Hi Friends,

I was planning to restart Ready Brand Notes this week. The draft was finished and ready to go—but sending it, with everything happening around us right now, felt off. Disingenuous. Like pretending it’s business as usual when it isn’t.

While this note may look different from what I usually send, I still want to talk about identity—because identity is ultimately the work I do. And because there’s a very real thread between identity and what’s happening in Minnesota, and across the country, with ICE right now.

When I work with clients around identity, I’m always listening for what is internally sourced. The parts of them that are embodied. The parts they feel in their bones. The parts that honor their natural rhythms and core values. The parts that feel at ease, at home, not forced or performed.

Those are the magnetic nuggets. That’s what we build resonant brands from.

What we often have to move through first, though, is conditioned identity—the layers shaped by external expectations, fear, the need for safety, approval, or validation. When these layers go unnamed, they quietly run the show. And brands built from them tend to lack resonance, depth, and staying power.

This weekend, I was in Minnesota visiting my family in a suburb of Minneapolis. We were at my nephew’s hockey practice when we heard the news about Alex Pretti being shot in Minneapolis. It was a surreal feeling—to be in such a wholesome, ordinary moment while something so violent and devastating had just happened a few cities over.

What’s happening in Minnesota right now with ICE—how they’re operating and what’s being allowed—is wrong. We know this not because we were told, but because we feel it. In our bodies. To witness people being treated in ways that strip them of dignity and humanity creates immediate tension and dissonance. It doesn’t sit right. It can’t.

That friction is an internal signal. It’s what happens when we’re confronted with something that doesn’t align with who we are or what we stand for.

When we’re not anchored in an internally sourced identity, fear takes the wheel. External forces tell us what to think, who to be, what to ignore. The current administration relies on this. They want confusion. They want doubt. They want you to question what you can clearly see and feel. They want power outsourced to them.

But what I saw in Minnesota this weekend was resistance to that.

Minnesotans are showing up. Naming injustice. Protesting. Standing together in bold, brave ways. It was minus twenty degrees on Friday, and people still gathered—because this matters. Because they know the difference between right and wrong.

If you want to support Minnesota right now, here are a few ways to do that:

👉 Stand with Minnesota​

👉 Minnesota Noice

👉 ACLU of Minnesota​

And if nothing else, use your voice. Talk about what’s happening with the people in your life. Ask questions. Name what feels off.

It’s okay to change your mind. Internally sourced identities are not rigid—they’re responsive. They evolve. They rely on inner signals, not blind consistency or conformity.

I’m proud to be from Minnesota. That’s part of my identity.

With Love + Care,
Sara