Hey there,

In the fall of 2023 I got a DM from a woman named Antoinette.

I had never met Antoinette or spoken to her before this text, although I knew of her and her amazing reputation as some of my NYC circles worked with her. I didn’t even know she followed me.
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When she sent this it was 6 weeks after we had moved to Lisbon from NYC and I was in really rough shape, sharing some of my struggles on Instagram. I found myself replying to this near-stranger:

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What transpired was me meeting with her a few more times (she wouldn’t accept payment) and us becoming actual friends. A few months later, she ended up joining my live (and intense) storytelling program, “Founder’s Fire.”
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And this is the ironic part of the story I want to focus on.
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Antoinette came into my life to offer me her gifts, and instead, she accidentally fell headfirst into storytelling and she’ll be the first to tell you that it changed her life.

She also had no idea that she was about to embark on what would amount to a painful 4.5 year journey of fertility struggles combined with soul crushing, unexpected deaths in her family.

The storytelling work we did together inspired her to show up in a totally different way for her online audience…rawer.
More of her full self.
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She decided not to hold back on the personal pain she was going through.

And her audience, the women who had been following her, started responding in a way that surprised even her.

Her in-person retreats began selling out the same day because people don’t just hear her…. they felt her.

Fertility circles formed where she facilitated support across hundreds of women. (as she was still in the depths of her struggles)
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​Brand partnerships came out of the blue.
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Her openness cracked through an invisible ceiling she had put herself under and the storytelling practices we did together made all of the personal and professional weaving far less intimidating.
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She even inspired strangers to have the courage to go share their stories.

You never know where your story is going to take you and I know after years of coaching and training people how to tell better stories (either through my programs, workshops or my AI coaching platform) that when you finally stop editing yourself, more opportunities show up that you didn’t plan for.

Antoinette thought she was reaching out to help me on a hard day.
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What she actually did was step onto a path that reshaped her business -because she got brave enough to show up as herself and tell stories, in one of the hardest chapters of her life.

That’s the thing about this work…it doesn’t just move your bottom line.
It opens doors you didn’t know were there.
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You already have the stories, you might just need some hand-holding for how to weave it all together to make them relevant for your business.

XO
Patrice

P.S. Last month, after years of sharing her fertility journey publicly and often painfully, Antoinette announced she’s FINALLY pregnant with her first child. The best ending ever to this story!!