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After four years of living alone — building a life, a business, and a version of herself that finally felt safe — Steph is signing away her lease and moving in with her boyfriend. In this episode, she gets honest about what dating after 40 actually feels like: the judgment single women face, the walls she built after two marriages that left her feeling "not enough," and the moment she realized her safe, beautiful apartment had quietly become a tower she was hiding in. She talks triggers (freeze vs. fight), the little girl who wallpapered a closet to feel protected, and why real connection — not more solitude — is the next stretch of her growth. This one's for anyone who's ever built a life so safe it stopped letting anyone in.

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Why isn't being good at what you do enough? In this episode of Unwritten, Stephanie sits down with returning guest Shannon Hill to unpack the glass ceiling — both the one the world puts over women in business and the one we quietly build for ourselves.

The conversation starts with HBO's Hacks and a line that stuck: when you're a man you have to do a hundred things right, when you're a woman you have to do a hundred and one. From there it moves through workplace inequality, the boys' club of golf outings and easy referrals, and why women are so much better at seeing everyone else's worth than their own.

Then it gets personal. Stephanie opens up about burnout, self-doubt, and what she calls a "crash out" — running out of gas on the way somewhere you were genuinely excited to go. Who do you call for help? Do they show up angry that you inconvenienced them, or grateful you asked? Shannon and Stephanie talk about self-worth, undercharging, imposter syndrome, mom guilt, and the guilt tax women pay on rest — plus why a few days a year for yourself is not too much to ask.

If you're a woman entrepreneur, solopreneur, small business owner, creative, or anyone who wakes up already behind and can't figure out why the compliments never stick but the criticism does — this one's for you.

Topics: glass ceiling · women in business · imposter syndrome · self-worth · burnout and recovery · asking for help · mom guilt · rest without guilt · gender inequality at work · women entrepreneurs · setting boundaries · nervous system and freeze response · ADHD and focus · retreats, hiking, and community as self-care

Explicit — candid language and adult humor.

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Recorded on the other side of a burnout, this episode is about what happens when overgiving finally runs you out of fuel. Stephanie traces the pattern back — the women she watched give until they were empty, the belief that exhaustion means you did a good day's work, the men who taught her that asking for help costs you — and into a freeze response that shut her down for a full day after a good conversation with her partner.

The lesson underneath it: it's not about how much you give. It's about where and when.

And letting your guard down isn't weakness — it's opening the door when someone's already driven two hours with the gas can.

Honest talk about the freeze response, energetic boundaries, brainspotting, and what it takes to be human with another person.

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In this episode of Unwritten, Stephanie sits down with artist — and her partner — Oliver Kalkofen for an honest conversation about what it really takes to make a life out of art. They talk about growing up being told creativity would never pay, the trap of tying your self-worth to how much you earn, and the slow work of separating the two.

Oliver opens up about his darkest chapter, getting sober, and the moment he decided to come back and claim being an artist for good. Together they explore trading drug and alcohol highs for the "high" of raw life and nature, why hitting bottom can become a tool instead of a place to stay, and how two people who've both been to the bottom are now building something steady — as individuals choosing to share a life. A raw, tender talk about creativity, recovery, worth, and love.

Content note: this episode discusses substance abuse, mental health, and suicidal thoughts.

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Steph sits down with marketing pro and longtime friend Shannon Hill for a conversation that starts with a five-years-overdue headshot session and spirals into everything that actually makes a portrait work: light, timing, color, and the willingness to trust the person behind the camera. They dig into how AI has pushed photography back toward the real and the authentic, why so many of us default to black blazers when color would

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What if sales was never about selling — and always about knowing yourself first?

Anna Hockett went from a broadcast journalism degree to turning down an anchor job, to closing million-dollar software deals, to Director of Sales & Account Services at Nei-Turner Media Group — home of Brava, Persona, and Chicago Style Weddings. In this episode of Unwritten, she and Steph get into the part of sales nobody puts in the training manual: the fear underneath it.

Steph opens up about why she kept her photography rates low for years — the not-good-enough story, the fear that clients would be mad at her, the comparison trap — and how resentment and burnout finally forced the change. Anna shares the boardroom moment where she asked a furious CEO the question no one else would ask, why she used a fake name on cold calls to get over the hump, and what she learned about walking away from a client who isn't the right fit.

Together they land on something bigger than sales: your biggest blocks become your building blocks. The most troubled vines make the best wine. And the validation you've been waiting for was never coming from out there anyway.

Whether you're a business owner, a creative pricing your work, or someone who flinches at the word "sales" — this one's about confidence, connection, and finally knowing what you bring to the table.

Listen to Anna's Podcast Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-anna-angle/id1830016709

Link to Brava magazine: https://bravamagazine.com/

Topics: sales confidence, raising your prices, imposter syndrome, knowing your worth, women in business, entrepreneurship, self-worth, mindset, personal branding, storytelling, marketing.

Tags: sales confidence, how to raise your rates, knowing your worth, women in business, imposter syndrome, sales mindset, pricing your services, entrepreneur mindset, self-worth, personal branding, storytelling marketing, Brava Magazine, Persona Magazine, Madison Wisconsin business, Unwritten with Steph

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What if instead of bracing for everything to fall apart, you got obsessed with it all working out?

Recorded fresh off a camping trip in the Apostle Islands on Lake Superior, this Soulful Sunday is about the fear loop so many of us live in by the time we hit our forties — and the choice to trade it for a love loop instead. Steph gets honest about being "addicted" to things not working out, to hard work that never feels like enough, and to doubting the good the moment it arrives.

This one goes into the programming that taught us to stay small: the childhood conditioning that trained creativity and imagination right out of us, why we call our negative thoughts "realistic" and dismiss the positive ones as dreaming, and what it means to remember you are not the things that happened to you — you are your reaction to them.

With reflections on sobriety, self-trust, manifesting the life you actually want, and the simple truth that when you give love and grace to yourself, it gets mirrored right back — this is an invitation to stop running someone else's program and start writing your own.

If you needed permission to believe it could work out? Here it is.

Topics: self-love, fear vs. love, breaking the cycle, law of attraction, manifesting your dream life, mindset shift, sobriety, spiritual awakening, healing your inner child, alignment, personal transformation.

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How I became a photographer — and the question that started it all: am I worth it?

In this episode of Unwritten, I share my honest origin story: buying my first camera while pregnant, building a photography business through divorce and single motherhood, learning marketing and SEO the hard way, and finally learning to charge what I'm worth. If you've ever wanted to start a creative business but feared you weren't "enough," this one's for you.

🎟️ Join my one-day business workshop, the 4 Pillars of Success — July 30, Baraboo, WI. Four women teaching what it really takes to grow a business. Link below.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1992439066884?aff=oddtdtcreator

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"It wasn't a failure. It was an experience."

This week on Unwritten I'm sitting down with Lacey Steffes — a self-proclaimed serial entrepreneur who's built Spa Serenity, Pause Facial Bar, Gateway Powersports, and a dirt drag series that grew from 800 people to 8,000 in about two years.

We get into what it actually takes to keep going. Why failure isn't the end of the story, it's just information. Why the people questioning what you're doing are usually the ones standing outside the ring. And why, for Lacey, the real key to success was never more structure — it was surrounding herself with people who are in the arena right alongside her.

We also talk trusting your gut, going all in, and how she turned everyday events into marketing that spreads on its own (ask her about the field trip that got a whole class Snapchatting from the track).

Lacey is one of the four women teaching at my upcoming workshop, the 4 Pillars of Success, and this conversation is a perfect taste of the real, no-fluff wisdom she brings.

Come sit in the arena with us. 🎟️ https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1992439066884?aff=oddtdtcreator

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Some of the hardest seasons of our lives are the ones that force us to root the fastest. This week on Soulful Sunday, Steph talks about the plant that grows out of solid rock — and why your toughest circumstances might be building your resilience, not breaking you.

She unpacks the difference between holding onto old stories as wounds versus using them as fuel, why fear-based thinking (and the algorithms feeding it) keep us small, and the one belief she was missing for years even while doing "all the right manifestation work." The messages you're feeding yourself — in the songs you sing, the books you pick up, the conversations you have — are telling you exactly where you are. Time to listen.

If you've been holding onto skeletons in the closet, wondering if you're "inadequately designed" for the life you want — this one's for you.

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