Who I'm Reading, Always (Part One)

I’ve been meaning, for the longest time, to tell you about my unwitting tribe – mostly women – whose presence online means my offline life is significantly bolder. More self-aware. Filled with increased bravery and joy and wondering and wandering. They make me more profitable, and business-savvy, too, because huh. You *can* make money in a heartfelt and authentic way after all. Who knew.



They say not to judge a woman on what she reads, but rather on what she re-reads. If the world would like to go on ahead and assess me on these impeccable choices in Internet literature, then I will have secured a reputation far beyond what should be true. I’m sharing links to all of them because if you like reading me you’ll love reading these.



I basically steal all their best bits.



Don’t tell them.







The Soul Speaker



I’ve never met Meg Fee, and yet she knows parts of me that I never realised yearned to be understood. I read her for two years before she read me, and so in my mind she was my buddy waaaaaay before she actually knew my name. Creepy? Me? *looks around, nervously* When she first reached out I could’ve welped from the honesty and earnestness her words were delivered with, and writing to each other – something we do almost every day, now – is an exercise in stretching my story-telling skills. Meg also takes delicious pictures, really making me up my Insta-game. See here. And here. AND HERE.





The Careerist Clique I Continue To Bully My Way Into



Life Less Bullshit is my ass-kicking bible, and the website responsible for my obsessive compulsion to write monthly reflections and unearth my best self. I’ve watched from afar as Nicole has shifted from hobbiest blogger to full-time online business maven (maven? Did I really just type that?), and it has pushed me to rise to the very high bar she has set. I’m doing my best. Nicole used to run a bloggers “un-conference” every year in Vegas – an event I longed to go to but never did. I settled for Google stalking most of the attendees. That’s how I discovered her BFF Jamie Varon, who, years after I first thought to myself “here’s a woman I could get shit-faced on red wine with,” is now Editorial Advocate at Thought Catalog, and the woman responsible for getting me on the freelance team there. That my words get to sit alongside hers is like being invited to take the seat next to Meryl Streep’s at dinner. Casual, like. Also: FUCKING EVERYTHING.

In the same circle of bloggers Jenna Arak popped up – another jaw-dropping example of a woman saying hey! This isn’t the life I ordered! and so making up her own rules. She also left PR work to run her own business last year, and is so open and honest about that journey that she’s made my own transition into becoming Laura Jane Williams, Inc. eleventy million times less lonely. Plus she really loves her husband and has a dog that will melt your ovaries. Bonus points.

Chelsea Talks Smack is one who fuels my yoga fire, and reminds me that we can be more than one thing – and often, at the same time. Singer, yogi, hiker, false eye-lash wearer, cocktail drinking, outdoor-living Cali girl, I follow Chelsea everywhere it is possible to follow her, because yes, I’m a creepster, we’ve established that already, but also: the way she looks at the world! I can’t get enough! It is so open and child-like and curious and free!  

Jenny Blake is the fire-starter responsible for making me understand that I really can be the solopreneur of my dreams, and after wishing I was hanging out with her in Vegas for YEARS, imagine my surprise when she turned up in Ubud, Bali, looking for desk space in the same bamboo hut I have desk space. It’s been the coolest hanging out with her this month, and really she should’ve been charging me for her business advice. Turns out, Jamie was her first ever Twitter meet-up, many moons ago, which: the world is so small! Add that to the fact that in passing conversation she mentioned her friend Ash, who turned out to be Ash Ambirge from The Middle Finger Project, a blog I have subscribed to via email since forever because the way her words make me foam at the mouth? All capable and worthy and ready to be my own boss? I actually wrote to Ash this month to say DO YOU KNOW. DO YOU KNOW HOW YOU MAKE ME FEEL? She took the time to reply. It made me heart her, and her business, even harder.

The Thought Catalog Troupe

If you’re of a certain psychographic – twentysomething, fucked about figuring out how to be a grown-up, a general Internet user – you’ll know who Chelsea Fagan is already. She’s dry and to-the-point, and whilst I often don’t agree with her delivery, I almost always agree with what she’s saying. She’s just launched The Financial Diet, with support from John Green (!!!!!!) and it is a project that I will not.stop.Tweeting.about. You need it book-marked because this is exactly what me, and my friends, have been waiting for: straight-up and simple financial advice that is genuinely engaging and realistic. A+.



Through Chelsea I found ex-TC alum Ella Ceron, who is another one I follow on every possible platform because cool is not even the word. She is like, NEW YORK, in human form, and doesn’t give a fuck what you think about that. Smart, sexy, and making really big moves, I hang on her sentences like branches to a tree. I like how her brain works.



Finally, also a TC-writer, but so much more besides, Ryan Holiday gets my follow because his marketing strategies – for himself, his books, and the brands he works with – is diamond. I like how he often discusses how to be time-efficient for maximum cash, because what is working hard if not with the time to enjoy your spoils?

Okay, so this post got super long, super fast, and I'm only halfway through my "blog roll." Find part two here. I know it's a break from my usual stuff, but I've been getting a lot of "Laura! You're so brave!" and "You have so much courage!" comments lately, which is incredibly lovely and generous and WOW, but it feels fraudulent. Anything I do or have done, it's 98.3% related to the way something one of these guys has written, and how it made me feel. It's they who are brave and courageous. I'm copying them.

Aren't words awesome like that?

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