Unbroken - When Ambitious Women Carry Their Stories Forward

You become unstoppable when you bring to the table things people can’t take away from you. Your mindset. Your confidence. Your character. Your lived experiences. That’s the whole list. I call it the Invisible to Unstoppable mindset, and its ours. That is the very first course I built as Innovate LAUNCH for women entrepreneurs over 50, because the hardest thing new business owners to do is be seen in a digital world.

And if you’re a female founder 50+, you’re not setting yourself up to blend in. You’re at the exact moment you’re meant to be visible.

The Meetings We Sat Through

Accomplished women have sat through the meetings where they often weren’t asked for an opinion. Had an idea acknowledged, sure, but didn’t feel heard. We experienced that unconscious bias that tried to keep us in place. We didn’t subscribe to that. We worked longer and harder to create professional excellence despite the indifference.

And here’s what I need you to hear: you don’t have to be unhappy to be leaving a corporate life. It should be celebrated as a win.

I saw a post the other day from a later-in-life influencer who calls herself @grandmaschaosandglitter on Instagram, and I loved it. Dressed in a bright green suit, large-framed orange rhinestone-studded sunglasses, and a hot pink feather boa, she looked straight into the camera with steely confidence. Her point, in her own colorful way, was that we’re all out here being judged by people who don’t have their own lives together, so you might as well just be you.

That reminded me of a blog I wrote about visibility, and how I am not trying to be “Instagirl the Influencer”. I’m getting in front of the camera and creating authentic visibility for myself. Let me tell you, it’s hard getting started. When you start turning the camera around on yourself, there’s no hiding.

The Brown Paper Bag

I was the person in college communications class who huffed into a brown paper bag before giving a presentation in front of the room.  I then went home to recover mentally because it took a huge toll on me.

It was a very long time, lots of panic attacks, and practice before I could do it without a mini-nervous breakdown. I had a poor self-image to get over. It wasn’t about my capability. I knew I was capable. It was about actually being seen and heard.

Growing up as a female in the 60’s with assigned gender roles meant women were not given choices with work, education, and money. We weren’t asked for opinions by people in leadership positions, starting with my own father. It was lessons learned from his own underdeveloped character that created arrogance as a family figurehead. That’s a commonality many of us have as women of a certain age.

I did a good five years of therapy and learned biofeedback to control my unnamed fear. There was no Xanax, no somatic breathing exercises, no singing bowls, no sage, no chakras, no spa retreats. It was just me and myself. Constant good cop, bad cop in my mind. Thank God I lived until I was 40. The fear subsided, and I did brave things.

My whole life changed then, and I became very accomplished at work, winning awards and leading large corporate initiatives. It catapulted my courage that had been buried in my younger self.

The Wild, Wild West

When 50 came, I left my corporate job and started my digital marketing agency, Innovate Social Media, at a time when it was the wild, wild west on social media. Businesses were barely using it to promote themselves. But over time, small businesses saw the value in amplifying their messaging, and the race was on to own reach, views, and engagement.

It’s still on. But it has had another tectonic shift with the addition of natural language processing, things like Alexa and Siri. There’s more to come, so hold onto your bootstraps.

In a corporate culture, I suspect you missed some of that, or a lot of it, as companies had big budgets and marketing teams in boiler-room settings creating endless content to create search engine visibility to get brands in front of the right people. You probably knew it existed, but you became keenly aware of the necessity of it when launching your own business.

Three Seconds

It is not the time to blend in. It is time to show up with intention. You have three seconds to hook a prospect, and then they’re in your rearview mirror. How and where you show up matters.

Women over 50 are spending the most, controlling the most wealth, and are still being ignored.

Sit with that.

Proof:

Spending: Women over 50 control an estimated $31.8 trillion of worldwide spending now, and are projected to control 75% of discretionary spending by 2028, according to NielsenIQ.

Wealth: Women now control about one-third of retail financial assets in the U.S. and EU, projected to rise to 40–45% by 2030. Between 2018 and 2023, global wealth rose 43%, while wealth controlled by women grew 51%.

Oppenheimer says, ”The financial landscape is undergoing a quiet revolution. Across the United States and Europe, women are gaining unprecedented control over investable assets, reshaping wealth dynamics and financial decision-making. This transformation is not the result of a single shift, but rather the convergence of long-term social, economic, demographic, and cultural trends. …Understanding and adapting to these changes isn’t just good practice, it’s a strategic imperative.” (https://www.oppenheimer.com/news-media/2025/insights/articles/june/redefining-women-and-wealth-a-financial-revolution)

We are the market. And you’re going to own your online brand visibility.

Do not rule out what scares you. But I don’t need to say that again, because you know it’s the truth. I just want to make it easier for you to get to market quickly and make money, if that is your goal. Whatever the end result, you deserve to have it.

Vitamins for the Spirit

I have to share this with you. If you haven’t heard of the queer poet Andrea Gibson, go find them. I can never get their words out of my mind when I read them. Andrea died in July 2025 of ovarian cancer which makes their divinely inspired words those of a prophet that lives in my head. “Come See Me in the Good Light” is a documentary about Andrea’s life and perspectives. 100% recommend.

Gibson gave a commencement address at their high school alma mater in 2022, and the heart of it has stayed with me ever since. They told the graduating class not to put pressure on themselves to know exactly what they want to do with their lives, because how you do something matters more than what you do. They said the real measure of a life well lived is generosity, kindness, showing up for the people you love when they’re struggling, and that most of us figure that out decades later than we’d like.

Gibson talked about leaving their hometown at 18 to go see the world, and how it took years to learn that what makes the world extraordinary has less to do with what we see and more to do with how we choose to see it. When hard things happen, we get to decide whether they make us better or worse, whether they open our hearts or close them. Gibson chose to stay amazed. Chose to put their attention on what is astonishing, because that choice makes everything else in life better.

Put your attention on what is astonishing. It’s like vitamins for the spirit. - paraphrased from Andrea Gibson’s 2022 commencement address, “Do Not Rule Out What Scares You”

Know I am with you, Andrea. I wish you were in my 18-year-old world, because it was so, so messy. Along the way, everything scared me. I chose to stay and finish high school when my parents divorced in my senior year and left town. A couple of years later, I chose to get up and go to college classes anyway despite deep depression that permeated my spirit. I chose to find another job when one went away. I chose to dream over and over until my dreams became reality.

I want you to look at fear in any part of your life and know it’s where the magic happens.

So, I am not giving you some miracle tech stack. I’m not giving you a crystal ball. I’m giving you the power of visibility. I’m giving you encouragement. And most of all, I see you. Women of the ’60s and ’70s, we’ve shared a lot over the years, you and I. Start here with me. Learn and grow. Advantage is for those who create it for themselves.

If you haven’t found it yet, take your fabulous self over to the LAUNCH VIP Community. We are community first. We are lived experiences. We are empathy and encouragement. The resources are there when you decide you want them. Get your visibility started in a place of belonging with accomplished female founders who are walking the walk with you.

Don't miss a LAUNCH Pad Pod Drop. Follow this link to the Podcast and SUBSCRIBE. 

Join the off-social media LAUNCH VIP Community HERE