I traveled to Miami alone and left Uplifted.
This was a week of finally. Finally sent the emails. Finally made it to the room. Finally said the hard thing out loud. Here's what actually happened.
I want to write this one while it's still fresh, because by next week it'll start to feel normal, and nothing about this week was normal.
May 11 through 15 was the kind of week where a lot of small decisions stacked up into something that feels, looking back, like a turning point. Not a dramatic one. A quiet one. The kind where you don't fully notice it's happening until you're on the other side of it.
The thing that had been sittingSeven months of drafts, sent in one afternoon
Back in October 2025, I attended CultureCon and met some incredible women. I took their contact info. I told myself I'd follow up. I did, but only once. That’s it and I wanted to follow up again cause you know emails don’t get buried some times and people just may have missed it. So I didn’t do try again because I kept waiting until I had the perfect thing to say next. Silly right?
This week I finally sent those emails. All of them. The re-engagements, the belated hellos, the "I've been thinking about our conversation since October" messages. And you know what? It felt like putting down something heavy I didn't realize I'd been carrying.
The follow-up doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to happen. Better seven months late than never.
The main eventCreate & Cultivate Haven: a masterclass in brand experience I didn't know I needed
I attended the Create & Cultivate Haven retreat at the Ritz Carlton South Beach. One day pass. Solo. From West Palm Beach to Miami with a missed train and a whole complicated morning. I almost didn't make it.
I'm glad I did.
I've followed Create & Cultivate for years. I was at the founder's book tour in Miami. I was at one of their festivals. And sitting in that room on Wednesday, watching co-executive Arana lead sessions with the ease of someone who genuinely lives what they teach, I kept having this thought: this is what it looks like when a brand keeps its promise all the way through.
The gift bag had baby formula, probiotics, and skincare products for moms. Not just founders. Moms. The speaker lineup addressed actual fears, not highlight reel stuff. The room was designed for connection first, content second. Every touchpoint communicated the same thing: we thought about what you actually need before you ever got here.
“A win is just a tweaked failure.”
The brand experience observation I kept coming back to: I'm doing a full Does It Translate? breakdown of the Haven experience soon. Watch for it.
The honest partWhat I said out loud in a room full of women more accomplished than me
There was a moment during one of the sessions where I got real. I said: I had this win recently. A great conversation, a project that landed. And now I'm scared I can't do it again. What if that was a one-time thing?
Nobody laughed. They nodded. Every single woman in that conversation had felt some version of that exact fear.
I want to be a founder who talks about this stuff honestly. The fear that follows the win. The self-doubt that doesn't go away when things go well, it just changes shape. I'm learning that doing things scared doesn't mean you eventually stop being scared. It means you stop letting the fear make the decisions.
The connectionsWhat in-person still does that nothing else can
I made real connections this week. A PR agency specializing in food, beverage, and hospitality brands that could easily become a referral partnership in both directions. A childcare brand thinking about hospitality environments in ways that lit up the strategy part of my brain. A designer I met on Threads who offered to help me build better workflows, in person, after hours, just because.
This is the thing I keep coming back to: you can do a lot online. You can post and DM and follow and engage. But there is still something that only happens when you're in the same physical room as someone. The conversation goes somewhere different. The trust forms faster. The follow-up feels real instead of obligatory.
In an AI-driven world, in-person is not less valuable. I'd argue it's becoming more so.
The week in one lineShowing up for the business, even on the hard days
I did white label work that drained me. I did brain dumps from parking lots and car rides. I followed up on leads that had been sitting since October. I drove to Miami alone and made it back with more than I went with.
I am building something. Even the slow days are part of it. This was not a slow week.
If you're new here: I'm Brittani Millington, founder of Studio 113. We're a brand strategy studio focused on hospitality, festivals, and experience-led brands. I believe a brand is the feeling someone has about you before they ever arrive. And I write about that here, honestly, in real time.
