Nobody is Coming to Choose You. Choose Yourself. With Speaker, Author and founder of The Evolution Collective, Aleya Harris

Sometimes the Best Pitch Is Just Knowing Who You Are

A few years ago, a woman cold-DM'd me asking to be on my podcast. No fancy reel, no polished pitch deck, no "as seen on" logos. Just clarity. She knew exactly what she did, who she helped, and why it mattered. I said yes on the spot.

That woman was Aleya Harris. She's now a speaker, author, and founder of the Evolution Collective, and she just sat down with me again on Carrie On! for one of the most powerful conversations I've recorded.

Here's the part that stuck with me.

The Part of the Founder Story We Usually Skip

Aleya didn't set out to build a speaker-training empire. She started her entrepreneurial journey inside an abusive relationship, in a job she hated, trying to make herself smaller to fit into rooms that were never built for her. She hired a mentor for help and got help, along with a narcissist who made every decision for her. By the time she looked up, she had a business she didn't know how to run. Instant imposter syndrome. Except when she looked in the mirror, she realized the imposter wasn't a feeling. It was a name. Her own.

That's the part most of us skip when we tell our founder stories. We jump straight to the win. Aleya doesn't. She tells you about the years she spent lost first, because that's the part that makes the rest of it true.

Pay Attention to What Keeps Happening

The real spark for what became Spark the Stage wasn't a business plan. It was a workshop she taught at the Wealthy Women's Summit, almost reluctantly, because she didn't think of herself as a teacher. She got off stage and women kept coming up to her saying the same thing: "How do I do that?" It happened again after Women on the Rise. Enough times that she couldn't ignore it. That one workshop grew into a multi-six-figure business, and the ripple is still moving. Members of our own BRA Network who've worked with Aleya since then are still building on what she gave them.

That's the pattern she teaches everyone else to find in themselves: the thing that keeps happening to you, for you, and around you, whether you asked for it or not.

Meet Yourself in the Mirror Dimension

We also got into the tool she uses when a client is stuck behind a version of herself that's polished, safe, and not remotely true. She calls it the mirror dimension, borrowed straight from Doctor Strange: a place where you can try on the version of yourself you'd never dare become in real life, with zero consequences. What would you wear? What would you say? What would you finally let yourself want? One client, a conservative, church-going Southern woman who does everything right, answered that question and cracked herself wide open. She didn't have to become that woman. She just needed to know she was allowed to.

The Story That Silenced a Room

And then there's Katie. A quiet, soft-spoken financial planner who told a room the story of her aunt "Alice," sold into prostitution as a teenager to cover family debt, and the devastating chain of decisions that followed, all of it tied back to money. Katie built her entire talk around one idea: start your own Alice Fund. The room was silent except for the sniffles. People are still starting those funds today.

Maybe Your Story Was Never the Problem

Here's what I keep coming back to. So many of us are sitting on a story we've decided isn't interesting, isn't ready, or isn't ours to tell. Aleya's whole point is that the story was never the problem. We just haven't given ourselves permission to say it out loud yet.

If any part of this is landing, the full conversation is worth your time. We talk about where these hidden narratives actually come from, why "I don't know" is almost never true, and how to know when you're finally ready to stop waiting for the door to open.

🎥 Watch on YouTube

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

Whose permission are you still waiting for? Drop it in the comments. I read every one.