Unsubscribe ♥

The best Christmas gift I received last year was from my little sister, Michelle. Of course, she knows me well—and she knows that sometimes I have a sarcastic, slightly dark sense of humor.

Fine. Almost always.

Always.

She gifted me a burgundy sweater with one word printed across the front:

Unsubscribe.

You know when you're mad and send a one-word text or email with a period at the end? This one has a period too, except the period is a heart.

Awww.

My heart fills with joy every time I wear it.

Why?

Because I genuinely wish I had the time to walk around handing people little cards advising them to Unsubscribe♥ from the things, spaces, experiences and people that don't feel healthy.

Now let's get serious.

I have seen this play out in almost every part of my life—personally and professionally.

Why do we sometimes experience another woman's success, confidence or visibility as a personal threat?

Sometimes the woman we think we have a problem with is simply holding up a mirror to something we haven't resolved in ourselves.

I learned this the hard way many years ago.

There was a time in my career when a woman I had personally recruited and hired—a woman I had coached, advocated for and genuinely wanted to see succeed—eventually decided I was the problem.

I didn't know it at first.

Seemingly overnight, half the company was against me. I went from being one of the top sales leaders to trying to understand how I had become the person everyone seemed to have a problem with. I remember praying for discernment, trying to make sense of what was happening while holding on to a job I loved and had poured so much of myself into.

And no, I wasn't a saint.

Anyone who has ever worked with me knows I am demanding. I expect excellence. I like to win. I believe in accountability. I hold myself to a high standard and expect the same from people around me.

And, as I have already confessed in a previous piece, I don't always smile.

I don't know exactly what was happening inside that person, and I never will. But there was never a competition to begin with—not from my perspective. From a very early age, my grandmother and my mother instilled in us:

Another woman's confidence does not diminish yours. Another woman's success does not make yours smaller. Another woman's visibility does not make you invisible.

There is room.

Interestingly, research suggests that how we perceive opportunity can influence where competition gets directed.

A 2025 study by Melissa Carr and Elisabeth Kelan, published in Gender, Work & Organization, examined competition among women in two organizational settings. In a corporate bank where women described opportunities at senior levels as scarce, competition tended to be directed outward—toward other women. In a network-marketing organization where opportunities were framed as abundant, competition was more often directed inward, toward oneself.

Maybe the real issue isn't whether there is room. It's whether we believe there is. Because when we believe another woman's success leaves less room for us, competition can feel inevitable.

But scarcity or perceived scarcity doesn't explain every instance of women competing with or feeling threatened by other women. Sometimes there is insecurity. Sometimes there are unresolved issues. Sometimes there is a real conflict.

And sometimes, the issue has much less to do with us than we think.

In my case, I eventually had to decide what I was going to do with a situation I couldn't control. I tried to make as graceful an exit as possible—and I did. Eventually, she, too, left the company. Afterward, I received calls and messages from people apologizing for what had happened. I didn't respond.

Not because I was angry.

Because I had already unsubscribed♥.

Years later, I understand something I didn't fully understand then: You can spend an enormous amount of energy trying to solve a problem that only exists in someone else's head.

And that is exhausting.

I was reminded of this recently when someone shared a story with me about being uninvited from a speaking engagement. She had already been confirmed as a speaker when, apparently, another confirmed speaker said, “I can't be in the same room with her.”

I don't know the history between these women. I don't know what happened between them or what would lead someone to say something like that. But my first thought was: What would someone have to be thinking—or feeling—to say that?

I don't know the answer.

And maybe that's the point.

We don't always know what is happening in someone else's head. But we can recognize when another woman's existence has somehow become a problem.

Now, not every woman we don't like is insecure. Not every difficult relationship is projection. Sometimes people genuinely don't get along. Sometimes people hurt each other. Sometimes boundaries are necessary. But there is a difference between protecting your peace and policing someone else's existence.

Especially online.

We can watch people we claim not to care about every single day. We send their posts to friends. We dissect what they wore. We discuss who invited them. We question who they think they are. We roll our eyes at their success while making sure we don't miss the next story.

If we genuinely don't like or agree with what we're seeing, why do we keep watching?

Social Media literally gives us a button:

Not interested.

Use it.

We don't have to like everyone. We don't have to give everyone access to us. We don't have to make someone else's existence smaller so that we can feel bigger.

And if someone's existence is triggering something in us, we have a choice: look within and do the work—or simply unsubscribe. ♥

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Research referenced: Carr, M., & Kelan, E. K. (2025). “Competing Against Oneself and Others? Competition as Gendered Technologies of the Self.” Gender, Work & Organization, 32(1), 351–368. Read the study on Wiley Online Library