Women of Substance didn’t start as a grand business strategy. It started because I wanted to hear more women’s voices while I worked. Back when I was Director of Finance at Opera Pacific, I spent a lot of hours in spreadsheets, budgets, board reports, and all the very glamorous things that come with keeping an opera company financially afloat. This was before Spotify and smartphones, even before iPods, when you couldn’t just pull up almost any song in the world from the little computer in...

PROFITABLE MUSICIAN: FEM FRIDAY EDITION May 29, 2026 Happy FEM Music Friday! I remember once asking my pastor’s wife a question after church. Her husband had told a funny little family story in his sermon. It was sweet and harmless, the kind of story that made everyone laugh because we could picture the whole scene. Still, I wondered how that worked behind the scenes. So I asked her, “Does he check with you before he shares those stories?” She smiled and said, “Always.” I loved that answer,...

PROFITABLE MUSICIAN WEEKLY NEWSLETTER May 27, 2026 Hey there, Profitable Musician! I wrote my song Healing Waters, the title song from my first album, from a hospital bed. I had been so sick I could not keep anything down, and there is a kind of weakness that strips away your normal ways of coping. You are just there, in your body, aware of how badly you need help. That is where the song began. I cried out for healing because I needed healing. It was immediate and deeply personal. The kind of...