Collaboration over competition is a way of life
There's a woman in your industry right now who makes your body do a thing. Maybe it's a tightening in the chest. Maybe it's that specific kind of scroll where you're looking but you don't want to be looking, and you close the app and open it again thirty seconds later.
You know the feeling. And you've probably never said it out loud, because we're all supposed to be past this. We're supposed to be the collaboration-over-competition girls. The rising-tide-lifts-all-boats girls. And we are — we genuinely are — and also, sometimes our bodies have other ideas.
But what if that feeling isn't a problem to fix? What if it's actually pointing at something?
Jealousy is not a character flaw
When someone else's success makes your stomach do a thing, that's not you being a bad person, it’s actually your nervous system clocking something that matters to you.
The women who trigger us the most are almost always doing something we want — charging rates we haven't claimed yet, moving with a lightness we haven't given ourselves permission to have, building something that looks exactly like what we've been quietly sketching in our heads.
It stings because it's close, not because it's foreign. And the moment you get curious about that sting instead of ashamed of it, everything shifts.
Real collaboration is more than just two logos side-by-side
The collaborations that actually move the needle, those that change things, don't happen just by having your logo side by side to another woman’s business logo, or in a “so excited to announce” post.
Sometimes it happens at 11pm in a voice note, or a 45-minute call where you’re talking about different approaches to your event.
It’s genuinely wanting the other woman’s event to sell out, because you’ve formed a relationship with them and you actually care.
You're allowed to ask what you're gaining
Women in business talk a lot about generosity and very little about reciprocity. And somewhere in the gap between those two things, a lot of us have been giving our time, our platforms, and our energy to collaborations that aren't serving us — and feeling guilty for even noticing.
Asking "what are we both gaining from this?" isn't selfish. It's how you make sure the thing you're building stays sustainable. And if the answer is uncomfortable to say out loud, that's probably the most important conversation you could be having.
The people doing more are not the ones critiquing
There is a very specific kind of feedback that only comes from people who are not in the arena.
And the women I admire the most are not critiquing you, or giving unsolicited advice, because they’re too busy staying in their own lane and cheering you on.
But when a comment does land, when it stings even though it probably shouldn't, that's worth getting curious about.
It’s an opportunity to ask yourself: why did this land? Why did this sting?
Treat it as a direction to look.
The trigger is a reflection
The woman who's making your body do that thing is actually a mirror.
And what she's reflecting back at you — the rates you haven't charged, the lightness you haven't let yourself have, the thing you've been waiting for permission to start — that's yours.
It was always yours.
She's just showing you where you're being invited to go next. And if you're lucky, she might also end up being the person you call when the event isn't selling, the person who moves the furniture out of the way so you can actually think — and eventually, your person.
Want more of this?
This conversation went so many places I didn't expect — including a late-night voice note, a very honest admission about jealousy, and the real reason "collaboration over competition" is harder to live than it is to say.