Beautiful Isn’t Enough

I love beautiful things.

This should surprise absolutely no one.

Heck I made a whole issue titled Beautiful Things. 😏

I love beautiful clothes, beautiful bags, beautiful notebooks, beautiful packaging, beautiful spaces. (Yes, beautiful pens, too…and stickers! 😆) 

I will choose the prettier pen (always). I will notice the details on a plate before I take the first bite.

I believe beauty has value.

But I also believe something else.

Beautiful isn’t enough.

Not in business.

Not in the things we create.

And certainly not in the lives we are building.

We live in an interesting time for women because we are finally being encouraged to enjoy femininity again. There is pleasure in dressing beautifully, creating lovely homes, buying flowers for ourselves and surrounding ourselves with things that delight us.

I am very much here for it.

But somewhere between the ribbons, perfume bottles and perfectly arranged coffee tables, I think we need to leave room for something less photogenic.

Competence.

Because I don’t want to merely look like a woman with a beautiful life.

I want to know how that life works.

I want to understand the numbers.

I want to know where the money is coming from and where it is going.

I want to understand the businesses I build, the contracts I sign, the products I sell and the decisions that determine where I will be five or ten years from now.

I want pretty things.

I also want assets.

I want beautiful experiences.

I also want financial freedom.

I want the lovely notebook on my desk.

And I want to know exactly what I am building when I open it.

There is something incredibly attractive to me about a woman who can enjoy beauty without mistaking it for power.

Because beauty can certainly be powerful.

Presentation matters.

A beautifully designed product can make someone stop.

A beautiful store can make someone linger.

Beautiful packaging can make an ordinary purchase feel special.

The way we dress can communicate something before we ever speak.

Beauty creates emotion, and emotion has tremendous value.

I know this because I build with it.

But beauty is strongest when there is something underneath it.

A gorgeous product still needs a reason for someone to buy it.

A beautiful brand still needs customers.

An exquisite business that consistently loses money is eventually going to have a problem, no matter how lovely its Instagram feed looks.

And a woman should never have to rely entirely on being beautiful when she is capable of becoming so much more.

That does not mean making ourselves harder.

It does not mean rejecting femininity in order to be taken seriously.

For a long time, women were told that entering powerful spaces required us to become more like the men already occupying them.

Dress differently.

Speak differently.

Suppress softness.

Leave anything considered frivolously feminine outside the boardroom.

I don’t want that version either.

I want to walk into the room wearing the dress I love, carrying the beautiful bag I chose simply because it made me happy, smelling faintly of my favorite perfume…

and know exactly what I am talking about.

I want softness without helplessness.

Beauty without dependence.

Luxury without financial recklessness.

Confidence without performance.

I want the pretty pens and the balance sheet.

Perhaps that is my favorite kind of power.

Not having to choose.

You can care about lipstick and liquidity.

You can spend twenty minutes deciding which perfume suits your mood and then spend the afternoon reviewing your revenue.

You can squeal over an absurdly cute pen and still negotiate a contract without blinking.

You can be playful.

You can flirt.

You can wear pink.

You can love ribbons and roses and ridiculous little charms hanging from your bag.

None of those things diminish your intelligence.

None of them make you less formidable.

The mistake is not loving beautiful things.

The mistake is believing beauty is all you need.

Because eventually the room gets quiet.

The photographs are taken.

The compliments stop.

And you are left with what you have actually built.

That is the part I want to make beautiful too.

The bank account.

The business.

The skills.

The choices.

The freedom to leave something that no longer serves me.

The freedom to say no because I can afford to.

The freedom to buy something lovely without needing someone else’s permission.

The freedom to spend an afternoon doing absolutely nothing productive because my life has enough structure to hold me when I rest.

That kind of beauty doesn’t always photograph well.

But it changes everything.

So yes, make it beautiful.

Choose the gorgeous packaging.

Wear the dress.

Buy yourself the flowers.

Put the ridiculous charm on your bag.

Make your office so lovely that sitting down to work feels like an invitation.

There is nothing shallow about enjoying beauty.

Just don’t stop there.

Learn.

Build.

Understand.

Own.

Create something beneath the beautiful surface that belongs entirely to you.

Because beautiful can catch someone’s eye.

But substance is what gives you choices.

And a woman with choices?

Now that is beautiful.

—-

With elegance and quiet fire,
Lady E

Founder, Glow by Lady E 
An editorial space for stories, art, and intentional living