Speaking at universities has become one of my favorite aspects of what I do. There’s something about sharing my journey with students—the messy, non-linear reality of building a career—that energizes me in a way I didn’t expect. This week at Washington University, a student asked me a question that’s been rattling around in my brain ever since: “How do you keep pushing forward when doors slam in your face?”
I told her what I always tell people—that I look for the window that cracks open when a door closes. If I slow down enough, if I really look, I can always find one. I’m weirdly good at finding silver linings.
It’s not easy. Fear creeps in all the time. But I try.
Another student asked if I ever wonder what my life would have looked like if I’d stayed in New York. I laughed because there are exactly two things I question about my past. The first: what if I’d stayed in St. Louis and gone to Wash U? (I was accepted. I didn’t want to stay in St. Louis. THE IRONY.) I would have studied fashion. I could have jumped into the industry immediately, right here from my hometown.
The second: what if I’d stayed in New York after graduation? What if 9/11 had never happened and I’d built the life I was planning?
Does anyone remember the movie Sliding Doors?? Gwyneth Paltrow’s character simultaneously lived two parallel lives based on whether she was able to catch a train. That movie has always resonated with me—the idea that one moment, one decision, splits your life into completely different trajectories. (It’s also one of my all-time favorite movies…I even had that pixie haircut…)
Back to the WashU student. I told them honestly—I think I would have built a beautiful career. Probably in fashion. And I would have loved it.
But then I said something that surprised even me: Would I have ever had the gumption to start something of my own?
I don’t think so.
The truth is, my greatest gift might have been the naivety I had when I came back to St. Louis and eventually started Retta Jane. I didn’t realize how hard it would be. How expensive. How many times I’d have to start over. If I’d known, I probably wouldn’t have done it.
The constant recalculation
I joke that I’m living my life like a Waze app. I’m constantly rerouting. A road closes, Waze finds another way. An accident blocks my path, Waze recalculates. Over and over and over.
And somehow—somehow—I always end up exactly where I’m supposed to be.
When I was accepted to Wash U and turned it down because I wanted to escape St. Louis, I had no idea that two decades later I’d be back here building a luxury brand. That the city I couldn’t wait to leave would become the foundation of everything I’m creating.
When I left New York after 9/11, devastated and feeling like my dreams had died, I didn’t know that experience would teach me the resilience I’d need later. That coming “home” wasn’t failure—it was preparation.
When I paused my interior design practice in 2018 to launch Retta Jane, I didn’t know that five years later I’d be running both businesses simultaneously, that they’d feed each other in ways I never imagined. But the window opened right when I needed it to.
The scramble between the reroutes
Here’s what I don’t want to romanticize: the rerouting isn’t graceful. It’s not some zen “everything happens for a reason” fantasy where I smile serenely and trust the universe.
It’s scrambling. It’s crying in my car. It’s fear that makes my chest tight at 3 am. It’s making decisions with incomplete information because waiting for perfect clarity means never moving at all.
When that manufacturer screwed me over for $33,000 last year, I didn’t feel like I was on some magical journey. I felt betrayed, panicked…furious.
But I also noticed something: I didn’t stop. The rerouting kicked in. I’m still looking for the window that comes from that mess—and I truly believe it will come back tenfold, somehow. I just have to stay alert enough to see it when it appears.
The gift I didn’t want
That naivety I mentioned? The not-knowing-how-hard-this-would-be? I used to think of it as luck. Now I think it was a gift I fought against receiving.
If I’d stayed in New York, comfortable and building someone else’s vision, would I have ever bet on myself? Would I have ever learned that I could survive doors slamming? That I could find windows? That I could keep rerouting?
I wonder...
Sometimes the greatest preparation for the life you’re meant to build looks like detours, delays, and doors closing in your face. Maybe there’s a cosmic plan, maybe there isn’t—but either way, those moments force you to get resourceful. To trust your gut. To believe you were given these talents and ideas and chutzpah for a reason, and it’s your job to follow through. To stop waiting for perfect circumstances and start building with what you have.
Trust the reroute
I can’t promise you that every closed door leads somewhere better. I can’t tell you that everything works out if you just “stay positive.”
What I can tell you: there’s almost always a window if you’re willing to look for it. Not because the universe is on your side, but because when you train yourself to spot opportunities in chaos, you become the kind of person who creates them.
I read a lot about this—not manifestation (I loathe that term), but the actual science of how our brains work. Neuroplasticity. The way we can literally rewire our thinking. My favorite book on this is Into the Magic Shop by James Doty, a neurosurgeon who grew up in poverty and learned as a kid how to train his brain to see possibility instead of limitation. (He sadly passed in July, but his work continues to inspire how I approach the detours.) It’s not woo-woo wishful thinking—it’s about training yourself to notice what’s available when everything feels impossible.
My life has been one long reroute. From New York back to St. Louis. From interior design to fashion and back to interiors again. From thinking I needed perfect circumstances to realizing that perfect circumstances don’t exist—there’s only right now, and what you choose to do with it.
Right now I’m in the middle of another reroute—building a flagship store, launching womenswear, growing my interior design practice. Some days it feels like too much. Some days I wonder if I’m crazy for doing it all at once. But I’m watching for the windows.
So yes, my life is a Waze app. It is constantly recalculating. The route keeps shifting. I don’t always know exactly where I’m going, but I trust I’m headed in the right direction.
I’m moving. And maybe that’s the whole point.
Rerouting... rerouting... rerouting...
And somehow, always arriving exactly where I need to be.