5. Finding Romeo
Read time: 4 min
I clearly remember this moment: I'm sitting on my therapist's couch, looking at him, confused, as he tells me to sit for fifteen minutes every day. And just be. Do nothing.
At that point in my life, I couldn't even imagine what that would look like. So I told him: Fine, I'll go to the sauna.
It took me years to understand what he actually meant.
In November 2021, as a last resort to soothe a mind that felt constantly electrically charged, I flew to Indonesia. I was turning 40, and my business was everything I thought I was — my entire world, and the one I couldn't bear living in anymore.
Yet starting something new felt terrifying. Ten years of my life exchanged for work — for what?
I had no idea who I was without it.
I was staying in a beautiful, heavily underpriced hotel as the only foreign tourist. I kept asking myself what the hell I was doing on the other side of the world alone, while there were volcano eruptions, tsunami warnings and a very obvious pandemic going on.
In a little bookstore, I found Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski, where they talk about the importance of finishing the stress cycle (the actual biological process of your body) and mention a specific form of breathing as one of the most effective ways to do that.
Enjoying the silence of an empty hotel pool and the murmuring of the Indian Ocean in the background, I sat on one of the pool steps, closed my eyes, and followed the instructions: inhale for 5, hold for 5, exhale for 10, pause for 5, repeat.
And something happened — like a ghost, not sure whether to believe it was real — calmness passed through my nervous system.
That was my first attempt at meditation, or let's just call it the first time I managed to sit down and face my thoughts and emotions without the urge to run away and start doing something.
It was an empowering experience, so I decided to commit to it every day. And it has indeed changed my life.
I had to fly to the other side of the world to hear my own voice again.
Michele Gough Baril found hers in a canyon outside Los Angeles, with a horse called Romeo.
Watching the sun rise over a new world
Michele had spent close to a decade building someone else's dream at full speed.
As VP of Brand & Consumer Engagement at Smashbox Cosmetics, she helped turn it into the fastest-growing independent beauty brand in the US, which led to Estée Lauder acquiring it. She stayed on after the acquisition.
Her ambition was her only compass until she started asking herself where it was even leading. She wasn't married, had no kids, and had zero life outside of the office.
Then she met Romeo.
A retired racehorse just outside LA, who was also burned out from a demanding career on the track.
She started waking up at five in the morning to drive out to meet her new friend, take him into the hills, and watch the sun come up before heading into the office.
This new daily ritual started to crack things open and led her to question everything.
"I was slowing down and meditating, allowing myself to finally connect with this deeper part of me that I could never hear because I was always in such a rush."
When Estée Lauder offered her a position that would have set her up for life, she turned it down.
She and Romeo moved together to a friend's old dairy farm in Sonoma County, where they lived with a herd of about thirty free-roaming rescue horses. She spent her days on the land, baling hay, living in rhythm with the animals, which became "a journey back to herself." But her story doesn't end on the farm. It's where her own story began, born out of the clarity she found there.
She had spent a decade inside an industry she calls "fear-based," one that weaponizes aging, sells women the idea that turning forty is a crisis, and pushes complex ten-step routines nobody needs.
As a woman in her forties, she saw no brands that represented who she was and who she was becoming. And during a period running a branding consultancy working with female founders, she saw the pattern repeat: "They were talking about empowerment and self-care, and there was not a single empowered woman taking care of themselves."
That became her why and her mission. Not a gap in the market, but a gap between what the industry was selling and what she actually believed.
In October 2019, she came back to the beauty industry and launched Iris & Romeo, a skincare brand named after her mother and the horse.
She built it with a small team and a pace she deliberately protected. If she was going to build a brand about wellness, she was going to live it first — and that became her decision-making filter for everything. She started from what was missing in her own routine. Her hero product, Best Skin Days, does five things in one, built for women in what she calls their "power years," for the women the industry had made invisible. And she refuses to sell them fear.
And the filter worked. Today, the brand is in every Sephora door in the United States.
The iris has three petals that symbolize faith, valor, and wisdom — the qualities, Michele says, a woman needs most on her path to becoming.
P.S. While writing this, my mom sent me a photo of an iris from her garden.
How we build is how we live
And often, especially for women, how we build is driven by a version of ambition we were sold: busyness as status, busyness as self-worth, chasing titles without real meaning — all while being heavily pressured by ageism.
And the transition from corporate employee to independent founder doesn't automatically break the cycle. Without a conscious shift, it just changes who sets the terms. Your boss. Your business. Or you.
You don't need to fly to Indonesia or move to a farm. You just need to get very clear on why you're building what you're building.
Knowing what you value most — as a human, as a child, as a parent, as a friend, as an employer, as a brand — that is your real why.
Your real, real why.
The Saturday Ritual — a moment to pause
REFLECT
Why did you start your career/business, and do you still believe in it? (Your real, real why.)
REVIEW
Is what you're building still connected to who you are, and who you want to become?
REALIGN
What truly matters to you, and how much of it is actually reflected in the way you're building your life and work?
I'm curious what came up for you. If you feel like sharing, email me. I read every email.
I'm working on something around this right now, a framework to help you get crystal clear on what truly matters to you, so you always know your why.
If you'd like to be part of it, you can join the waitlist by filling out a one-minute quiz. It helps me make sure I'm creating something that is truly useful for you.
See you next Saturday,
— Ëmi Antal
Founder of atëmier
Connect on LinkedIn | Work with me 1:1
