Aaaaand, welcome back to another edition of my newsletter!
By now, you know how I operate—I’m always trying to find the narrative threads in what people say.
Today, I want to share something I learned from the writer, speaker, and activist Miriam Lara-Mejia, also known as La Gorda Feminista. Miriam, who started producing content around body diversity, fatphobia, and fat liberation in 2020, has a large following across social media. At my last check, her IG account alone had over 131K followers.
I interviewed her last year, after her Audible audiobook, Como Ser Una Gorda Libre (How to Be Fat and Free), came out. We discussed her approach to content creation and why she started. Her answer? She was tired of being asked the same question in every interview: "What is fatphobia?"
Tired of our lack of… knowledge, she made it her goal to create a definitive resource for the rest of us to find answers to the question she no longer wanted to answer. She wasn’t just motivated by that, though. Creating a resource also meant she could educate people who were interested in the topic and our collective societal issues around body size.
So, she answered that dreaded question with 18 hours of deeply researched storytelling, and in the process, made herself even more of an expert.
And you know what happened?
The questions kept coming.
But that was a great thing!
Her audience grew and morphed, and there was an opportunity to increase her impact. Now she wasn’t just engaging people who were ‘playing at the edge’ of the conversation, dipping their toe into the topic, so to speak. She was also attracting people who had never heard of the topic before.
She was leading the conversation.
Miriam’s attempt to stop the questions failed. As Miriam put it, she went from being "a door to the rope to the river."
Which was great for the rest of us.
When Failure Creates Impact
Today, people are paying attention to her work. Como Ser Una Gorda Libre was selected as a top Audible title in 2025 …
ANDDDD now it’s a 2026 Audie Award finalist…In the same category as Pope, Leo XIV no less…! (for those of you who are unfamiliar, the Audie Awards are the “premier awards program in the United States recognizing distinction in audiobooks and spoken-word entertainment.”)
The biggest lesson in this story is one I think every creative leader and founder needs to hear:
Creating and amplifying mission-driven content is a long game that requires you to be ready to repeat yourself.
There is no “final answer.” Your content creation will take you on your own journey, where you’ll learn in public.
Let me say it again:
1. Creating and amplifying mission-driven content is a long game that requires you to be ready to repeat yourself.
2. There is no “final answer.” Your content creation will take you on your own journey, where you’ll learn in public.
See what I did there? Uh-huh, that’s right, I took a leaf out of her book and repeated myself.
I’ll add more hot pepper sauce to that: being ‘niche’ isn't the vehicle; it's the voice, the story, and the angle. It’s the foundation of what you do and create. And once you find that foundation, you need a blueprint to figure out how many ways you can "cook the chicken" (as I like to say, much to my friends’ amusement). And yes, your theme and story are the chicken in this dark foodie analogy, lol.
You also need a system to support those efforts, or else you’ll get tangled up in your words and ideas.
I’ve thought about this a LOT, while working with creators, founders, and leaders to shape and amplify their leadership and content platforms. It was also a solution I ended up creating for myself because I was stuck there, too.
So, I’ve designed a program to help. It’s called 'Close Your Narrative Gap.' It’s an intentionally sized hybrid program that will kick off in March.
If this sounds like something you’ve been searching for, reply to this email and let me know. I’ll email you more details.
And if you’re curious but can wait, that’s all good! I’ll share more details with everybody next week.
Talk soon - and good luck in March, Miriam!
Christabel
Oh, and P.S - This newsletter will have a new name in a few weeks, one that fits what I cover in these here pages. Don’t worry, the content won’t change!