Returning to Craft + Commerce after 7 years

Going Back To “The Room Where It Happens” — Without My Glitter Pants

Tomorrow I’m getting on a plane to Boise, Idaho for Kit’s annual event, Craft + Commerce.

I am nervous about this.

I am wrestling with how much I’ve changed since I last attended this conference in 2019, seven years younger, wearing glitter pants, walking out on stage to All I Do Is Win by DJ Khaled and actually believing it.

 

Rewatching my talk, 7-Figure Secrets To Writing Emails That Sell, I’m struck by how different my voice sounds. It’s the voice of a person who’s still figuring out her public persona, who doesn’t quite know who she is yet. My voice is somehow simultaneously higher and lower than my regular voice. I also have a weird accent.

And yet, that version of Tarzan belonged on that stage.

Everyone in the audience wanted to be me, or so I imagined. I was an industry dream girl, making more money than I ever thought possible, cozying up to millionaires with gajillions of followers and fans. By all the standard measuring sticks, I was winning.

The Tarzan of today is so different.

She’s been through the meat grinder of change, stuff like—

👉 signed away her charming country house with the pool, along with years of spousal support (to a deserving, hardworking ex-husband, I might add, though it didn’t feel that way at the time)

👉 said “thanks but no thanks” to hundreds of thousands in annual affiliate income that felt way out of alignment, and also kind of like the internet’s most exclusive circle jerk — not that I would know…or maybe I would! 😊

👉 let go of her entire team and spent a very embarrassing year going through four different assistants (someone please burn the evidence, which still exists in some extremely cranky Loom videos!)

👉 became a NATIONAL MEDALIST in the sprint canoe

👉 retired her million-dollar program, and put down her crown as Queen of Email Marketing (I nominate Liz Wilcox as my successor)

👉 was (and is being) transformed physically, spiritually, and professionally by the grief of her brother’s death

👉 integrated singing into her work, around the dinner table, on public sidewalks and forests and shopping malls, and most recently as an offering to my community here in Niagara​

That’s a lot of change.

Along the way, I became someone I love very much, a person I am proud to be, a person whose normal voice sounds more or less the same as her stage voice. This new version of Tarzan still loves the spotlight, but she is leading from the middle, instead of the front of the room. 👇

 

And even so…

I know that my best qualities are not as visible as those $800 sequined Gucci pants. They’re fully invisible to people who don’t know where to look. I feel unexpectedly nervous.

Will people value this version of Tarzan? Will they care that I’m in my forties now, that my body looks different, or that I am suffering from THE WORST HAIR OF MY LIFE? Will they notice me at all?

I really don’t know but I’m grateful I get the opportunity to find out.

This business has shaped me and changed me in ways I could never have foreseen while strutting across the stage in my sequined pants. I am not as rich as most of the people who consider me their peer but I would not trade my business for any amount of money in the world .

It made me who I am.

And I love that version of Tarzan.

Tarzan Kalryzian [she/they]
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P.S.

Message me on the C+C app if you’re coming and you want to say hello in Boise! I’ll be hosting a song circle at The Portal on Saturday at 10:30am. Look for it in the C+C app under attendee-led meetups.

✍️ A correction from last week’s email ✍️

I appreciate that my subscribers hold me to a high standard, and gently call me in to rethink something I’ve written that isn’t sitting well. I don’t always agree with their opinions, but I always spend time thinking about it. I have a small backlog of items to address — maybe I’ll write more next week about taking feedback.

A subscriber wrote in about my use of the word “decolonizing” (shared with permission):

“It’s problematic to focus on seasonality without even a mention of Indigenous struggles,” they wrote. “Everything about decolonizing should circle back to landback and liberation of Indigenous peoples. If you’re not making that case, don’t use the term please.”

They also sent this article, Decolonization is not a metaphor.

I am listening and thinking deeply about this. One of my takeaways is that naming a colonial practice and making a different choice is not the same as decolonizing. I’ll be mindful of that in my work and my writing.

Thank you 🙏

For more, I recommend subscribing to Dragon 🐉 Letters from Ixchel Lunar, who shares truly decolonial practices for living in ancestral, cyclical, and spiral time.