Safiya Robinson - International Women’s Day

For International Women’s Day this year, I reached out to a handful of women I deeply respect.

This is in no way a “top list.” I know so many extraordinary women — and there are countless more I don’t yet know.

These women come from different industries, backgrounds, and seasons of life. Coaches. Writers. Leaders. Career women. Creatives.

I asked them a few powerful questions about leadership, success, unlearning, and becoming.

And today, I want to introduce you to Safiya - a writer, academic, podcaster, and someone whose work feels especially close to my heart.

If you asked her at dinner what she does, she might lead with titles - writer, podcaster, aunt, friend, sunset watcher, story listener.

But recently, she found a description that feels truer:

She creates spaces where stories can be held up to the light.

That line stopped me.

Maybe it’s no surprise that this kind of light-making lives in someone shaped by Barbados — an island that understands story, community, and belonging in its bones. The first time I heard her speak, I recognized that rhythm immediately. We still swap stories and restaurant recommendations like we’re just around the corner from each other.

Because that is what she does - on her blog, on her podcast, in academia, in conversation. She holds stories up to the light and asks: Do I want to keep this?

The stories we’ve written.

The stories we’ve been told.

The stories we assumed were inevitable.

There’s a through-line in her answers: there is more than one way.

When I asked what it means to be a woman in her industry, she didn’t reach for power language or hierarchy. She talked about the difference between the hero’s journey and the heroine’s journey.

The hero’s journey - the version many of us were raised on or heard in the early days of discovering the online business world - is about the individual. The lone figure. Strongest alone.

But the heroine’s journey, she said, is about connection and community. About belonging. About strength in relationship.

And I, with all my supposed literary knowledge and years in the online business world, hadn’t even HEARD of the heroine’s journey.

And I’ll be honest - when I first started my own business back in 2014, the hero’s journey was everywhere. Growth was framed as solitary. Personal development as something you conquered.

Reading Safiya’s take felt quietly freeing.

Because maybe we don’t have to do it alone.

Maybe strength looks like connection.

Maybe leadership looks like community.

She even admitted she feels a slight disconnect with traditional ideas of leadership. She teaches it. She works within it. And yet she believes leadership is less about dominance and more about collaboration - about belonging and bringing out the best in one another.

That’s exactly why I asked this question.

Not to reinforce the old models.

But to see who is quietly redefining them.

When I asked what she’s had to unlearn, her answer felt familiar in a different way.

She talked about growing up assuming certain milestones were inevitable - marriage, children, a specific path. Accepting them as a given, even without joy.

And then realizing:

There is no one way.

You can create family on your own terms.

You can step outside expectation.

You can choose differently.

And maybe the most powerful thing she said came later, when I asked what she wishes more women believed.

“I wish that more women believed that they could write their own narrative.”

So many of us are still living inside stories handed to us when we were children.

“I was never good at math.”

“I was never the creative one.”

“I was never the brave one.”

And those labels quietly become identities.

It’s scary to stretch beyond them.

But it’s also freeing.

Because as Safiya reminds us, you can rewrite your narrative.

You can step into different beliefs.

You can choose a different story.

And maybe the most beautiful embodiment of her philosophy is how she describes success.

Success, for her, feels spacious.

Like having a stretch.

Like stretching out.

Like resting.

Like slowing down.

There’s something almost radical about that.

Not striving.

Not conquering.

Just space.

And maybe that’s the heroine’s journey, too.

Creating space.

Holding stories up to the light.

Choosing what stays.

You can find Safiya through her writing, her podcast, her Substack, and her work - all under her own name - creating the kinds of spaces she speaks about.

There are so many extraordinary women in my world - and so many more beyond it - who aren’t represented in this small series.

Consider this a celebration of them, too.

And in Safiya’s words:

You can write — and rewrite — your own narrative.