💌 Inside This Week’s After Party - Edition #7

🍸 Opening Toast

From the desk (more like dance floor!) of Robyn Cohen:

"To the women who failed, fumbled, and still showed up — we see you.”

You didn’t fold.

You didn’t fade.

You stood back up, maybe with mascara running and dreams slightly dented, but you stood.

I know this kind of resilience intimately. I have failed more times than I can remember.

I’ve worked in more industries than I can count on one hand and have held more titles than most people will ever see on a résumé. Makeup artist. Beauty educator. Event producer. Teacher. PR manager. Marketing director. Social media lead. Coworking director. HR biz dev.

I’ve tried them all, and then some.

And I’ve started so many initiatives, all rooted in a desire to build something meaningful, especially for women.

In 2008, I launched the Los Angeles chapter of Girls in Tech and served as the executive director for the organization. But when I moved to Brazil, the founder forced me out.

So, I started again. I became an English teacher and launched Girls On It, an events and community platform for women founders and execs in São Paulo. After 18 months of successful gatherings, we made the decision to leave Brazil, and I had to let the initiative go.

Then came W Collective in Salt Lake City, sparked by a job loss and a deep desire to spotlight women in Utah. It began as an online magazine, dozens of interviews, business features, content for women by women, until the pandemic brought everything to a halt. I pivoted to in-person events once things reopened. The events were beautiful, impactful, powerful, and still, I couldn’t generate the revenue to sustain it.

And let’s not forget Utah’s 40 Women Over 40, an initiative I co-founded that celebrated three successful years before I chose to walk away.

Over and over again, I’ve tried. Built. Created. Invested. Pivoted. Walked away. Started again. Some may call it failure. I call it experience.

Every twist and turn in my story has brought me here, to more clarity, confidence, and purpose than I’ve ever known. Without all those different chapters, I wouldn’t be standing in this one.

So this week, The After Party raises a glass to you, the woman with the guts to try, the grace to grow, and the grit to keep going even when the path doesn’t look like you imagined.

Failure isn’t the opposite of success. It’s the forge.

You’re not starting over — you’re starting from wisdom. And that changes everything.🥂

💣 Truth Bomb

We’ve been conditioned to fear failure, to hide it, to clean it up, to call it something else entirely. But what if failure isn’t something to recover from, but something to recognize as part of the process?

It takes courage to try something new. To start a business. To pitch a wild idea. To say yes to a job that might stretch you, or end up breaking you wide open. And sometimes? It just doesn’t work out.

But here’s the truth: failure is not a dead end, it’s a detour. A data point. A damn good story. It teaches us what matters. It teaches us who we are. And often, it delivers the exact clarity we didn’t know we needed.

If you’re in the midst of a messy middle or looking back on something you once labeled a flop, this is your permission slip to reframe it as evidence of growth.

👀 ASK YOURSELF:

• What “failure” in my past actually redirected me toward something better?

• Where am I still holding shame around something that didn’t work out, and what would grace look like instead?

• If I wasn’t afraid to fail, what would I try this year?

🔥 THIS WEEK’S CHALLENGE:

Write your Failure Résumé.
List the jobs you didn’t get, the businesses you walked away from, the launches that didn’t land. But don’t stop there. Next to each one, write what it taught you or how it shaped your path. Bonus points if you post about it and tag The After Party on LinkedIn or Instagram. We’ll be celebrating the brave ones all week long.

🧠 WANT TO DIVE DEEPER?

Here are three powerful reads that will help you unlearn failure and reframe it as growth:

• Reframing Failure: What Did You Fail at Today? – Based on Sara Blakely, businesswoman and founder of Spanx, who grew up to her father asking, “What did you fail at today?”

• Why Failure Is Critical To Your Team’s Success – Harvard Business Review explores how failing well helps teams avoid unnecessary obstacles, encourages experimentation, and builds a culture where continuous learning is the norm.

• The Museum of Failure – Yes, it’s real. And it’s glorious. A global exhibit that celebrates the flops behind some of the most iconic brands. (Get ready to feel inspired.)

🪞 Mirror Talk

“To the version of me who won’t forgive herself — she deserves more grace than anyone.”

You were doing the best you could with what you knew then. You’ve grown. You’ve softened. You’ve hardened in the right ways. It’s time to stop replaying the moment and start rewriting the story.

👑 The Guest List

Reshma Saujani — Advocate for Imperfect Courage, Champion of Girls in Tech, Builder of Brave Movements

Reshma Saujani didn’t set out to become a champion of failure — she became one by embracing it. In 2010, she ran for U.S. Congress. She lost. Publicly. Painfully. And yet, she didn’t shrink. She expanded.

From that very loss, she built something world-changing: Girls Who Code, a nonprofit that has now taught hundreds of thousands of girls how to code — and more importantly, how to take up space in male-dominated industries.

Then came her bestselling book Brave, Not Perfect, and a wildly popular TED Talk that flipped the script for millions of women:

“We’re raising our daughters to be perfect and our sons to be brave.”

Reshma’s not here to sugarcoat failure — she’s here to reframe it. Her work reminds us that perfection isn’t the goal. Progress is. And failure? It’s not proof that you’re not enough — it’s proof that you’re in the arena.

Her bravery is contagious. Not just because she fought to win. But because she dared to lose, and kept going anyway.

Let that be your reminder this week:
Your worth isn’t in your wins.
It’s in your willingness to try.
And try again.

Because building a brave life means being willing to bet on yourself — even when the outcome isn’t guaranteed.

🎁 Party Favors

✨ Build your Failure Résumé — A genius reflection tool that helps you track the flops that made you stronger.

📚“Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success,” by John. C. Maxwell — Maxwell takes a closer look at failure and reveals that the secret of moving beyond failure is to use it as a lesson and a stepping-stone.

🕯️ Badass Scented Candle — Because sometimes, the most badass thing you can do is invest in yourself and never give up.

📣 Last Call…

Before we turn the lights up...

What if this next chapter isn’t your second act, but your real debut? Hit reply and share your failure resume and what failure has taught you.

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_{(Fellas, if The After Party isn’t quite your scene, that’s cool. But chances are, you know a woman who needs this energy. Be a hero, hit forward)}

Until next week,