ABOUT MARIEL
I know what it feels like to outgrow your own life.
I left the UK for Australia, then Australia for America, and have lived in many cities within the US. I went from serial dater to wife and mother, from building a successful corporate career to creating thriving businesses built around my zone of genius, where the work I do is an expression of who I am.
For nearly two decades, I worked in business development and creative strategy, reaching VP level at a global creative technology company. From the outside, no one would have thought anything was wrong. I had the career, the family, the beautiful experiences, the ambition, the stability, the things people spend years working toward.
And I was grateful for all of it, which made the question even harder to admit. On paper my life looked exactly as I'd hoped it would, yet privately I kept coming back to the same quiet thought: "Is this it?"
"GRATITUDE DOESN'T CANCEL OUT LONGING."
I remember wondering whether something was wrong with me for wanting more. Was I ungrateful? Was I broken? Why did a life that looked objectively good still feel disconnected from who I really was?
.jpg)
The life that looked good on paper didn’t feel the way I thought it would.
Corporate life taught me how to perform under pressure, make difficult decisions, push through exhaustion and keep functioning no matter what was happening underneath. Those skills served me well professionally, but they also made it remarkably easy to override myself without even realizing I was doing it.
The longer you spend being rewarded for being high-achieving, the easier it becomes to override yourself without even noticing. You keep going because your life looks great on paper, people depend on you, there's so much to be grateful for, and wanting more from a life you worked hard to build can feel impossible to explain, even to yourself.
I think that’s why so many women stay in that place for longer than they mean to. The life they built is real, meaningful, and often beautiful. But eventually, there comes a point where you can no longer ignore yourself inside it.
At the same time, another part of me was becoming harder to ignore.
The part that wanted more creativity, freedom, beauty, truth, meaning, and aliveness. I wanted a life that felt inspiring to live inside, not one shaped by obligation, expectation, and versions of myself I had outgrown.
So I started building that life quietly in the background. It wasn't a dramatic leap. It was a series of small decisions that brought me back to myself. I launched Porter & Pearl, my luxury concierge company serving ultra-high-net-worth clients around the world, and began coaching women through their own transitions.
"EVENTUALLY, THE CONTRAST BECAME IMPOSSIBLE TO IGNORE."
For a while, both worlds existed side by side. The corporate executive and the version of me coming back to life.
The work I was doing outside of corporate felt expansive, creative, and deeply aligned with who I was becoming. Over time, I stopped forcing myself into a version of success that looked right on the outside but no longer felt right on the inside.
That shift changed everything.
My businesses grew, my relationships deepened, and perhaps most importantly, I started recognizing myself again. I work differently now, parent differently, and make decisions differently because I'm no longer trying to fit into a version of success that no longer fits me. I trust myself. My life reflects the woman I've become. I feel more alive, more magnetic, and more like myself than I ever have, and I want that for every woman who's quietly wondering if there's more.
This is the work I do now.
I help women reconnect with themselves after years of overriding what they know to be true, and then I help them build their own version of "This Is It."
That looks different for everyone. For some, it's the career, the relationship, the way they spend their time, or what they allow themselves to want. It's a return to the woman they'd stopped listening to, and the moment they come back to her, their whole life starts to light up.
