Lately, I’ve been talking about change without saying exactly what is changing.

I’m transitioning out of my full-time VP of Marketing role and into a consulting position with my company. That will give me more space to focus on The Daily Wild and some other projects I’m working on.

It is exciting, mostly. But it is also scary. It feels hopeful, freeing, uncertain, and a little sad, all at the same time.

This isn’t exactly how I imagined this chapter unfolding. Even when you know you are moving toward something meaningful, there can still be grief for the version of the story you thought you were going to live. I’m learning that I don’t have to choose one neat, presentable emotion. I can be excited about what comes next and still feel deeply about what I’m leaving behind.

Last night, I watched Roger Federer’s induction into the Tennis Hall of Fame. He was crying and deeply emotional as he acknowledged the people who had shaped his career and his life. Here was someone who is highly successful and known for his strength, composure, and grace, allowing the depth of the moment to show.

It reminded me that many of my favorite people are the ones who can go deep. Strength and vulnerability are not opposites. Sometimes strength is allowing ourselves to feel what is beneath the surface and letting other people see it, too.

So as I was thinking all of this through, a friend sent me a picture of pulling the Whale card this week… I don’t think that was an accident.

– El

Whales live in a world shaped by depth and sound. Because light cannot travel very far beneath the ocean’s surface, whales rely heavily on sound to communicate, navigate, and stay connected. Their calls can travel across enormous distances through the water, reaching far beyond what they can see.

But their bodies also hold a record of what they have experienced. As a whale’s baleen grows, it preserves traces of stress hormones allowing scientists to look back at changes in the animal’s physiological stress over time. What happens beneath the surface does not simply disappear.

There is something powerful in that: a voice rising from the depths, carrying meaning across the unseen. The Whale reminds us that our emotions also carry information beneath the surface. They tell us what matters, what hurts, what is changing, and what we may need… even when we would rather stay busy, composed, or safely in control.

We are taught to treat uncomfortable emotions as problems to solve. Sadness should be shaken off. Fear should be conquered. Disappointment should be reframed as quickly as possible. But emotions are not inconveniences or evidence that we are failing. They are signals.

Maybe we don’t always need to pull ourselves together quite so quickly. Perhaps we need to listen to what is rising.

Fear may be telling us that something matters deeply. Sadness may be honoring what we are leaving behind. Excitement may be pointing us toward a life that wants to expand. More than one of these messages can be true at once.

Emotional depth is not weakness. The ability to feel deeply and to let others see some of that depth is its own kind of courage.

As we build this community, I would love more than anything to hear from you. What card did you pull? What did you notice this week? What do you want more of? Just reply to this email and let me know.