Over the years, Julia has probably made promo images for many of you reading this.
She graduated from graphics into managing my Instagram for a few years. She has taken every single one of my promo photos since 2019.
She was my first unofficial employee and later became very official. She has helped with research projects, concert promo reels, YouTube channel audits, and all kinds of behind the scenes tasks that helped this business grow.
She basically grew up alongside Women of Substance, Profitable Musician and everything that came after it.
And now she is twenty two, working through grad school, preparing for a career as a high school counselor, and she just got engaged!
That announcement this Sunday is all about them and I don't want to steal any of the personal significance from it.
While it's not a business milestone in any way, it is a marker. A very visible cairn on a long trail that reminds me how far we have all come.
That is what I have been thinking about a lot lately. Milestones.
We tend to fixate on numbers. Ten years. Episode one thousand. Six figures. Business anniversary. But the number itself is never the point. The number is just a pin in the map that lets us pause long enough to look back.
Years ago, I climbed Mount Washington in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Along the way, there were cairns marking the trail. Little piles of rocks that told us we were still on the path and that we had made it this far.
Toward the end, when my leg muscles felt like complete Jell-o, I clung to those markers. Each one meant progress. Each one meant the summit was closer.
But here is the thing. Our lives as musicians and business owners are not one mountain. They are a mountain range.
We reach a peak, then descend into a valley, then climb again. Sometimes we are climbing several peaks at once. Music. Business. Family. Health. Identity. And the valleys are not failures. They are what make the next summit feel earned.
That is why milestones matter, even though they are not the finish line.
Some milestones really do mark completion. Finishing my book and hitting publish on Amazon was one of those. There is a clear before and after.
But many milestones are just cairns. A place to stop, take a breath, look down at the trail behind you, drink some water, maybe hungrily devour a Quest bar, and then keep going with renewed strength.
Without those markers, it is easy to forget that you are making progress at all.
So I have been taking stock of a few of mine this year.
In November, Women of Substance turned 18 years old. That one still amazes me.
This year also marks my 11th year of podcasting, which feels both impossible and completely normal at the same time.
In June of 2025, the Female Musician Accelerator Academy crossed the 10 year mark.
And Profitable Musician as a brand just hit 5 years.
None of those numbers define my worth. None of them mean I have arrived.
But each one gives me a chance to look back at the daily devotion it took to get here. The systems built slowly, imperfectly, over time. The moments of doubt that did not get the final say.
And somehow, woven through all of it, is the story of my daughter growing up alongside this work.
While working with me did not turn her into an entrepreneur, it gave her real world experience, confidence, and a front row seat to what it looks like to build something with patience and heart. I know she will carry that with her into whatever she does next.
I want to thank you for being part of this journey. For supporting me, for supporting Julia, and for walking your own long road of devotion to your music.
As you move through the rest of this year, I hope you take time to notice your own cairns. Not just the flashy ones, but the quiet markers that say you showed up again. You stayed on the trail. You kept climbing, even when your legs felt like they were made of Jell-o.
Those are the milestones that matter most.
Always in your corner,
<3 Bree
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