Before we begin: to celebrate the year, I’m giving one of you $650 toward a bag of your choice with Secondsense 🤍
Sign up and save the bag you’d love, then drop a comment on this Instagram post or this substack article telling me what you’re celebrating this season. Entries close Tuesday 11/10 at midnight.
Hello, stars!
WHAT A WEEK! I spent Tuesday night refreshing election maps like the true poli-sci major I once was, then woke up Wednesday to SO MUCH history being made. It all felt even more magical coming off Monday night, when I hosted a dinner full of women who make me believe in the biggest possible future.
It had me thinking: nobody wins anything alone. Why do so many of us still act like we have to?
My favorite spot in the library was against the wood panels at the back of the B section, where purple cushions were spread across the floor beneath a wall of tall windows.
Instead of going to recess, I’d sprawl out on the pillows and finish a Lemony Snicket book while our librarian, Mrs. Brown, reshelved and slipped me the ones she knew I’d love (which is how I got to The Hunger Games EARLY!). She knew this was the only time I had alone, that my gaggle of siblings was my responsibility at home, and that I needed the peace.
That’s where I learned to relish my solo time.
The quiet was a reprieve from a chaotic world. Growing up with a healthy dose of competence, I also just preferred to do things BY MYSELF. That way, I know it gets done right, right?!?
I CANNOT stand the person who has to be surrounded by people at all times to avoid their own thoughts! Life is meant to be lived: go to the movies alone, journal at the bar solo, pick up the phone yourselfffff!!!!
Sacred alone time plus eldest-daughter work ethic eventually blossomed into full-blown hyper-independence. It was a superpower that kept me ahead (and in every student leadership position I could find) all the way through graduation, then made me a standout individual contributor and, eventually, a very capable solo entrepreneur. Mostly single for the last few years, too, I’ve only gotten more independent — living alone, working for myself, and working by myself.
Thousands of comments, DMs, followers? Sure! Speaking on stages? No problem!!! Letting people in?
Letting them actually support me????
That is my greatest challenge.
TBH, I’m fairly certain I could rename this platform the Hyper-Independent Support Group for Ambitious Material Girls and you’d all still be members :)
Consider this, then, the hyper-independent girl’s guide to community.
It’s usually around October that the gaps in my growth start to reveal themselves, and this time last year was no exception.
I had just let go of my management team, officially shut down my robe company, Too Collective, and started The Artist’s Way for the first time. I was also moving away from lifestyle content to talk about ambition and the creator economy — all while wondering how the hell I was going to turn content into a career lucrative enough to cover my student loans (and seven siblings).
You’d think the burnout from the year before would have been a hint. A year later, I still hadn’t shaken the habit of doing everything myself, and I kept writing off the pain it caused as “my fault.”
Somewhere between the purple cushions and the intensity of solo entrepreneurship, it had never even occurred to me that I could lean on someone else. Every time a big vision didn’t come to life, I blamed myself, and the shame spiral got bigger.
Then one day, mid-crash out, my best friend declared: “You Need An Assistant.” I agreed, mostly annoyed at the inconvenience of having to direct someone, and at the bruise to my ego that I couldn’t power through something as simple as being a freaking influencer.
When Martina showed up later that week, not kidding when I say everything shifted. At our very first shoot, we made five times the content I’d ever managed alone. As I’ve (slowly) learned to delegate this year (“Yeah, you’re really bad at that,” Martina adds), my creative focus, my opportunities and my capacity for connection have all grown with it. A new management team found its way into my inbox soon after.
My brain still wasn’t fully buying it, though.
The real test came in May. In the middle of a huge personal challenge, I broke down to my mom, who said something I’d never quite heard from her before: “I can’t help you if I don’t know what you need!”
Did I even know what I needed? With no choice but to surrender, I started a new practice. Whenever something feels unbearable, I get clear on what (or who) I actually need, say it out loud, and somehow the right person appears like a wish granted, usually in the funniest way imaginable. A year later, I have a real team, a dinner table full of people I adore (more on Monday night below), and a lot less to prove.
Letting myself receive help without trying to control it is still a work in progress. Appreciating the community around me, and starting to cultivate it on purpose, has been my greatest joy lately.
If you also run a one-woman show inside your own head, here’s what I’ve learned about letting people in.
1. Get clear before you get help
Hyper-independent women tend to ask for help too late and too vaguely, usually right after the meltdown. Try writing your need down in one sentence first: I need someone who can ___ so that I can ___. Clarity is what makes a wish grantable. It’s also what makes it so much easier for the right person to say yes.
2. No need to reinvent the wheel
When I knew I needed someone to help run my business, I asked myself a better question than “who’s available?” I asked whose business already ran the way I wanted mine to, and then I went looking for the person who built it, and the HOW. Name the operation you envy and follow it back to its architect. That’s usually where your next hire is hiding.
3. Build community you don’t have to perform for
On Monday, I hosted Smart Company with SecondSense at Air HQ: a dinner for ambitious material girls (and gays) who have made my life a little better this year. With Sharpie as our partner, we each wrote letters to ourselves about what community has meant to us this year. A few of my former students sat at that table as peers, nobody left early, and Leandra took photos that look straight out of an editorial!!!
You don’t need a venue or a brand partner to start (though I’m so grateful I had both, Secondsense is one of my faves!) Invite five people you admire, let them each bring someone, and keep the phones face down.
4. When anxiety rises, come back to service
When stress spikes (hello, end of year), I’ve started coming back to one question: who am I here to serve? It’s become a nervous-system move for me. Anxiety makes everything about me, and service makes it about you again. It’s also the fastest way I know to feel connected to the people around me, which, if you’ve been paying attention, is the whole lesson of my year.
A little something for you
This whole year has been about learning to receive, so to pass a little of that gratitude on, I’ve partnered with SecondSense to give one of you $650 toward a designer bag of your choice!!!
To enter, sign up for SecondSense here, save the bag you’d love to buy, follow @toosmartforthiss and @secondsense on Instagram, and comment on this post with something you’re celebrating this year. Entries close Tuesday, 11/10 at 11:59pm ET.
Consider it a thank-you for building this with me.
Next time, I’ll get into the gaps this October revealed for me, including why I went a month without posting and everything that’s been happening since I went back to the office at YouPop. For now, that’s all!!
Love you all. Let someone help you this week :)
xx, Alexis
Photos by the incredible Leandra Caprini-Rosica. Thank you to Air for hosting us, and to Chef Gab of Lucky Dinner Club for feeding us so beautifully!!
A perfect newsletter and a perfect dinner 😍 💗