Why I Ugly-Cried Through 70% of Moana (And What It Taught Me About Building a Business)

Girl, Why Not You?

Girl, Why Not You?
Why I Ugly-Cried Through 70% of Moana (And What It Taught Me About Building a Business)
Aug 04, 2026 Season 1 Episode 25
Jennie Blackwood

I took my three-and-a-half-year-old to see Moana expecting popcorn, candy, and a cute little mom-son afternoon. Instead I sat in a dark theater and ugly-cried through about 70% of it. Apparently, I was not ok... Ha!

Because what I saw on that screen wasn't an island adventure. It was the entire journey of being a female entrepreneur, laid out scene by scene — and nobody warned me it was coming.

In this episode I break down why Moana is secretly the most entrepreneurial movie Disney has ever made:

  • The ocean calling her — that whisper you hear folding laundry at 2am that says there's more. Mine showed up while I was standing in my kitchen, eight months pregnant, after the rug got pulled out from under my family.
  • "No one goes beyond the reef" — why the people who love you most will hand you their fear disguised as protection, and why their reef is not your boundary.
  • Grandma Tala — every woman building something needs one person dancing on the shoreline saying go. If you don't have one, I'll be her.
  • The storms and the crashes — my first year was me getting rocked by every wave. Wrong pricing. Flopped marketing. Events that went sideways. She stays on the boat. That's the whole game.
  • "Just choose someone else" — the scene that broke me, because I've sat on my couch and said those exact words.
  • "Do you know who you are?" — the single question that separates the women who build empires from the women who almost did.
  • Walking toward the fire — how many of us have turned our pain into walls and become our own version of Te Kā.


I started with a toddler at home, a baby on the way, and served my first event three days before giving birth. It was messy. It was scared. It happened anyway.

So here's your Moana challenge: listen to the whisper. Sail past the reef. Stay on the boat. Pick the heart back up. Walk toward the fire — because the most beautiful version of your life is on the other side of it.

Girl, why not you?

WEBSITE: www.girlwhynotyou.com

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