For women building something — a life, a business, a self. Field Notes from The Audacity Project, essays on culture and self-awareness, and the kind of honest reflection your group chat has been having for years. Direct to your inbox.
I sent the emails.
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I sent the emails. Carefully written. Genuinely considered. The kind of pitch that took longer than I want to admit because I kept second-guessing the tone, the ask, the way I positioned what I'm building here. I can see that they were received. I cannot tell you they were opened. There is a specific kind of waiting that lives in the gap between sent and seen. You check. You tell yourself not to check. You check again. You read the email back looking for the thing that was wrong, the word that was too much or not enough, the paragraph where you lost them. You find seventeen things. None of them are probably the reason. The silence is not feedback. I know that. I'm telling myself that on a loop. But here is what the silence is making me do that I didn't expect: it's making me get clearer about why I sent them in the first place. Not the tactical reason. The real one. What I actually want from this. What a yes would mean versus what I've been telling myself it would mean. Those are not the same thing. I'm still waiting. I'm still building. Both are true at the same time. That's the part they don't put in the pitch deck. |
Joyhdae
For women building something — a life, a business, a self. Field Notes from The Audacity Project, essays on culture and self-awareness, and the kind of honest reflection your group chat has been having for years. Direct to your inbox.
The Ask I Have Not Made Field Notes — This Week's Audacity Thursday, August 13 Observation: We were raised to be so competent that asking for something feels like admitting the competence was a bluff. Her answer: I have been building this whole thing, the page, the numbers, the pitches, without once asking for what I actually think it is worth. I keep letting the numbers set the price instead of me. And under that, there is a smaller question I have never answered either. When someone lands...
Nobody tells you that growth at this age isn't additive. That's the version they sell you. The one where you become more. More confident, more certain, more yourself. Where the work of becoming adds layers and dimension and you emerge richer than you went in. Where the upgrade is a plus sign. What they don't tell you is that some of it is subtraction. I have been quietly losing things this year. Not dramatically. Not in a way that makes a good story with a clean ending. Just slowly, piece by...
THE AUDACITY DISPATCH Issue 01. The Build. Published: July 23, 2026. A document of record. A LETTER FROM JOYHDAE. Wow. I'm actually here. When I started the Audacity Project in April, I had a vision for what it could become. What I thought I would build. What I thought the public showing up would feel like. I was wrong about almost all of it. Phase 1 was The Declaration. Me saying my goals out loud, to the public, and inviting them along. What I learned is that declaring something out loud...