The Visibility Shift with Ellie Steinbrink

You open a retailer’s website just to look, and suddenly there’s a countdown clock, a low-stock warning, and a message reminding you that the item in your cart may be gone if you wait. Everything is designed to make...

A client of mine recently posted a photo of her highest heels and announced that she was done wearing them. Not taking a break. Not saving them for special occasions. Done. She works in finance, where heels are part of...

I’m getting ready to move to Pella, Iowa, a small farm town deeply rooted in its Dutch heritage, and based on the few times I’ve visited, I have a sneaking suspicion I’m going to stick out. This isn’t exactly new. I’m...

Leonard Cohen has a lyric in his song Anthem that goes, "There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." Most of us spend our lives patching over the cracks, trying to manage the fractures and...

“I used to be so intimidated by you.” Earlier in my career, that’s what I’d hear from client service team members after we’d worked together for months, and it always floored me. When I’d ask why, the answer was some...

I was playing charades with my family when I realized I had no idea how to act out the card in my hand. Instead of laughing, guessing, or letting myself be bad at something for a minute, I froze. Then I got angry. Then...

There is a strange moment that can happen when you realize you’ve been performing for so long, you’re not even sure where the performance ends and the real you begins. For me, that realization did not come all at once...

You have a closet full of clothes, and nothing in it feels quite like you. Maybe you've tried subscription boxes, made appointments with Nordstrom stylists, or fit in a session with M.M.LaFleur while traveling for work...

<p>Getting dressed used to be the most joyful thing in my life. As a little girl, it was pure creativity. Through my career at an ad agency, it was self-expression. When I launched my business, it was play. But...

<p>You've built a career in a male-dominated industry. You've earned credibility, grown a client base, proven yourself over and over. And somewhere along the way, you stopped thinking about what you wear as anything...

<p>If you grew up watching What Not to Wear, you know the formula. The big reveal. The dramatic before and after. Someone walks out looking like an entirely different person after just a few days of shopping. But the...

<p>You can build a voice people trust, sharpen your message, grow into a real leader in your industry, and still feel like the way you look hasn't caught up to any of it. The clothes work. They're professional. They...

<p>There's a pressure on visible women to keep refreshing themselves. A new look for every stage. Updated photos every season. An unspoken rule that you shouldn't be caught in the same outfit twice. You can spend years...

<p>You're at a conference watching a woman on stage, and you are completely swept up by her energy. That magnetism she's commanding is so undeniable, and you think, I'll have what she's having. So you track down the...

<p>Springtime pulls most of us into our closets. The urge to clear things out, start fresh, make some decisions about what stays and what goes. You pull out the donation bags, try things on, do the work. And a few...