Just over a year ago, WOTwithTash came to me in the car on the way to work.
No clean explanation for what it was going to become. Just a phrase that landed so clearly I could not ignore it.
WOTwithTash.
My first thought was, “That’s a podcast.”
I was convinced.
In my mind, I could already picture the conversations. Women. Technology. Real stories. Honest reflections. Career moments. Leadership lessons. The things we often talk about after the meeting, in the car, over coffee, or in the quiet moments where the polished version finally comes off.
So I carried it as a podcast idea for a while. A good idea, I thought. A clear idea. Nice and tidy.
Naturally, it did not stay tidy.
Over the past year, it has slowly shown me it was never just one thing. Every time I tried to place it in a neat little box, it stretched somewhere else.
At first, that frustrated me.
I wanted to know what I was building. I wanted language for it. I wanted to explain it without sounding like I had cooked up a vague little passion project in my head and accidentally let it loose on the internet.
Which, to be fair, is partly what happened.
The more I sat with it, though, the more I realised I was not meant to force WOTwithTash into shape too quickly.
Some ideas need time to show you what they are.
When I gave it space, it became a conversation: a way of exploring leadership, confidence, clarity, identity, ambition, energy, and the very human experience of being a Woman of Tech.
That phrase matters to me.
Women of Tech.
It feels expansive.
It holds the women shaped by technology, working around technology, leading through technology, selling it, building it, enabling it, questioning it, translating it, humanising it, and occasionally wondering why the tech is doing that thing again.
More than that, it leaves room for the rest of who we are.
Technology may be part of what we do, but it is not all of who we are.
We are leaders, builders, sellers, mentors, problem-solvers, overthinkers, adventurers, question-askers, boundary-setters, and occasionally women sitting in a car wondering whether the random idea that just arrived is either genius or absolute nonsense.
Sometimes both. Depends on the day.
As I started sharing more, I noticed the same themes coming through.
Women who were capable, but tired.
Successful, but quietly questioning what came next.
Sitting at the table, but still learning how to be there without abandoning themselves.
Not lost, exactly.
More like becoming.
That word has stayed close to this whole journey.
Yes, it sounds nice on a graphic, and I do love a good graphic.
More importantly, it felt true.
The idea has been taking shape at the same time I have been finding my own shape through it.
LinkedIn helped me trust my voice.
WOT WATT taught me the difference between a quote and an energy transfer.
Talk to Tash became the softer first step.
The website forced me to get clearer about what I actually offer.
Clarity Sessions gave the work a place to land with real people.
HIKEwithTash arrived in the middle of the Queen Charlotte Track.
And now WOT Journal is the place to hold the longer reflections, the ones too big for a caption and too personal for a generic blog.
None of that was obvious at the beginning.
Honestly, I am glad it was not.
Had I tried to build the whole thing from day one, I probably would have over-polished it, over-explained it, or made it sound far more impressive than it needed to be.
And that would have missed the point.
This was never meant to be another polished corner of the internet telling women how to become more impressive.
Women of Tech are already impressive.
The deeper question is whether we feel connected to ourselves while we are doing all the impressive things.
That is the part I care about.
The part underneath the title, underneath “I’m good, just busy,” underneath the confident LinkedIn update.
The part that wonders whether success is supposed to feel this heavy sometimes.
Over the past year, I have had to face that in myself too.
I have questioned whether my voice is too unpolished.
Too honest.
Too immature.
Not “leaderly” enough.
Whatever that means.
There have been plenty of moments where I have wondered what the LinkedIn community would think, what people in my professional world would think, whether I was making myself too visible, or whether I should smooth the edges a little more.
Each time, I have come back to the same place.
What they see is what they get.
I cannot build a space about voice by abandoning my own.
That would be ridiculous.
And, frankly, exhausting.
The more I posted, the more I learned that authenticity is not the absence of discomfort. It is choosing not to let the discomfort make you false.
That has shaped this work more than any strategy document could.
WOT WATT came from that same place.
A small piece of light. A sentence. A reflection. A spark passed on.
My hope is that, over time, WOT WATT becomes more than something I create. A shared weekly transfer of energy between Women of Tech.
Clarity Sessions came from another part of the same truth.
I kept seeing how powerful it can be when someone finally has space to say the thing out loud.
The real version.
The slightly messy version.
Sometimes clarity starts there.
That is the kind of work this space is here for.
A place for Women of Tech to find perspective, clarity, confidence, and energy without having to become someone else in the process.
That is why this first WOT Journal entry needed to be the origin story.
Before I write about success feeling strange, confidence, leadership, the honest middle, or what it means to become, it feels right to start here.
With the why.
The car.
The phrase.
The podcast that was not really a podcast.
The past year of letting an idea find its shape.
This journal is not a blog in the traditional sense.
I am not here to churn out content for the sake of looking active.
That would annoy me, and probably you too.
WOT Journal is where I will share what I am learning as I build this. The reflections behind the WATTS. The leadership lessons that keep following me home. The questions I am sitting with. The things that feel too meaningful to leave in a notebook, but too human to turn into a corporate article.
A little peek into my world.
And maybe, sometimes, into your own.
Some pieces will be practical. Others will be personal. Most will probably start a little messy before they find their shape.
That feels right.
WOTwithTash did too.
If there is a hope behind all of this, it is simple.
I want another Woman of Tech to read something here and feel a little less alone in whatever she is carrying.
A little clearer.
A little braver.
A little more connected to what she already knows.
WOTwithTash did not become what I first thought it would be.
Thank goodness.
That is the invitation I want to keep following: pay attention to the thing that keeps nudging, give it room, and let it become.
