Welcome to Wednesday. Safe moves are officially off the table.
Growing up, a lot of us were handed the same blueprint.
Work hard.
Get the degree.
Do excellent work.
Be dependable.
Be a team player.
Earn your seat at the table.
Eventually, success would follow.
For a lot of women, it did.
They became respected.
Trusted.
Indispensable.
And yet...
Many still don't feel as powerful, influential, or financially free as they expected.
That made me ask a different question.
What if we weren't taught the wrong work ethic...
What if we were taught an incomplete strategy?
Why this matters right now
Hard work matters.
Excellence matters.
Integrity matters.
This isn't an argument against any of those things.
It's an argument for adding something that many women were never taught.
Leverage.
Ownership.
Visibility.
Influence.
The ability to create opportunities instead of waiting to be invited into them.
Because the people who shape the future aren't simply the ones who contribute to it.
They're the ones who build it.
Today’s Move
Think about one area of your life where you've been asking:
"How can I contribute?"
Now ask a different question:
"How can I create something that didn't exist before?"
A conversation.
A partnership.
A business.
An event.
A movement.
You don't have to start big.
You just have to start building.
Proof it works
One lesson has kept repeating itself in my own work.
The moment I stopped focusing on fitting into existing conversations...
...and started creating new ones...
Something shifted.
People began making introductions.
Opening doors.
Offering ideas.
Looking for ways to contribute.
That reminded me of something important.
People don't just want to participate in meaningful work.
They want to help build it.
Brazen Boost
Creation creates momentum.
The women who shape industries, movements, and markets don't just ask where they fit.
They ask what they're uniquely positioned to build.
Brazen Law reinforced: Power grows when women create, own, and convene.
A question to sit with today:
What are you waiting to be invited into that you could begin creating yourself?
That's today's move.
Don't just participate in someone else's vision. Start building your own.
And in real life...
One of the reasons I created the BrazenEra Power Walk, the BrazenEra Business Club, and now the Brazen Capital Movement is because I believe women create more economic power when we don't just support one another.
We build with one another.
Every conversation.
Every introduction.
Every collaboration.
Every BIG ask.
Every Starting Five.
Every woman who chooses to Huddle Her Teammates moves us one step closer to a future where more women build, own, invest, and lead.
That's the future I'm building.
I hope you'll help build it too.
—Martise
Founder, BrazenEra
Building Project Brazen 2026
P.S. - This idea sits at the heart of The Brazen Code. Over the next several weeks, I'll be sharing more of the mindset shifts that inspired the book before it launches this fall.
One more thing:
One of the pillars of the Brazen Code is:
Huddle Your Teammates.
If this Power Letter challenged the way you think about success, don't keep it to yourself.
Forward it to a woman who's building something ambitious.
Or send her here to subscribe:
Power compounds when women move together.