own life. You can always tell the difference between someone who is media trained and someone who has actually lived it.

Every speaker was chosen for the kind of life they live and for the energy I felt coming off of them. Because energy has a place in business, and going forward I refuse to ignore what my body is telling me. And because of the systems we try to create within, we talk ourselves out of that all the time.

Thrive & Lead was a manifestation of grit and hustle and creative desire and real impact. Where culture, wealth, business and well-being all meet in the same room. And guess what, they can all coexist. We proved it.

I'm already putting the pieces together for next year, going back to the partners and sponsors who couldn't support us this time, because we had to prove the use case first. We did.

Sometimes you have to make the upfront investment and build the proof of the model first. I am not a white man. I don't get to have someone write me a check on an idea and potential. I have to prove it first, as is the case with women, specifically women of color.

And I have no problem doing that, because I was raised by two of the most creative people I've ever known, immigrant parents who made a whole lot out of nothing and raised a daughter who refuses to settle. Every person in that room carried the same thing. People who refuse to settle. Which does not mean we don't get knocked all the way down.

2025 was my Great Worst Year. I was knocked all the way down. Everything I was gripping got taken out of my hands. Some of it I let go by choice, and some of it the universe took for me, because it knew I had a problem with letting go. It knew I wanted to fix and save, which is exactly why my friends jokingly started calling me Home Depot. 😮‍💨

I'm not doing that anymore. And I don't expect you to either. What I learned in the losing is how to receive love, and how someone choosing you in the middle of your unraveling is both insanely uncomfortable and completely healing. But more importantly, I learned how to choose myself when everything in my physical reality could’ve made me lose hope.

So I’m passing this on to you: Let yourself be the observer, not the doer, the fixer, the problem solver, the savior. Listen to what your body is telling you, because the mind takes a while to catch up to what you already feel.

You are not alone in what you are feeling, and if this moment feels like a mixed bag, know that this is not confusion. This is the season of ultimate creation. The season of power.

This is the season where you finally understand my bow and arrow theory. The holding pattern is not stuckness, even though it can feel exactly like it. The holding pattern is where you gather your momentum. For the arrow to fly forward, it first has to be pulled all the way back, or it never has the force to reach the target. 🏹

So when I was deciding where to point all of this energy, I took just one step. One step toward the programming of T&L. One step of reaching out, speaker to speaker, asking to join us in the mission of changing what these spaces feel like and to come speak with no format and no script. And one by one, they said yes. (thank you!)

That is how Thrive & Lead got built. One step at a time. That is how next year gets built too. One clear step, and then the next.

Until the next letter,

Vanessa

P.S. We're building Thrive & Lead again next year, and I'm already in conversations with the partners who are ready now that the model is proven. If being in that room moved something in you, reply and tell me. Those notes are the proof I carry into every room I walk into next. If you want to see the photos, click here.

​Vanessa Santos