I remember the first time I saw it: the boomerang of champagne flutes clinking over an exquisite dinner, the laptop balanced at the edge of a turquoise pool, with the caption:

This is freedom.

And for a time, as a tech executive who craved life outside of the concrete 9-5 walls, I believed it. This was supposed to be the promise– leave corporate, step into entrepreneurship, and claim the fantasy where work and luxury blurred into one.

But here’s the truth that never made it into the frame:

Most women don’t actually want their laptop at the pool.

They want the sun warming their skin, their child giggling in the water, their mind at rest.

Most women don’t want to sip champagne calculating which angle of the toast will capture best on Instagram Stories. They want to taste the bubbles, let the laughter spill unmeasured, kiss their lover across the table without mentally harvesting the moment for social media content.

And the more time I’ve spent in high level online entrepreneur spaces, the clearer it has become: the lives of “highly successful” entrepreneurs are not enviable.

They are painfully mediocre.

And what is presented as freedom is only a prettier cage.

I remember sitting inside a Mastermind for women scaling to multiple-7 figures– we did an exercise where people shared their profit margins… and was floored when most members had margins in the single digits.

It was like, all of a sudden, the shiny social media filters fell away.

Women who posted screenshots of huge launches admitted privately that profitability was vanishing. Founders who scaled teams so quickly found themselves busier than they had ever been in corporate. Seven-figure earners couldn’t cover a tax bill without selling another program. Mothers who had left corporate for freedom now found themselves half-present with their children, their minds still tethered to Slack threads and segmentation issues.

In another Mastermind I was elated when I heard a well known woman I loveddddd online would be joining for a guest Q&A. I eagerly awaited the session, and then felt my stomach drop into dread as she revealed her secret to “effortless” launches: she booked luxury vacations during them to keep her Story views high. Her vacations weren’t vacations at all, but staged productions with cortisol spiking beneath turquoise waters.

The more time I spent in high level spaces, the more clear it was that these high potential women had escaped fluorescent lights only to recreate the same exhaustion– this time with longer hours, less rest, and a performative smile for Instagram.

And it makes perfect sense, because entrepreneurship told them the answer was always more. More launches. More clients. More visibility. But more, on a shaky foundation, isn’t freedom.

It’s just a prettier kind of bondage.

Every game has rules. And the rules of modern entrepreneurship are masculine-coded: linear growth, repeatable structures, relentless fixation on top-line revenue. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this wiring– it has built empires– but for many women, who thrive in the non-linear, in the cyclical, it becomes a trap.

Because when the only metric that matters is revenue, everything else– magic, intimacy, creativity, white space– is quietly mortgaged. And beneath the applause, the hollowness grows.

As the years have passed, I stopped playing this game and it has become increasingly clear that most other high-potential women have little interest in playing this game either.

Because if you ask them why they started a business, the answers are simple: to create what they want and be well paid for it. To have space for their families, their friends, their own lives. To be truly, deeply FREE.

Relaxed millions.

And yet, the reality of “success” in the online space is busyness. Performative freedom. Women too tired for sex, too scattered to hear their child’s story at night, too bound to their revenue engine to actually feel free.

For me, the journey from busyness to relaxed millions has been evolving from an entrepreneur to a Creational Sovereign.

Rather than obsess over top line revenue, I optimized for high desire, high profit opportunities.

I wanted wealth that multiplied while I slept, so I could choose when and how I worked. I wanted white space on my calendar.

I wanted a body alive with eros, a marriage that vibrated with intimacy and deep connection, I wanted children who knew their mother as fully present, not half-distracted. I wanted the dream we were promised– but for real.

And that meant moving beyond revenue to net worth. Cashflow is fragile. When you stop working, the money stops too. I wanted something sturdier. So I shifted from chasing launches to building wealth and this year, we placed our multimillions into a family trust, diversified across stocks, real estate, and private assets.

My wealth now easefully generates me multiple six figures in returns annually, giving me exquisite optionality in my life.

And that– the exquisite options– to work… or not work… to rest or to play… to create when I want, how I want– is a truer, deeper freedom than most entrepreneurs will ever know.

It is what allows me to clink champagne glasses without needing to post it online.

It’s what lets me sit by the pool reading novels while my children play, knowing our wealth grows whether or not I touch my laptop.

Because wealth, stewarded well, creates a foundation no algorithm, no launch, no single season of burnout can threaten. It lets you make massive changes in your business without fear or a threat to your current lifestyle, it allows you to write when you want to write instead of when you need to post, to create because you desire to– not because you must.

Most entrepreneurs will never evolve to this level.

Because most entrepreneurs say they want wealth, but true wealth is so relaxed, so easeful, that it is threatening to a nervous system that has been coded over a lifetime to always be moving, to always be pushing for the next goal.

So they stay in the prettier cage– mistaking visibility for vitality, mistaking revenue for wealth, mistaking busyness for aliveness.

But a woman’s potential is not her revenue. It includes wealth that multiplies while she rests. A body that pulses with desire. A marriage that vibrates with possibility. A calendar that holds white space, books, travel, delight. A creative life that belongs to her, not the market.

The old world will tell you success is more. Another launch. Another milestone. Another glass clinked for engagement on social. But the point was never more. The point was freedom.

Most will stay rich but fragile.

The rare few will build something else– sovereign, erotic, artful lives.

Lives where wealth compounds and hums quietly in the background while love and creation take center stage.

The prettier cage was never the dream.

The dream was always to be free enough to set it down.

To walk away. To fly.