The build I wish I'd started sooner

Twenty years of strategic communications work, a business I built in the messy middle, and a paid subscription for the people doing the same.

I’ve spent twenty years in strategic communications, working inside newsrooms, nonprofits, and mission-driven organizations, and consulting for clients like Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Ohio State University, OhioX, and Forbes Health and Wellness. I was good at the work. I was also paying attention to what was missing.

In 2023 I left to build Erin Gregory Creative full time.

What I built is a retainer-based practice that serves my life instead of consuming it. It lets me work with mission-driven organizations and purpose-led entrepreneurs, write the books I’ve been carrying around for years, host a podcast, raise three daughters, and stay present for all of it. It took a decade of preparation I didn’t know I was doing, and it got built slowly, in stages, with three small kids and no clean runway.

This Substack is where I share the practices, the reflective work, and the brand and communications expertise that built it. The free essays are the thinking. The paid tier is the structure.

What you’ll find here

Building a Meaningful Practice is the paid tier. It’s the tactical companion to The Self-Led Life, designed to move you from decision to build. Paid members get monthly practices, video lessons, and reflective prompts, plus monthly office hours and weekly prompt threads with a community of people building alongside you. The work I’m doing inside my own practice and with my clients is the proof of concept. Paid members get to see how it actually gets built, and use the same tools to build their own.

Free subscribers get the thinking. Paid members get the structure, tools, and practices to make it real.

The Self-Led Life is the free essay series. Personal stories, observations from coaching and consulting work, and the reflections I work through in real time.

Notes from the Messy Middle is the podcast. Conversations with mission-driven leaders, entrepreneurs, and caregivers willing to be honest about the challenges and validations that come with building something authentic. New episodes monthly.

Living on Purpose is my forthcoming memoir and the book where the full Self-Led Life framework and workbook lives. Own Every Minute, co-authored, is the story of Mark and Tiffany Baker, a couple who walked away from the conventional path and built a life entirely on their own terms.

A few things about me

I live in Columbus, Ohio with my three daughters. I serve as Vice Chair of the Delaware Community Center YMCA Advisory Board and on the Columbus Young Professionals advisory board. I started freelancing in 2013, the same year my oldest was born, and took the business full time a decade later. The years in between are what this whole practice is built on.

If you’re done living in segments and ready to start building forward, subscribe. And if you know someone in their own messy middle, send this to them. That’s how this grows.

Start here

If you’re new, these posts give you the fullest picture of what this is about:

How I Lost Myself in Motherhood and Found Myself Again. The full McKinley story. Where the identity loss started and how running, community, and one director who believed in me before I did brought me back.

On Certifications and Closing Gaps. The formal language and theoretical grounding behind the Self-Led Life framework, and why the research validates what lived experience already taught me.

The Mess Has to Be Visible. Most people wait for motivation. I stopped waiting a long time ago, and built the conditions to keep moving anyway.

If you're done living in segments and ready to start building forward, subscribe. Personal essays when something is worth saying, monthly podcast episodes, and structured monthly practices for paid subscribers building something of their own.

And if you know someone in their own messy middle, send this to them. That’s how this grows.

Not ready to upgrade?

If you want a starting point, the free assessment surfaces where you are right now across talents, interests, and values, and it gives you something concrete to work from. It’s the same first step paid members take when they join.