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 businesses that feel far more connected to who I actually 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, my life made sense. 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 it even more confusing that something still felt unsettled underneath. On paper, my life looked good, but internally I kept finding myself asking the same quiet question: 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?
The life that looked good on paper didn’t feel the way I thought it would.
What I eventually realized was that I had spent years becoming the kind of woman who could build a beautiful life, achieve a high level of success, hold everything together, and keep moving no matter what was happening underneath. And I was rewarded for it.
I learned how to perform well under pressure, make thoughtful decisions, push through exhaustion, and continue functioning no matter how I felt.
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, because people depend on you, because there is so much to be grateful for, and because wanting more from a life you worked hard to build can feel impossible to explain.
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. 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 my life became far more connected to the things that genuinely light me up. I work differently now, I parent differently, I even travel differently. There is more spaciousness in my life, more beauty, more presence, and I'm no longer performative. I stopped trying to force myself into a version of success that looked right from the outside but no longer felt aligned internally. I trust myself and my decisions now.
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 the life that's been quietly asking for their attention. 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. What it always is, is a return to the version of themselves they'd stopped listening to.