A look behind the curtain — the honest, evolving journey of building Inside The Cart in real time.
If you've ever tried building something meaningful... this story will feel familiar.
People see the posts: the clean graphics, the clarity sessions, the soft-but-bold marketing tips wrapped in feathers and intuition. What they don’t see is the pulse behind it all… the real story unfolding quietly underneath the work. Inside The Cart wasn’t crafted at a desk with a five-year plan.
It rose out of real life — kids asking for breakfast, mortgage papers and bills piling up on the counter, a husband healing after surgery, a dramatic cat, a loyal dog, and a woman trying to find her center again. Inside The Cart wasn’t born from perfect timing or extra savings. It was born in the midst of chaos, responsibility, and everyday survival, in that strange space where you have little, but somehow you still have everything to give.
It didn’t really come from strategy. I just kept feeling Spirit nudging me forward until I finally stopped resisting. That’s the real beginning, and it leads to the real question…
What is a soul-led business?
A soul-led business is built from the part of you that recognizes what is right long before you can explain it. It isn’t shaped by trends, pressure, or what everyone else is doing, but by a steady sense of inner clarity. Instead of asking, “What’s the strategic thing to do next?” you begin asking, “What actually feels true for ME?” And you trust the answer enough to follow it. It’s the difference between pushing yourself into a strategy because you think you should, and choosing an approach that genuinely fits who you are.
In a soul-led business, your values guide your decisions, your intuition guides your timing, and your lived experience guides how you help people. You stop forcing yourself to act like a brand, and you let your real personality become the reason people feel safe with you. A soul-led business still uses structure and planning, but both are built around your strengths rather than against them, and that’s what makes the work sustainable. People feel the integrity behind your words, the care behind your offers, and the intention woven into the way you show up. They trust you long before they hire you, because something in your presence feels steady, warm, and real.
In the simplest terms, a soul-led business is one where your truth leads, and every strategy, decision, and action follows from that place.
What makes Inside The Cart soul-led and not just another marketing service?”
And Why I Didn’t Give Up
My life doesn’t look like one of those perfectly curated setups where someone launches a business because they suddenly have spare time, savings to invest, or endless quiet mornings to “focus on their vision.” My days begin with children who need direction, pets who follow me from room to room, and a home that’s always in motion. There are meals to plan, chores that never seem finished, appointments to juggle, and the steady responsibility of making sure everyone is okay. At the same time, I am supporting a husband who is healing after surgery and trying his best through the challenges he’s carrying. It’s a busy, layered, very real life — and nothing about it has ever paused to give me a convenient opening to chase a dream.
There were many moments when stepping back and saying, “I’ll try this later,” would have made sense — especially on the days when money felt very tight, timing felt impossible, and the weight of everything landed at once. But instead, I found myself standing in my kitchen with a quiet knowing that waiting for a perfect moment was just another way of saying never. As much as life asked of me, something inside kept whispering that I had more to offer than simply getting through each day. That whisper didn’t come from ambition; it came from truth. It came from recognizing that helping people bring order, clarity, and confidence into their businesses was something I had always done naturally, long before Inside The Cart ever had a name.
It came from noticing patterns in others and understanding what someone is trying to say before they can articulate it themselves. These weren’t random skills — they were clues. So I kept going, not because it was easy, but because stopping felt heavier. Every time I doubted whether this was the right path, something small but meaningful would show up to pull me forward again: a client returning with gratitude, someone saying they resonated with my words, a follower who couldn’t explain why they felt drawn to my work, or a wave of clarity that arrived exactly when I needed it. These weren’t coincidences; they were confirmations. I’m not building in a vacuum; I’m building inside a home, inside a marriage, inside a community, inside a life that requires my heart every single day. This business became a way to serve others while still honouring everything I carry.
I stayed because my family deserves stability, because I wanted to build something that reflects who I truly am, and because small businesses in Mission deserve someone who sees them — not just their content, but their effort, their overwhelm, and their potential. Most of all, I didn’t give up because I finally accepted that my purpose doesn’t need a perfect life to exist. It only needs me to stay committed, and I am.
How This Shows Up in My Work
Everything I’ve lived through, everything I juggle, and everything I’ve had to learn the hard way naturally shapes the way I support people inside their businesses. I don’t show up as someone with a perfect system or a rigid formula. I show up as someone who understands what it feels like to build something meaningful in the middle of real life, and that understanding changes the entire experience for my clients.
When someone comes to me, they’re rarely looking for a logo or a few content ideas. They come carrying overwhelm, uncertainty, and usually a story they’ve never had the chance to say out loud. They might be running on very little sleep, working a full-time job, taking care of their family, or simply trying to keep up with everything at once. I recognize that energy immediately because I’ve lived it myself, and that recognition allows me to meet them with patience, clarity, and a sense of calm they often haven’t felt in a long time. My work naturally becomes a blend of structure and intuition. I can see what someone is trying to build even when their words are tangled. I can sense what they’re actually trying to say beneath their surface explanations. I ask the right questions — not to impress them, but to help them hear their own truth. By the time we finish a session, they leave feeling lighter, clearer, and more grounded, because the chaos they walked in with finally has direction.
During most sessions, I create strategies that fit the person, not the other way around. I show them how to organize their content, clarify their message, and strengthen their presence in a way that doesn’t overwhelm them. Everything I share is something they can carry into their real life — not something that collapses the moment things get busy. Clients often tell me that being in a session feels like a mix of practical support and emotional steadiness. That’s because I don’t separate the two. Real people don’t build from a vacuum. Real people build while raising kids, navigating relationships, healing old experiences, managing finances, and trying to keep up with a world that moves too fast. I honour that reality instead of pretending it doesn’t exist.
A Client Story
A few weeks ago, a woman I’ll call Marissa (name changed for privacy) booked a personal session with me. She arrived exactly the way so many small business owners do — polite, trying to be upbeat, but with a kind of tired kindness you can feel even through a screen. Her eyes drifted to the side, the way people do when they’re mentally juggling three other things while trying to look present. Before I even asked anything, she said, “Sorry, I’m a bit all over the place today.”
People always apologize for being human.
When Marissa began explaining her business, her ideas didn’t form a straight line. They came in circles — jumping from the new idea she wanted to try, to a website she hated, to a post she deleted, to something her friend told her, back to another worry she’d been carrying for months. She wasn’t scattered; she was just overloaded. In between her words, I could hear something much deeper: she wasn’t confused about what she wanted. She was exhausted from trying to carry everything alone. I reflected her story to her, not the details, but the shape of what she was really trying to build. As I spoke, she leaned back in her chair, almost like her body was letting her hear her own truth for the first time in a while. Then she said something I’ve heard many times, but it hits the same way every single time: “Why does this feel so obvious now? I’ve been staring at it forever and couldn’t see it.” And I told her the truth: sometimes you’re too close to your own dream to see it clearly. All it takes is someone who listens differently.
By the end of the session, Marissa wasn’t talking in circles anymore. She was calm, focused and felt clear. And the best part of all — Marissa was genuinely excited. She kept saying, “This finally makes sense”, with the kind of relief that comes from finally putting something heavy down. What stayed with me most was her last sentence, said quieter than all the rest: “Thank you. I didn’t realize how heavy this felt until it wasn’t.”
The Spark You Leave With
I’ve navigated this business inside a real, busy, imperfect life — inside a home with children, a marriage, responsibilities, and the constant hum of daily tasks. Through it all, I've learned that most people aren't lacking discipline or drive. What they are truly lacking is space. Space to think without rushing. Space to breathe without feeling guilty, and to be honest about what they actually want.
That sense of space is what people experience in a session, often without realizing they needed it. They come in carrying the noise of expectations, fears, deadlines, advice from everyone around them, and the pressure to get everything right. By the time we conclude the session, many clients can hear themselves again. Their own clarity becomes audible, and the direction becomes visible. It isn’t flashy, but it is powerful in a way most people rarely experience in business.
Here is the truth no one ever says out loud: your business doesn’t need perfection. It needs you to come back to yourself. Once you reconnect the part of you that actually cares with the part that remembers why you started, the path forward becomes lighter.
If anything in this blog stirred something in you, even gently, let that be your sign. Not to invest or to commit. Simply acknowledge the part of you that still believes in what you are building. That part is stronger than any strategy and more important than any trend. It is the part that will carry you forward, because businesses don’t grow from pressure or comparison or pushing yourself into exhaustion. They grow from clarity, honesty, and the feeling of being rooted in who you are.
If your business feels heavy, confusing, or too loud to think...you don't have to untangle it alone. Sometimes 15 minutes of calm conversation is all it takes to feel yourself again. If you need that, I'm here.