y’all! we are live with our first essay on The Cut! never thought our debut would center around a national conversation about iced coffee, but here we are.
and i say we because this is a collective celebration. nobody does anything alone. i am so grateful for Kevin—my best work and journey partner—we do all of this work together. i am also incredibly grateful for my dear friend, workmate, and the subject of this article, Lexi. lex and i have worked together for nearly a decade, and i am so happy i got to share a part of her iconic story. to our friends and family, our support system, walking with us as we attempt to do things differently, serving as our listening ears and thought partners.
and to all of you who take time out of your busy and burned out days to read this, comment, engage, share, and talk about it with others: thank you. we know we have a community of the most amazing, purpose-driven, service-oriented, and visionary leaders who are here to help shift the world for the better. those of us who know there has got to be a better way.
i know we are celebrating this like we just found out we were a first-round draft pick in the NFL, but let me tell you something: on this journey of becoming – this journey of doing work and life a new way – you have to stop and celebrate your progress. build a pillar of remembrance for how far you’ve come, because no one else will do it for you.
so yes, WE are live on The Cut.
and as thrilled as we were for this to happen, we were as equally, if not more, thrilled to tell you the story behind it…
ok, so back in the 2023 / 2024 timeframe, we had (what i’m now referring to) as a venture-backed startup studio to build tech products that would help us better understand each other at work. and in fall of 2024, we had hired this incredible woman and friend, Jennifer Pauline (JP), to help us build out an events based go-to-market strategy for the app we were working on at the moment called, why?! (rip). it was a cross between we are not really strangers meets Hinge but for friends and coworkers.
JP is a master curator, intimate events producer, and the coolest girl ever. she had lined up all of these creator-led brands – like Hike Clerb, Alex Hill from Food & Feelings and WeTheUrban – events for us to integrate our app and to sponsor the events. JP was also hosting her own event in Toronto, called Women In Charge that would feature a panel of amazing women including Natalie Manuel-Lee, Sandrine Charles and Lindsay Peoples (EIC of The Cut).
so, in October 2024, we flew up to sponsor the event and hang out with the crew. jp had organized a dinner, and it was my first time meeting these incredible women. as you all know, i’m super awkward and always at home these days, so i was just thrilled to listen to their conversations and learn more about them, their work, and their lives.
midway through the dinner, jp says, maya, tell Lindsay about your mission to change the culture of work.
jp is the ultimate wingwoman. i caught the unspoken look she gave me, which basically said: hey babe, be ready to pitch, because who knows—the app you’re working on could get featured. which obviously would’ve been huge for us.
and for everyone who is building or trying something new, you quickly realize that every single conversation is an opportunity to pitch. it’s so incredibly cringe and awkward to figure out which version of your elevator pitch you’re going to give. you often stumble over your words, overthink your phrasing, second-guess yourself in real time and pray it lands. i did none of it gracefully. so, after what felt like 10 minutes of me rambling, Lindsay simply responded, ok, nice.
of course, i immediately spiraled, thinking: that was terrible, maya. why didn’t you say this? why didn’t you highlight that?
but i let it go, reminding myself that we were really there to support the event anyway.
later that night, i can’t remember who, but someone wanted to explore the nightlife in Toronto. we ended up at this cool lounge and club. which, by the way, was the last time i was in a club. but it was a fun girls’ night out where we were dancing, having a few drinks, and genuinely having a good time.
maybe an hour into it, Lindsay approached me to ask more about what we were working on, how it worked, and the vision behind it. i immediately felt like: ok, this is my redemption moment from the dinner earlier. so i sobered up out of my tequila haze and just started going in on the problem we were trying to solve. i talked specifically about all the ways work is failing us, why the system is broken, and how our app was just one attempt at solving it. i explained that this was life’s work for us, and on and on.
i got to know her better that night and was so impressed by her worldview, how she approaches her work, and everything she has to navigate every day. to me, the cut has become the gold standard of editorial, and she has shaped that publication into an absolute force, leading the critical conversations we need to be having around work and power.
the next day, the event was amazing and we all left and went our separate ways.
since then, we have spun up and spun down ventures, with each one hoping, this will be the thing. and this summer, i surrendered deeper into this journey. there have been many yeses. yes to leaving corporate. yes to following God with my whole heart. yes to committing my life to the mission. yes to a lot of things. i’ve learned God wants perpetual yeses.
so this summer, the yes was letting go of how it’s going to happen and releasing myself from the outcome. instead, it was a yes to focus on falling in love with the practice and the craft that’s being developed in me right now that’s meant to help advance the mission.
and one of the ways i’m being called to advance the mission is through storytelling. while i have been on Substack for a couple of years, i’ve been very inconsistent. i’ve had seasons where i’m all in. and seasons where i’ve convinced myself it doesn’t matter. the truth is, i didn’t fully see myself as a creative, a writer, or a storyteller. so, on June 22, i wrote i’m so tired of being disappointed, where i shared out loud this new direction from God—that we were going to write a true story about work every single week, and that i was going to finally come into full agreement with this identity.
on July 7, after just two weeks of a consistent writing practice, Lindsay dm’ed me this:
and then it went quiet… and it was like, ok, maybe that was just a wink from God to say, keep going, you never know who’s watching.
but on August 5, nearly two years after the awkward conversation in Toronto, i got an email from her that opened with:
I was reading your Substack and kept thinking about our conversation from a while back, and I wanted to ask whether you’d have interest in writing for The Cut more formally.
and Sept, 22, our first piece went live.
we have had so many wonderful discussions with her team about writing about the culture of work, and specifically, newly hired culture and essays editor Lauren Puckett-Pope, who’s here on Substack y’all. they are looking for writers and Substack is a well of talent, ideas and wisdom. hopefully this will continue to become a rich relationship and collaboration. i’ll share more details as we have them.
i’m convinced everything we desire is on the other side of cringe—and on the other side of practicing through the cringe. i have written about so many cringe things: friendships that failed, my period, being humiliated at shiny sisterhood fest, my body raging against me…
i am not a formally trained writer. i have never worked with a publication like this before. i’ve never received a pitch to write. i’ve never pitched in my life. all of this is new. and it all feels cringe, again. just like everything else on this wild and crazy journey.
but we’ve been in practice. and they wouldn’t have been able to see us if we weren’t in the gym, practicing out loud.
so surrender. surrender to God, to your mission. focus on the practices and allow yourself to feel all of the messy, uncomfortable and unbearable feelings that come with letting yourself be seen in the work…seen trying, the best, most exciting things are on the other side.
to climbing cringe mountain!
sending u so much love,
m
#ToClimbingCringeMountain!!!
LOVEEEE this! Congratulations Maya! Running to read the piece!