Hey stars,

I had a genuinely terrible time in Los Angeles last month, to the point that I couldn’t even enjoy my fresh Sugarfish! Let’s unpack:

Having lived and worked in West Hollywood for awhile, I’d popped in expecting to hit my usual spots before heading to interview the CEO of LinkedIn in Newport Beach. Despite my outstanding productivity on the 6h flight, I landed in my old neighborhood only to be smacked in the face by — what I can now see — was grief.

Grief for the life I wanted the last time I lived there, grief for the things that ended while I was there and since, grief I didn’t even know I was still carrying around. As you know from this piece about my late grandmother, grief is my least favorite emotion, but has somehow become one of the most familiar, which you’ll understand if you’re also a high achiever.

Too Smart For This.

Ruthlessly Faithful

getting a little deep as we discuss community and relationships this month. the most complicated relationships of all are with family. sending love to all of you who can empathize with this one…

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5 months ago · 38 likes · 8 comments · Alexis Barber

My frustration with LA truly startled me as it was so much bigger than the trip deserved. My Runyon hike wasn’t producing enough endorphins to forget about it, so when I got back to Brooklyn, I itched for an internal resolution beyond a TikTok tarot reading journaling session.

The books on your shelf are always there for the exact moment you need them, and paradoxically, I reached for Black Swans by Eve Babitz, probably the most LA writer there ever was. On a blanket in Fort Greene Park I read her tales from start to finish, the tango lessons that melt into love affairs, the rendezvous with beautiful strangers who turn into whole chapters of her life, the way she loves her friends like they are the great romances of her life.

God, I want to be a woman with that much substance, I thought.

How did she get all these stories? It hit me that I already have a few of my own (IRL friends know), and what’s more, is that they are much more precious than the Image that I’d made so important.

I laughed at myself for ever being upset about the mistakes, because every one of them had formulated into something greater, a woman who can love deeper, learn faster, and walk away from almost anything with at least a great story. Even my wild moments are nothing next to Eve’s, but they are the whole reason I’m me. I started to feel better about them. Then I started to revel in them, and wonder, where is that aliveness today? Where is the substance?

I keep reaching for that word lately, substance, because it’s truer to me than smart. Anyone can be smart! (Smart is everywhere, it’s the bare minimum now that we have Claude, duh!)

But to be a woman that can carry around a worldview, an informed one — the kind that’s contradictory, messy, crazy, and interesting precisely because it is so completely hers. She has an essence and she spends her whole life cultivating it, and that is the woman I have always wanted to be. Honestly, it’s the woman I am growing into, and I’m not gonna get there by following somebody else’s ‘safe’ path.

The problem is you cannot rush There, but GOD, did I want to.

I remember being 21 and desperate to already be on the other side of adulting, to skip straight to the part where I was accomplished, respected, the smart one, the woman who had it all figured out (OK Jenna Rink!). I wanted the authority without the years.

But every single lesson so far, every failed thing, every win, every move that looked like a detour, all of it is what turned me into the woman (and businesswoman) I am now, and they are all equally valuable.

Even the ones that felt like getting stabbed in the chest.

Even the ones that felt like jumping up and down for joy.

You don’t get to keep only the wins. You have to go through all of it, process it, alchemize every messy thing that ever happened to you into something that is finally, unmistakably yours.

So you cannot follow a stranger’s list of wellness hacks and expect to come out the other side Perfectly Well (except mine, because theyre good!), and you certainly cannot build a fun, meaningful, story-worthy life if you are never once willing to be a little chaotic. The chaos can be embarrassing; I get embarrassed by my mistakes all the time!

That makes me HUMAN — I’m not a cold, perfect, Barbie doll with all the boxes checked who never goes through anything, and you aren’t either. You hate the people who are, so why do you pedestalize them while punishing yourself for having growing pains?

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We talk constantly about how cringe it feels to post, to be perceived, to put ourselves online for strangers to clock every detail, but the cringe we actually run from is messing up in real life, getting it wrong in front of the right people, being bad at something new while everyone watches. I am laughing because, well, that’s the tax, the tuition, in fact, for taking off. And for having fun. And for a great story.

If you don’t take risks in your real life, you will not take them in your business, and if you won’t take them in your business, you will never grow into the authority you are actually meant to be. Authority is earned, and the only way to get your reps in is to go out and accumulate the experiences that give you something real to say. The worldview comes from the living. There’s no world where you get the standing without the stories.

Black Swans reminded me that I’d stopped being vulnerable for a while.

I let the grief that surfaced in LA talk me into staying controlled, staying legible, keeping every corner of my life tidy and on-strategy and safe to be looked at, away from getting hurt, and a controlled life is a limited life. I realize that it wasn’t about being able to explain every move to everybody; it was about being excited to make them, because they’re mine.

I never once got anywhere good by being too careful. I got here by wanting things out loud and being bold and impatient enough to ask for them, curious enough to ask the stranger about themselves, excited enough to spend time on my stupid little hobbies, and watch the seeds sprout.

So this is what I want for you this summer, and I want it badly!

Go collect substance. A LOT of people are boring these days because they want to be “put together.” I challenge you to collect Real stories, the kind you’ll still be telling in twenty years, and not the kind you take for Instagram dot com!

Go somewhere with no agenda, say yes to the person that makes no strategic sense, take the risk you’ve been filing under ‘not right now.’ Fall in love, or at least stay open enough that it could happen to you (hard!) Get vulnerable with someone who actually has the power to disappoint you (harder!) Be bad at something in public. Let it get a little chaotic on purpose, because how else will you know where to direct your intention?

And if you’ve already built something real and you’re ready to turn this experience into actual authority, to make Q3 the quarter you stop hiding behind the building and start being known for it, that is exactly what I made the Authority Edit for. It’s for the woman who has the traction and is ready to be positioned for what’s next. The next cohort is happening, and I would genuinely love to build alongside you.

You are too smart to spend the longest, brightest season of the year optimizing a life you keep forgetting to enjoy. Report back with a good story, please!

xx Alexis

Sent to you from the pool at the Villa I just arrived at in the south of France for Cannes Lions — if you’re around, come to my panel tomorrow! Steven Bartlett comes out right after me…but I think I’m more fun ;)

Hello stars,

Ever since I was a little girl, I just knew I wanted to dress cute and talk for a living.

“How’d you get so good at public speaking? Did you take a class or something?” Big eyes stared across the table — a 30-something executive at LinkedIn, with a sliiightly skeptical curiosity.

“Oh, well, I always say it’s just my God-given gift! I don’t know. I’m never nervous, it just kinda flows out of me.” My default answer. I fired it back and relaxed into my lawn chair outside the Waldorf Astoria Dana Point, where 300 of the company’s top product leaders had gathered to decide the future of the platform and its 1.3 billion users. I’d just stepped off stage from delivering creator-led insights about how to design the product for the future of work. Which obviously, I can predict perfectly.

As I was whisked off the stage to interview the CEO (????), the 17th person complimented my skills, (YES I lowkey felt like a celebrity… but remember, engineers are not known for their communication no shade!!!), and this guy was the 20th. Flattery, I thought, but then I actually sat with the question. How did I get so comfortable on stage — so comfortable I’ve bet on making it a main focus in my career?

“Well,” I sheepishly reflected live to the table, “I guess…I’ve done 200 podcast episodes, had to take speaking and pitching classes at Wharton, have made, like, thousands of videos—”

“You’ve done your 10,000 hours.”

Oh.

Crystal clear the second she said it, though completely invisible to me until then.

Maybe not TEN THOUSAND hours, but I’d successfully trekked up a mountain without realizing how far up I’d gotten.

For years I treated speaking like something I’d be allowed to do eventually. Once I had the credentials. Once I had a million followers (or maybe 10!) and made Forbes 30 Under 30, of course. Once someone Official tapped me on the shoulder and said, “okay, now you’re a speaker!”

This week’s episode is a live chat with you about how I stopped waiting for that tap. Listen on the Substack app if you have it or just press play on this post’s LIVE recording.

Desire = Destiny

Let me be honest about the wanting, because we’re very much trained to shrink it.

I shrugged off being a good speaker like it was nothing, never sitting with what it actually does for people. For something that comes so naturally to me, it’s almost comical that I couldn’t see it was a gift.

When I let myself believe I could be a big speaker — the real deal — that’s when the desire to actually dig in started to grow.

I didn’t want to “try out speaking.” I wanted to be a speaker. Real stages, paid like it. When I was a kid, I aspired to be a journalist like Oprah or Mary Jane Paul (lol) because sure, I’d get to talk all day, but also because I REALLY want people to appreciate my outfits! DAILY!

The single shift was saying that out loud instead of diminishing it as some random “God-given talent.” (Yeah, doing the Artist’s Way 3x helps with this!)

Because the way you talk about your work tells everyone exactly how seriously to take it.

If I walk in as “just an influencer trying out a panel,” people undercharge me and underestimate me and like, why wouldn’t they? But when I show up as an Expert Who’s Doing The Reps (200 episodes, 50-plus events, otw to the 10,000 hours), people fall in line.

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Building the Proof

First, I stopped waiting for stages altogether and built my own. I started running The Alignment Edit workshops for high-achieving women who are brilliant but can’t name their lane, which is where I saw the magic. I was moved — truly — by facilitating brilliant women who’d previously felt alone in their hunger as they soothed each other through the sacrifices we share in and emerged stronger.

I knew a) we needed to do more of them, bigger, longer, intimate but scaled and b) I had to dream bigger if I was going to keep preaching about it.

In addition to my own workshops, I did a lot of panels for free, but PLEASE notice I didn’t say yes to every stage, I said yes to the ones whose audiences were already aligned with mine. Clarity on your brand helps which rooms to walk into. I used to be Associated with brands that are simply not aligned, and now I’m careful about while I work on growing my skills and exposure.

Last month I spoke at Million Dollar Personal Brand on the same lineup as industry leaders Jaclyn Johnson and Jen Sincero, and the exposure was so meaningful I was glad to show up.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not ecstatic about how I’m consistently getting PAID for it, and no Agency or Official tap needed.

On Wednesday, I moderated a panel with Phia’s founder and Coach’s former CEO because I’d made it obvious this is what I do: on LinkedIn, on Substack, in every interview. Now I introduce myself as a speaker (in addition to Entrepreneur & Author). It’s allllwayyyysss funny how opportunities find the woman who just won’t shut up about what she wants.

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LinkedIn’s CEO interviewed me about my portfolio career. Not because I have the biggest audience in the world (though my Ambitious Material Girls are LOYAL) — but because I have a point of view you simply can’t get anywhere else. A sharp lane beats a big audience every single time!

Over fifty women have now trusted me to help build their personal brand without losing the credibility they worked so hard for. Now that there’s traction, I’m ready for more, and I know I‘m not the only one.

The method, since you’re going to ask: I didn’t pitch a single one of those rooms. I got loud and clear about what I wanted, built my own table, and then said yes to aligned opportunities — sometimes the lowball ones — and delivered every time like it was already my job. Next, I’m expanding my table!

Now, For You

If you’ve met me in real life, you know how IRRITATED I get when I meet a woman who isn’t aware of her full potential.

Whether you’re my high school best friend or the SUPER cute and talented sales associate I met at Alice + Olivia last weekend (shoutout kirstin for showing me those show-stopping capris) — I AM GOING TO YELL AT YOU TO BUILD YOUR BRAND!!!!!!! There’s so much money out there. Freedom. Opportunity! And, I’ve come to realize, real connection — the girls with the fire that no one around you can quite mirror — is possible, too!

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I’m baffled at the women with real credentials and a genuinely important skill set, sitting under-positioned and scattered online, waiting for a permission slip that is never, ever coming. And I now know how to fix it, mostly because I just did it for myself, in real time, in front of you (not for the first time, mind you, so you get to learn from my mistakes too).

For my girls who have some traction and are looking to turn this into a credible personal brand, I’m creating a small advisory to help you scale. Respond to this email with what you’re building for more information.

Anyway, you already have the authority.

You’re just still waiting for someone to hand it to you instead of architecting it yourself.

See ya next time! Inbox is open if this is something that resonated <3

Alexis

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Get more from Alexis Barber in the Substack app

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Things I’m disgusted by:

• men dancing on tables

• the color orange (sorry knicks/this excludes hermès)

• leftovers

• warm white wine

• slow walkers

• boring people

• and my own mediocrity.

This is just a start, of course. Visceral disgust — the kind that makes you shudder on the street, trying to physically fling the feeling off your body — has been following me around la…

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it’s officially been a year since i walked across the wharton stage, and i can honestly say i had no clue what life would look like today. LEGIT couldn’t think about anything past May 18 this time last year! and of course the question everyone loves to ask is:

was it worth it?

who knows? what’s for certain is that everything has changed: i never saw myself in a media-focused portfolio career, and neither did my Wharton friends and , both of whom are also building brands completely outside the path we were sold.

we technically went to b-school to learn how to build empires. a year out (two for Hannah!) none of us are doing it the way we were taught.

on Sunday, the three of us went live here on substack to talk about what it looks like now. over a hundred of you came (!!!!) and stayed the whole hour. THANK YOUUU! It was so fun. I’ll be going live again soon, so stay tuned!

a few things we got into:

• why you need to budget for double what you think you will spend

• the best moments and the worst moments (HONESTLY)

• whether entrepreneurship is actually useful in business school

• who should get an mba, and who absolutely shouldn’t

• the univesal flaw all MBA students have

we don’t actually get to the classes until about minute 51, which should tell you a lot about what we think matters from those two years.

consider every question you’ve sent me about wharton, the mba, the timing, the roi, answered in this one.

make sure you check out Simi’s incredible work with and follow her on Instagram and LinkedIn.

if you’re looking for tangible tips on navigating your nonlinear career, you’ll love Hannah’s and her content on Instagram and Linkedin.

my reflections right after graduation live here — interesting if you want to compare :)

a programming note before you go. this thursday, may 21st, i’m in brooklyn at jess williamson’s million dollar personal brand workshop, sitting on the empire builders panel at 1pm to talk about the marketing, sales, and socials behind seven-figure brands. if you’ve been thinking about how to actually turn a personal brand into a business, this is the room. ticket link is here. come find me after!

xx, alexis

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Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video with and ! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Get more from Alexis Barber in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

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The spring I moved to New York, a girl I may or may not still be friends with was blowing up my phone with a Partiful for a skincare brand’s launch party. But this one wasn’t squeezed into a 6 to 8pm slot at a Soho boutique like the rest of them. The company was already in Vogue, the party was at a nightclub, and the brand was 4AM Skin.

I didn’t go. At t…

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If it hasn’t become increasingly obvious over the past few years, let this be your reminder: You can buy spectacle, but you cannot buy substance.

So do you have any?

I’ve been pondering this for the better part of a few months, and have started to notice it everywhere I go. Not just in Lauren Sanchez’s mid Met Gala look and overall trashy au…

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Hello stars!

Last Thursday, I emceed the AI for Social Good Hackathon with HearstLab and Ruth.AI, expecting it to be a classic speaking engagement. I left rearranged, with the kind of bubbling, full-body urgency that shows up when you realize you’ve been falling behind on something that’s bigger than you thought.

Some noticings:

• In eight hours, a team of young women built a full database to help people actually participate in local politics. It scraped government websites, let users track bills, find polling centers, and show up for the civic stuff most of us have quietly written off as too annoying to bother with. Everything that usually makes civic participation impossible (the logistics, the information buried on terrible government websites, the sheer friction of it) they dismantled. In eight hours.

• Another woman built an AI-powered platform to help people with ADHD run their daily lives. Hello! Real solutions to real problems, focused on helping our communities. Useful. Fundable. Built by women, in a single day, with tools that are already accessible to all of us.

• On the hackathon: of the 100+ women in the room, there wasn’t a single Black woman on a hackathon team, and there were fewer than three in the audience.

AI’s sheer power is dumbfounding, sure. But watching it be used for GOOD in real time is what put a battery in my back: our world is fundamentally shifting, and it is not waiting for us to feel ready.

The wealth transfer nobody’s warning you about

There is a wealth transfer taking place right now, and it looks nothing like the Boomer/millennial one you’ve heard about. This one is technological, and the stakes for women, specifically for Black women, are genuinely alarming.

McKinsey ran the numbers: by 2045, the racially disparate distribution of new wealth created by AI could widen the wealth gap between Black and White households by $43 billion annually.

Makes me SICK to my stomach to think about!!! We know why that number exists: access and fluency with new technology always follow existing power. The people closest to the tools accumulate the advantage. Everyone else watches it happen until it’s too late.

And right now, women are watching it happen.

The numbers back this up. Women make up less than a third of AI professionals and only 18% of AI researchers globally. In the same job, women are 16 percentage points less likely than men to even use the tools. And here is the part that should make you furious: when women do push past the initial hesitation, they frequently outperform their male counterparts. The barrier was always access, training, and the confidence to start.

AI is set to bring an estimated $70B in wealth to the US in the next 20 years. That’s a HUGE opportunity for women and people of color to actually close our wealth gap…nothing to be scoffed at!

I understand why!!! I was in the same place: to AI or not to AI. The concerns are legitimate: what this means for jobs, for creativity, intelligence, for the communities we care about. I get the hesitation around something that feels like it was built by and for a very specific kind of person, in a very specific kind of room, with a very specific agenda.

The wake up call for me was that if men run this, massive power gets concentrated in rooms that have historically excluded us and have no intention to reduce bias against us, potentially destroying our society in ways we don’t really fathom at this point.

The women I watched build at that hackathon understood that. They didn’t wait until they felt fluent or until it felt safe or fully vetted or ideologically clean. They got in the room and built something that could change people’s lives.

I say this with so much love, and I say it because I am challenging myself to look at this, too: we have to stop getting caught up. The discourse, the debates, the moral purity olympics around who is allowed to use what tool and when. We can care deeply about the ethics and still build our wealth. We can hold real concerns and still show up to learn. We have to. Because the alternative is watching another generation of tools, platforms, and industries get built without us and then wondering, again, why the gap got wider.

What I was actually afraid of

The environmental critique was the respectable version of my fear. But for a few years there, I was just repeating what I’d heard other people say, not really researching AI for myself.

The real fear was scrutiny. Being the Black woman on the internet who publicly endorsed a technology that some people are going to look back very unfavorably. Ending up on the wrong side of an argument I hadn’t fully worked out yet. I still consider myself a novice, I feel behind every day, but I can see the economics of the situation and that’s enough to get me to take a second look.

Here’s what I worked through:

1. The environmental concern is real, and it is more complicated than that

I read a piece in Undark that reframed this entirely for me. The water and energy footprint of AI data centers is real and it varies wildly by location, technology, and season. In water-stressed areas, a single facility can strain an entire region’s supply. That deserves anger, and the lack of transparency from tech companies about their actual consumption is a legitimate scandal.

And then there’s context. A single burger takes more than 400 gallons of water to produce. A cotton T-shirt takes more than 700. The country’s 16,000 golf courses each use between 100,000 and 2 million gallons of water per day. Nobody interrogates those daily decisions with the same intensity.

But here’s what the article nailed: “A societal mass value judgement on AI is, fairly or unfairly, playing out in real time in the uproar around data centers. Part of the visceral environmental shame that folks like Masley feel from others about their AI use is probably less about the specific water footprint of a ChatGPT search than about the acceptance of a culture where AI is woven into everyday life, regardless of its environmental impact.”

AI deserves scrutiny. It is not going to be solved by the women who opted out. And practically speaking, it is here. The “should this exist” debate is closed. We are in the “who builds it, who profits, and who pays” phase now, and those questions are answered by the people in the room.

2. The threats to art, creativity, and politics are the actual thing I’m scared of.

This amazing carousel from Steph The Founder directs us to recent research about the real concerns of AI and how it is primed to do massive damage to our society. Creative jobs disappearing. Election manipulation. Deepfakes of real women. The hollowing out of entire industries that generations of women fought their way into. I am not rolling my eyes at any of it.

What I am saying is that every single one of those threats gets worse if the women who care about ethics, art, culture, politics, and the next generation of girls are not fluent enough to see the damage coming, call it out with precision, or build the alternative.

“I refuse to engage” is not a protective stance. It is a quiet one. And quiet has never saved any of us!

3. Scrutiny is the point. You cannot scrutinize what you do not understand.

The most useful critics of AI right now are the people who use it every day. They’ve seen what it can and cannot do. They know where the teeth are. The vague, outside-in criticism is losing to the specific, hands-on building, because you cannot meaningfully push back on a system you’ve never actually touched. If we want the critique to land, the critique has to come from women who’ve been inside the thing.

I get it. I also don’t know everything, and maybe this will blow up the world, but we can’t change that it’s here, so the smart thing to do is to learn how to engage with discernment and critical thinking!

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I was you.

For two years I was “using AI” the same way most people are. Copy-pasting into ChatGPT, getting things maybe 20% faster, feeling vaguely ahead of the curve.

I was NOT ahead of the curve! I was dabbling. And dabbling is a sophisticated way of procrastinating!

About two months ago, I got sick of pushing this off and set a timer for 90 minutes to dive into Claude.

Since, my productivity and therefore impact have grown tremendously. What actually changed for me was building a real system around how my brain actually works instead of how I keep pretending it should: my ADHD, my creative energy patterns, my very specific and complicated business. Once the scaffolding was there, the part of my brain I actually want to be using (the creative, visionary, strategic part) finally had time to…think!

The shame spiral of not being able to perform got quieter, and my scattered, frantic energy has begun to subside.

That’s what’s available to you, and it starts with one 90-minute session!

Here is what I know. All of this is scary and confusing and I am not pretending otherwise. But I watched women at that hackathon build things that could genuinely change people’s lives, in a single day, and I cannot unsee that. AI can be used for good. If we let ourselves believe that, even cautiously, even with one eye on the risks, think about what we could actually do with it. So I am choosing to focus. Here is how I am doing that in my own life.

You don’t need to become an AI expert. You don’t need to build an app or learn to vibe code. You need to get familiar. Try something real. Stop waiting until it feels perfectly safe to engage with the thing that is already shaping your world whether you engage with it or not.

Ninety intentional minutes beats three years of passive skepticism. Every single time.

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What’s coming this month

AI April is a three-part series for paid subscribers of TSFT. Here’s exactly what we’re covering:

This week (paid): The setup. How to audit your workflow, and the three things to take off your plate first.

Week 2: How I run my entire content business with Claude. The real system, the actual tools, what it replaced, and what it didn’t.

Week 3: Using AI to build and protect your personal brand. The frameworks I use to stay on voice, on brand, and on track without outsourcing my brain.

The machine is already here. The question is whether you’re going to understand it, or be understood by it.

I’ll see you on the other side!

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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Hello stars!!! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

It feels like just yesterday we were bracing for winter, and now New York teases us by drawing out Fool’s Spring every day... I’m dreaming about putting my Superpuffs in storage, but I don’t want to jinx any sunny days!

The seasons are changing. Now, as an eldest d…

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Is anyone else having the craziest month?? I know mercury was retrograde (or “in microbraids,” as my friends say) but it’s just been… wild.

The best kind of crazy, though! I’ve spoken at Airbnb and SERHANT, interviewed two major CEOs, been on two other podcasts — opportunities have been coming in, the foundation I’m building is actually st…

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When I first came up with the identity around this show — the ambitious material girl — she was largely fictional. She was the woman I consumed on screen and in the pages of every book I could get my hands on. Olivia Pope running the country, armed with a Prada tote and white coat. The women of Sex and the City who treated New York City like their personal playground and their careers like their greatest love stories. Women with this specific combination of taste, intellect, drive, and unapologetic desire for a beautiful life. I was constructing an archetype from imagination because I hadn’t met enough of her in real life yet.

Over time, I started to recognize her spark in the wild. She never looks like her problems. She’s serious about her work and silly with her friends. She’s always drawn to the most expensive thing in the room — but swears by some hyper-niche $3 hack to stay chic. She knows meaning comes from the life she builds, not just the man she dates.

I’ve interviewed a lot of remarkable women on this show. And every now and then, I sit across from someone and feel that spark — that unmistakable quality that tells me: she is one of us. But I have never, in all the years I’ve been building this show, sat across from someone who is the full, final, completely realized version of everything the ambitious material girl was always reaching toward.

I had the extraordinary privilege of interviewing Pauline Brown at her home last month. And yes — it is exactly what you would expect from a woman who has spent her career studying and practicing taste as a discipline. Beauty, life, intention in every corner (her pink Smeg collection was a material girl giveaway!)

Ambitious barely does her justice. Few people in business—men or women—have a résumé like hers: former Chairman of LVMH North America, partner at The Carlyle Group, senior executive at Estée Lauder where she worked on the acquisitions of brands like Jo Malone and Bobbi Brown, earlier leadership roles at Bain & Company, and a graduate of Wharton. Today, Pauline leads Aesthetic Intelligence, hosts the show Aesthetic Intelligence on SiriusXM, and advises some of the world’s most influential companies and founders.

Sitting across from her didn’t feel as stuffy or intimidating as you’d expect when talking to a billion-dollar leader: she was forthcoming, generous, funny, and most of all, centered. A first-generation American raised by strong women with flair, she developed an appreciation for beauty and growth early on. She didn’t decode other people’s standards. She decided her own. And as she says in this episode: “The only thing I can do better than anyone else is be myself.”

Pauline and I both went to Wharton — thirty years apart. And sitting across from her, I kept thinking: this is what it looks like when an ambitious material girl builds it all the way out. No gatekeeping, no vagueness, no performing. Just razor-sharp intelligence and a genuine desire to hand over everything she knows so you can take it somewhere.

Here is what we cover:

— What it was actually like to be an ambitious woman at Wharton in the 90s (chaotic)

— The 100 cards exercise she used 30 years ago to get ruthlessly clear on her non-negotiables

— Why she walked away from millions in private equity to work entirely on her own terms

— Her honest takes on the brands getting taste right right now, including The Row, Jacquemus, and why Rhode is her current favorite beauty brand

— What she believes every ambitious woman needs to understand about aesthetics before AI makes it non-negotiable

You’ll be smarter if you follow Pauline’s work, so check out her riveting Substack here and pick up her book Aesthetic Intelligence if you want to cultivate your relationship with your own taste and values!

One of my favorite things about this community is that you love to learn.

Getting to sit with someone like Pauline, who has actually built a magical, impactful life and is genuinely willing to pass the map back? That is a treat. And she gives us so much in these 90 minutes, though it feels like we’ve barely scratched the surface!

The ambitious material girl finds the women who already built what she’s dreaming about — and she listens. This is the kind of conversation I want to keep having. Consider this the first installment!

And speaking of conversations worth showing up for — if this episode lit something up in you, I want you at The Alignment Edit on March 22nd. We are spending the day doing exactly what Pauline would approve of: getting ruthlessly clear on your Q2 goals and what it actually looks like to spring forward in your career with intention. No vague vision boarding. Past attendees said:

• “From the moment I arrived, the room was filled with diverse, high-vibration women who were open, welcoming, and deeply present. I found myself wishing we had more time together—I would have loved to connect more deeply with each of them. We all felt it. We wanted more: more joy, more fulfillment, more life. My heart left this experience feeling full”

• “This was a group of amazing ambitious women and it was such an inspiration to hear what everyone was doing and how we were able to be vulnerable but also realize that we were not alone in our experiences. I hope Alexis realizes what she did today. She made an impact and I can't wait to see where this goes!”

Grab your spot here — I would love to see you there.

With love,

Alexis 🖤

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🎧 Listen to the episode here → YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Hey superstars,

It’s no secret I live a charmed life. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Do I crash out weekly on Tuesdays around 3:30 pm? Yes. But I’m starting to look around and notice that things are actually different — and mostly that’s because I got fed up.

In December, I finished The Artist’s Way and made a decision: 27 was going to be the best year of my life. January was about starting fresh — relaunching the podcast, new business initiatives, new energy.

February was about being shown every single gap. Every place I’d been coasting, every area where I’d been waiting for something outside of me to change first.

Through my office hours, coaching, and 1:1 consults, I noticed how blatantly many of us are using the phrase “if only…” If only I had the right camera, I’d start; If only I had more money, I’d feel okay; If only I had a partner….etc. It’s easy to recognize the assumptions that hold others back, but to do so for ourselves? Excruciating.

For a long time, I’d also been outsourcing my energy — to circumstances, to timing, to the idea that the right version of me would just show up one day fully formed and ready. I kept telling myself I needed more time, more resources, more certainty. February made it clear that I’d been holding more power than I realized, and I’d just been leaving it on the table. Ew. Stops now.

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⭐️ LEXICON: February 2026 ⭐️

A roundup of the month’s loves and learnings (get it, lexicon, aLEXIs?)

I got fed up and started moving before I was ready.

I kicked off the month with the first Alignment Edit IRL, and almost cried in the middle of the workshop because I felt the weight of cultivating connection between women who are often alienated for being “too much.” When the only feedback was that it should be longer, I beamed and felt like I could see a future vision for the work beyond the spreadsheets and Canva files that make up my day-to-day. It was a time of mental expansion. I wanted to crawl out of my old identity and mesh with this confident version of myself that helps women see their power. Makes me mushy!

It started with my space: I forced myself to finally upgrade the grad school furniture in my apartment and bit the bullet on a new rug, coffee table, bed and couch (!), resulting in a very pleasing new feeling. It’s really starting to look like the home of a fun fab NYC 20-something, and to feel like my truest center in this world. It’s really my little safe haven <3 AND WE HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO DO. Need new dishes, bedding, art, accessories, backsplash, oh MY! Stay tuned. And send recs.

Next, I forced myself to show up strong in my relationships. I went to so many girls’ dinners and coffee dates with women I genuinely admire and let myself be in the room instead of my default just grateful to be invited (habits of a lonely pre-teen at boarding school die hard). I forced myself to be the woman I’d been waiting to just magically become — and when old flings surfaced and work drama tried to pull me back into old patterns, I stood ON BUSINESS. I refused to freak out, didn’t shame myself for having emotions, and believed in myself anyway. Constraints came up. I kept going, but without the frantic energy that’s been in the background my whole life.

I also had to reckon with something I’d been outsourcing for too long — my own authority in my work. I’ve spent years hiding behind being “so young” and “not knowing enough yet.” February made it clear: I’m an authority in my space. It’s time to act like it.

There’s still a lot to learn about being me, being in business, and making things work. It’s hard, honestly. But something shifted in February that I don’t think is going back.

who what when where why how

where I ate: had my first ramen ever and it was a 10/10. Sukh Thai in Fort Greene is my new takeout go-to (12.5/10, I don’t make the rules). Sartiano’s saw me a few times for a pre-date cocktail and girls dinner. Crosby Bar for drinks AND tea — reliable every time. Entre Nous, where I’m pretty sure the waiter and I had a vibe (unless he does that with everybody? Report back.) Bagel World on my hungover days ( 2 this month), always get the hungry man.

what I worked on: brand deals with NatureMade and Adobe x Girl Scouts (c’mon…how cute???) and getting the podcast kinks worked out with my team — promotion, guests, all of it.

Finished my first personal branding group coaching cohort, and opening another one this month. Onboarded some new 1:1 clients that I’m obsessed with. The business is becoming real in a way that requires me to show up differently — with way more systems that I’m enjoying building. [if you wanna work w me, reply to this or view my offers here]

what I wore: fleece tights and compression socks daily because it was four degrees outside and I refuse to suffer unnecessarily. Animal print. Navy and black, a lot. Blue French nails. Slick backs. My new Jimmy Fairly glasses. Levi’s 501 90s Love jeans that I got on sale.

material girl moment: feb holy grails included Summer Fridays lip pencils & stains; and the Rhode Barrier Butter that kept my skin moisturized and breakout-free this cycle. miss bieber is really doing somethingggggg over there!

on rotation: Don Toliver, obsessively. Been certified my whole life, come check my registration.

wellness: went to acupuncture at WTHN weekly!!! Got back on my workout grind towards the end of the month with Form. Had an underlying sickness the whole month (NYC winter, as mentioned), and drank a lot of bone broth to survive. Decided to cut out gluten, which I remembered halfway through a Belgian waffle at Clark’s this past Sunday.

what I read: Psychocybernetics (recommended by our last TWO TSFT guests) and Aesthetic Intelligence — both extremely relevant to where my head is right now. Taste is more important than ever & also we have control over our thoughts. PLEASE!

what I was learning: Sigh, so like… AI is a major MAJOR conversation I’m having with all my smart friends IRL and I’m done sleeping on it publicly to avoid pushback. Whether you agree with it or not, it’s here, and if women don’t get on this wave, we will miss out on a lot of wealth, opportunity, and a lot of policy formation.

I posted one video about setting up Claude and apparently I’m an AI influencer now, which was not the plan but I’m not arguing with it (or the 5,000 followers that I gained). More seriously though: I had dinner with a friend who survived layoffs at a very profitable, very popular company, and we sat there and accepted the truth — the era of solopreneurship fueled by AI is here and it’s not going anywhere.

I decided to stop being curious about it from a distance and actually get familiar. I’ve been using Claude and it’s been kind of amazing. More on this soon because I have thoughts. For now, some resources I’ve been loving here.

this month on too smart for this:

March’s theme is POWER.

This week I kicked things off with the places you’re giving your power away without realizing it. It’s one of those episodes that will make you want to immediately audit your entire life. Go listen!!!

Monday, we have the incredibly brilliant Pauline Brown — author, professor, former Chairwoman of LVMH North America — and the conversation is everything I hoped it would be and more.

And after that... a very special haircare CEO is joining us. Can you guess who? 👀

before you go —

The Alignment Edit is BACK on March 22nd, and tickets are live. Book before Sunday and it’s $60 — that’s 20% off. It’s a live in-person experience for the woman who’s done feeling like she’s doing everything and still somehow off. You’ll leave changed!

Grab your ticket here →

Love ya.

xx

Alexis

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⭐️ Hello STARS! ⭐️

There is something both serendipitous and deeply unsettling about the fact that you genuinely never know how your life is going to change.

The random introduction that led to meeting your best friend. The DM you didn’t send that cost you an investment opportunity. The run-in at Trader Joe’s that turned into a new job, a new city, a new chapter.

And if you’re a smart girl (which… you are), that lack of certainty can be magical, sure, but it’s also mildly offensive to our egos.

We like formulas! We like to believe that if we do X, we will receive Y! If we work harder, organize better, become so good we’re everywhere — the outcome must follow!

So we overwork. We refine. We perfect. We aim to be exceptional enough that opportunity has no choice but to find us, because being undeniable feels safer than being visible.

Smart women often put networking on the back burner because visibility requires us to be…exposed. It means people can see what you want. It means you might not get it. It means you have to take responsibility for being seen.

But if I’ve learned anything in business, it’s that it’s rarely about how much good work you do in isolation. It’s about who knows your name.

I sat down with Phoebe Dodds, who is not a corporate “networking expert” in a navy sheath dress telling you to memorize an elevator pitch, but rather a hilarious, interesting, curious AMG who has worked for herself for over seven years, lived all over the world building her freelance career, and intentionally designed a life she actually controls.

Like….she’s bopped between Paris. Berlin. Amsterdam. Sydney. Now, New York! Freelance contract work in different countries! Consulting clients like Apple and Airbnb! Complete agency over her life!

And she argues that her opportunities have all been built through people.

The way Phoebe approaches networking won’t make you sigh with overwhelm and reluctantly open LinkedIn. She’s so bullish on networking because it’s actually the laziest, lowest lift way to build your dream life: It’s about integrating connection into your actual life, making it a habit instead of a hustle: Checking in. Following up. Introducing friends. Staying in conversation.

She breaks down exactly how she does it — what to say, how to reach out, how to deepen the relationships you already have — and she shares the most intelligent jealousy reframe that made me pause mid-recording like… oh. Oh that’s good.

If life is inherently unpredictable (and it is), the smartest move isn’t to overwork yourself into exhaustion trying to control every variable. It’s to put yourself in circulation.

You never know which message changes everything.

You never know who mentions your name in a room you’re not in.

You never know which small act of visibility becomes a pivot point.

Phoebe talks about how two intentional messages a week becomes 100 new connections in a year.

One hundred people who know what you care about. One hundred possible inflection points.

You cannot control exactly how your life will change, but you can make sure you’re visible when it does.

Social Currency

The 100 Connections Challenge: how to change your life in 2026

Ever feel like you’re mooching through life, doing okay and feeling pretty fine, but not thriving? You’re likely languishing. Popularised by Adam Grant in The New York Times in 2021, the term refers to “a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield.” For me, this fe…

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9 months ago · 1430 likes · 88 comments · Phoebe Dodds

✏️ Your homework from this episode (it’ll take 10 minutes, max):

• Open your notes app. Write down 3 goals for the next 1-2 years. Under each one, list every person — even loosely — who might help you get there. You have no idea who people know.

Before you start DMing, here are the three mistakes Phoebe says people make:

• Reaching out to the most senior person possible. Don’t. Cool people doing cool things now will be doing more interesting things in 5 years — start there. (P.S. — from our last episode, don’t reach out to anyone until you’re at least 70-80% of the way to where they are.)

• Reaching out with nothing to offer. You don’t need a lot, but you need genuine curiosity and a clear reason why them, specifically.

• Being vague. “Pick your brain” is a no. “15 minutes at a time that works for you” is a yes.

Plus, she gave us some conversation starters that actually work: How do you know the host? How did you find out about this event? What are you working on right now? Low lift. Impossible to say no to. Go.

You can have it all, angels. Just not all at the same time — and definitely not alone.

Enjoy the episode, and find Phoebe here: Substack | Instagram | LinkedIn. She’s simply a JOY!

All my love, Alexis 🖤

Alexis Barber is the host of the Too Smart For This podcast, author of Too Smart For This (Tarcher), and a Brooklyn-based lifestyle creator who writes for ambitious material girls who care about business, wellness, culture, and building real personal power. A former YouTube strategist and Wharton MBA, she uses strategic intelligence to help smart women build intentional lives and magnetic, profitable personal brands through content, consulting, and community. Subscribe to support her work, purchase the journal, follow along on socials, or inquire about brand strategy at hello@alexisbarber.com.

🎧 Listen to the episode here → YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Happy belated Valentine’s Day, my perfect, fabulous friends!!!! 💌

If you love this holiday, amazing. If you hate it, also valid. Either way, February has a way of turning the volume up on everything: who you’re dating, who you’re not dating, what you’re tolerating, and what you’re pretending doesn’t bother you.

Today’s episode is a dating reset for smart, successful women — with my first returning guest ever, Jodie Taylor. And let me say this clearly: Jodie is an expander in my life. We’re both Northwestern girls (go ’Cats), we both know what it’s like to be the creative one in a room full of Very Serious Professionals™, and watching her scale her career and her platform with confidence has been such a “wait… I can do this too” mirror for me.

Now yes, we talk about dating (because it’s Valentine’s season and I’m not going to pretend we don’t all have thoughts). But — it’s not just all about boys, obviously, ladies. Jodie has so much more to her, and we get into the bigger picture of power, friendships, and building a life that can actually hold you.

Here are the lines that snapped my brain back into place:

• You can’t date a man in his loser era. Not because we’re mean — because partnership requires capacity. He should view you as a winner and you should view him as a winner.

• Watch out for “resume daters.” Men who love the optics of you (where you went, what you do) but can’t hold space for the actual you — the career, the drive, the schedule, the standards.

• Boundaries are a love-bomber repellent. If you can calmly say, “That made me feel ___ — was that your intention? Moving forward I’d prefer ___,” you learn everything you need to know by how they respond.

But we also talked about something just as important: your relationships with women. Specifically, you cannot build a big life while keeping people around you who are quietly rooting against you. We talked about why you can’t be friends with anyone who is jealous of you, how success reveals who actually has the capacity to love you out loud, and how to be discerning without becoming paranoid.

One of the reasons I admire Jodie so much is that she’s built an incredible network of women in her professional life — mentors, sponsors, peers, real friends — and she’s intentional about it. Not in a fake “networking event” way, but in a sophisticated, “I create proximity, I show up with value, I invest in relationships that invest back” way. It’s a masterclass in building a supportive ecosystem instead of trying to do everything alone.

If you’re dating right now, let this episode be your permission slip to raise the bar without getting bitter or closed off.

🎧 Listen to the episode here → YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify

And reply and tell me: what’s your one relationship non-negotiable this year — in dating or in friendship?

If you want to keep up with Jodie, her Substack is a wealth of knowledge, and you can stalk her amazing content on @jodiektayl (IG) & @jodiektay (TikTok).

Hope you are feeling some love this weekend <3

xx

Alexis

P.S. If you’re in NYC and you want to take your life offline for a real reset, tickets for The Alignment Edit are linked here. I can’t wait to meet you!

Alexis Barber is the host of the Too Smart For This podcast, author of Too Smart For This (Tarcher), and a Brooklyn-based lifestyle creator who writes for ambitious material girls who care about business, wellness, culture, and building real personal power. A former YouTube strategist and Wharton MBA, she uses strategic intelligence to help smart women build intentional lives and magnetic, profitable personal brands through content, consulting, and community. Subscribe to support her work, purchase the journal, follow along on socials, or inquire about brand strategy at hello@alexisbarber.com.

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⭐️ HELLO STARS ⭐️

I’m over six years into my windy career now, and I still think about a moment from my first day at Google. My manager asked me a question that should’ve been easy:

“So, what do you want out of this?”

What do you mean what do I want??? I’ve spent my entire life preparing to get HERE. This is the dream job. I assumed YOU would hand me the roadmap, the five-year plan, and the next promotion timeline?? I’m just grateful to be in the room!!!

And that is the trap.

Women are taught to be “happy to be here.” But in today’s job market, that passive mindset will get you left behind. I learned very quickly that I had to step into the driver’s seat, so I got clear on my career vision, through role pivots, career plot twists, and a lot of very lucky-but-not-accidental moments, here we are!

Thank GOD that question got me together, because the truth is that following my own vision is the only reason I now have a career I fully control.

And the more rooms I’ve been in — Google, Northwestern, Wharton — the clearer it’s become: the people with the most enviable careers aren’t the ones who followed the rules perfectly. They’re the ones who stayed true to their vision.

Which brings me to the staggering part.

I was invited to LinkedIn’s career fair last week, and I share the data in this episode because…we are very clearly not playing the same career game we were even a year ago.

The market is shifting fast, and ambitious women can’t afford to respond by trying to be perfect. We have to respond by getting strategic and taking action.

In todays episode, we cover the two keys to surviving and thriving this chaotic moment in career history: becoming HIGH AGENCY and strong PERSONAL BRANDING.

In the second half of this episode, I’m joined by Julia Cabral (Senior Director of Product Marketing at LinkedIn & a fabulous LinkedIn creator) — a corporate girl who transitioned from finance → marketing — and she gives the most helpful, low-pressure ideas for building a personal brand on LinkedIn (even if you do not consider yourself “a creator”).

🎧 Listen to the episode here → YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify

⭐️Join Ambitious Material Girl World⭐️

⭐️Your 7-Day High Agency Career Roadmap⭐️

You’re a grown woman, so let’s make a grown woman roadmap to cultivate the career of your dreams. Here’s the plan…

Day 1: Name what you actually want (30 min)

Write 10 sentences starting with:

“If I could design my career like a lifestyle, it would feel like…”

(energy, pace, environment, autonomy, money, meaning)

Day 2: Audit your real skills (20 min)

List:

• 5 things people always come to you for

• 5 things you do better than most

• 3 things that feel weirdly effortless

Circle the ones that create results (not just traits).

Day 3: Pick ONE skill to build this quarter (15 min)

Not “fix everything.” One skill that creates leverage.

Day 4: Build a proof artifact (45 min)

Proof > potential. You need to demonstrate that you create value for the people that you work with and for. Create one:

• mini case study

• side project

• before/after

• “here’s what I tried + what happened”

Day 5: LinkedIn glow-up (30 min)

Make your profile your digital front door:

• verify your profile

• add skills + (where possible) verification

• update your Experience section to show impact

Day 6: Upskilling plan

First, pick 4 skills you want to improve on this year and dedicate 1 quarter to learning more about them. (Mine are: AI, Selling, Public Speaking, and People Management.) You can research some courses on LinkedIn Learning and schedule some time to commit to them.

If a course is too overwhelming, to easily get started, pick one book that teaches the skill you’re interested in and commit to finishing it in 7 days. Some ideas:

• one book on selling better

• or communication

• or negotiation / leadership

A single audiobook in a week is a major upgrade and will signal to you that you’re ready to start learning more.

Day 7: Share one thing (10 min)

Post one small nugget on LinkedIn:

• something you learned this week

• something you’d tell your past self (Julia gives great prompts at the 30 min mark of the episode!)

• a perspective shift from this week

It’s not about going viral. It’s about owning your narrative!

Journal prompts to make this personal

1. When do I feel most energized at work, and what am I doing in those moments?

2. What drains me weekly that I’ve been treating like “normal”?

3. What am I currently measuring that’s the wrong metric for my real value?

4. What skill would make me feel 20% more powerful in my career right now?

5. What does “agency” look like in my actual life (not in theory)?

6. If I stopped trying to look perfect, what would I build instead?

If you do all of these and post on LinkedIn, I’ll connect with you and repost. Just DM me on LinkedIn here!!

Remember, you’re too smart to not love yourself.

xo,

Alexis

Get tickets to the Alignment Edit on 2/22.

⭐️ HELLO ANGELS! ⭐️

This week’s Alignment Edit is about your look — and yes, as a proud material girl and recovering shopaholic, I promise this isn’t just me enabling you (well…not entirely). It’s about the mental energy we lose every day when getting dressed feels harder than it should, when we don’t quite feel like ourselves, or when we quietly opt out because we haven’t figured out what actually works. This episode is about closing that gap so you can feel fabulous in your own skin faster, with less effort! I hope you love it.

FOMO Warning: Recap of the VERY FIRST Alignment Edit Workshop 🖤

WOW. OK. Taking the Alignment Edit offline and into real life was even more magical than I could have imagined.

A stunning and diverse group of women came together in the cutest studio — a mother–daughter duo, recent college grads, law students, women at totally different stages of life — all instantly bonded by this shared, slightly unhinged ambition that runs through us. Thoughtful conversations, big dreams spoken out loud, and that rare feeling of being deeply understood without having to explain yourself.

I’ll be honest — there was a moment during preparation where I questioned everything. We put so much work into planning it, had to reschedule due to the snowstorm, and I definitely had that “am I doing too much?” spiral.

But seeing women walk into the room, soften, open up, and feel genuinely empowered and connected in their ambition lit a spark in me like nothing else. Since I spend most of my time staring at a screen solo, to actually be with you, talk, laugh, and hang in real life was the best feeling in the world <3

If you’re unfamiliar, here’s what we actually do: 20-30 ambitious material girls gather for a 90-minute guided workshop focused on reflection, clarity, and goal-setting — and then we slow things down with wine, vision boards, and space to connect.

We’re doing it again on 2/22 (yes, the angel numbers are very intentional). If this kind of space has been calling to you — keep scrolling to see what a few of the women who came had to say… and I really hope you’ll join us next time 🖤

And of course, a huge thank you to the brands who helped make this first Alignment Edit so special. We’re so grateful to FiveTwoNine, Airbnb, e.l.f. Cosmetics, IAM8, and Brick for supporting this experience and believing in creating beautiful, intentional spaces for ambitious women to come together. Truly couldn’t have done it without you 🖤

Get tickets to the Alignment Edit on 2/22.

xx

Alexis

Alexis Barber is a lifestyle creator and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. She’s the author of Too Smart For This, a guided journal for ambitious women. Support her work by following along on socials, subscribing, purchasing the book here, or reaching out for consulting on the creator economy and consumer brands at hello@alexisbarber.com.

As a reluctantly grown woman, I’ve come to accept a simple truth: there’s a tax on every privilege.

And if you’re smart, charismatic, hyper-competent? Sorry, sister, you might be cursed!

(If you’re gorgeous and well-dressed, too, I’m praying for you. Empathetic, even? Oh honey. The tears you’v…

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I heard James Clear say something on Emma Grede’s podcast this week that made me actually laugh out loud. While freezing my face off on a walk in Brooklyn Heights, I heard him explain:

“Every habit has an environment. There are no habits without environments. Therefore, curating yours is the most important thing you can do.”

Or something along those lines, I’m recalling from memory, OK?? Either way, it got me: THAT’S WHY I CARE SO MUCH ABOUT MY SPACE! Lmao. Of course! Every habit I want is within a container, and I actually tend to…control that container?

I take my environment so seriously. It’s kinda ADHD, and kinda that Beholderism (aesthetics) is one of my most important values.

Because of my brain’s unique inability to be productive amongst ugliness or disorder, I have learned a few tips on how to feel in control of my space, and in turn, my life, which I’m sharing in this week’s Alignment Edit. The thesis is simple: as within, so without.

If your space is cluttered, loud, chaotic, unfinished, or built for an older version of you — no amount of discipline or even vision is going to save you. Your environment is training you every day: how focused you are, what you tolerate, how calm you feel, and how much energy you actually have access to.

This doesn’t mean I can’t get DOWNNNN in an uninspiring environment — QUITE the contrary. But the point is…you don’t have to. You can have a home that makes you feel safe and supported JUST by switching one or two little things. AND YOU DESERVE IT!

This episode is about redesigning your space to support you — subtly, effortlessly, without turning it into a whole “project.” NOT meant to be a DIY overhaul, but moreso quiet upgrades that change how your days feel.

If these ideas hit for you, I’d love for you to listen to the episode and share it with a friend who’s been feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or like life is harder than it needs to be…we all deserve some inspo!

And if you want to take this work offline and do it together, this is exactly what we explore inside The Alignment Edit workshops — slowing down, looking honestly at what’s supporting you (and what isn’t), and making intentional edits across your life. If you’re in Brooklyn on 2/1 or 2/22, join ambitious material girl world and let’s have some fun! Sign Up Here

If you want to play with this after listening, here are the full prompts I use when I’m doing a Space Alignment Edit. Save them. Come back when you’re in the mood!

🏠 The Space Alignment Edit: Reflections

1. Where in my day am I settling for something that mildly stresses me out?

2. What have I decided is “fine,” even though it quietly drains me?

3. Is there a cabinet, drawer, bag, etc I reach for every day that annoys me?

4. What part of my environment have I normalized that I wouldn’t choose again?

5. Where am I relying on willpower instead of design?

6. What feels harder than it should in my daily routines?

7. If someone I admired walked into my space, what would I suddenly notice?

8. If I had an extra $100, what would I upgrade immediately — and how would it make my life feel smoother?

9. If I had an extra $1,000, what would I invest in to make my space feel more supportive?

10. If my environment fully supported the woman I’m becoming, what would look different?

✨ Little things I swear by

Because I always get asked — I’ve linked my favorite closet upgrades, hangers, drawer organizers, steamers, herb sachets that make everything smell good, plus my go-to kitchen and bathroom basics. All saved on my ShopMy so you don’t have to think about it right now.

Remember, you don’t need a perfect space. You just need one that works with your rhythms, that you give all the gratitude you can right now on your way to the one that supports you the most.

Once your environment is aligned, so much gets easier! I can’t wait for you all to feel more empowered at home after this episode.

With love,

Alexis 🖤

Thank you for the casual Sunday chit chat — this was honestly such a nice way to ease into the week together. Whether you were actively chatting or just listening while doing your thing, I loved the energy and I’m officially obsessed with doing more lives like this!

We talked a lot about intentionally planning the week — not in a hustle-y way, but in a “how do I want my life to actually feel?” way.

Some things we covered

• Planning the week without anxiety driving the bus

• Dating as an ambitious woman

• Closing mental loops before opening new ones

• Thinking about energy > time (because calendars lie) when you’re planning the week

• Your energetic minimums/maximums

• How to get up early/on time when it’s legit FREEZING OUT

• Balancing content creation with a full-time job

• My future business ideas…

Basically: less chaotic ambition, more intentional momentum.

Stuff I mentioned that people asked about:

• My journaling / Sunday reset favorites — shared my absolute favorite inspiring journaling resources (might f around and do the Artist’s Way again)

• Superhuman AI — for inbox sanity + less mental clutter

• Recent podcast episodes on burnout, alignment, urgency, and redefining success

I’m really excited to keep going live like this — low pressure, thoughtful, and actually useful. If there are things you want to talk through on future Sunday resets (planning, money, work, dating, routines, whatever), tell me. This is very much a we build this together situation.

And if you wanna hang and get your life together IRL…there’s still tickets for The Alignment EDIT IRL next Sunday in Brooklyn! You won’t wanna miss it <3

Hope you’re staying warm, sisters…tonight, light a candle (I have 7 lit atm), and pick one gentle promise to yourself for the week.

See you tomorrow AM for a fun episode 🕯️💌

xx

Alexis

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I’ve been bitterly softening into someone who can welcome the grief of getting older without immediately succumbing to the urgency it awakens.

I’ve always been in a rush. Out of the house I was born into, back from the grocery store faster, towards a graduation. Whenever I reminisce, my instinct is never to reflect on what’s been built — it’s to inventor…

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