Viewer Discretion Advised.
This season contains unresolved tension, inconvenient truths, questionable decisions made with good intentions, and a narrator who is self-aware enough to know better, yet keeps yappin’ anyway.
. . .
You know what? 2026 is going to be filled with more failures than 2025, and I think that’s a beautiful thought; the mistakes— all of it. Because even when something isn’t technically a mistake, maybe it’s just an unfortunate hurdle dropped directly into your lane, we still have to adjust. We learn how to jump, how to slow down, how to change lanes without wrecking the car entirely. Those lessons don’t disappear. They settle somewhere permanent, lodged into the brain like muscle memory for survival.
That’s why I keep saying ‘mistakes’ on purpose. Because trying matters. Failing matters. Failing with glory matters. Because a failure isn’t a failure, it’s effort. And effort costs something. It takes energy, courage, ego, and time. It takes a willingness to look stupid in public. It takes actual movement.
I know I’m from the generation of participation medals. Everyone gets a ribbon, everyone gets a pat on the back. I truly hated them as a kid. I was competitive and thought participation medals were society’s quiet downgrade, a collective agreement to stop demanding excellence. But the older I get, the more I realize it wasn’t society that downgraded. It was— effort. Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, we stop trying as hard and call it realism. Those stupid medals taught us something we forgot how to do: how to show up and still be proud of ourselves even when we didn’t win, even when we make mistakes and score for the wrong team.
So for 2026, I didn’t make any resolutions. I’m a stickler about that. Any real resolution should survive the moment it’s born. It should have the strength, desire, and discipline to exist without a New Year’s permission. Maybe I’m not a stickler, and I just want my participation medal to be extra shiny this year?
Either way, people keep asking me what my resolution is, and every time I answer the same way. “I’m not sure. But I’d love to know yours?”
A few particularly audacious people suggested that going to the gym should be mine. These people need glasses and a reality check. I have abs, and I did three pull-ups at the club over the weekend. Puh-lease be serious.
That said, I did go to the gym this week.
Just not to work out, but as a stand-in model for a friend.
Thursday looked like writing, dog park, Starbucks—obviously. It also looked like me yelling at Shadow to be a gentleman and stop licking his private parts. Ugh. Men.
I also stayed awake until eight in the morning because I physically cannot sleep until an issue is asleep, and the issue that night was a brand redesign that needed immediate intervention. The business owner was making decisions, bad ones, my advice was required, and cleanup was urgent.
Now, ugh, ok, I know I spent the last half of 2025 swearing off my business and tech career. I’ve been intentionally quiet about my advisory background because I want to stay small. I want to write. I want to just be Sheridan, who loves mini skirts and a manic pixie attitude, and pretending she doesn’t know how a backend system works. But unfortunately, if I see a problem—a hole, a missing link in a strategy, a broken sequence in a business or project—I have to solve it, or I won’t sleep. So despite my best efforts, I haven’t been able to keep my mouth shut. People keep discovering my former career inside my new one, because once I solve the problem I do know how to solve, it unlocks the beast that becomes obsessed with all the problems she doesn’t yet understand.
Am I a businesswoman or a scientist? I’m not sure. I try to bite my tongue. I try to leave the room. I try to mind my business. But I care easily and deeply, and if there’s a clear path forward sitting right in front of me, I can’t pretend I don’t see it!
Somehow, with this diva strutting around in jeans and stiletto boots—Atlanta is not emotionally prepared for Sheridan in a mini-skirt yet—I’ve wiggled myself into yet another opportunity to sit as an owner in a few different companies. Broken record, but I’ve been trying to leave my business career behind because frankly, I’m heartbroken by it. Still, maybe walking in as a creative and closing the door behind me with a business brain isn’t the worst idea I’ve ever had.
What I want more than anything is to be completely and unapologetically myself. In my career over the last decade, I couldn’t be. I trained my dialect. I trained my wardrobe. I trained my mannerisms. I even trained how I laughed. The first thing I was ever made fun of for was my clothing. I was a strange kid. STRANGE. I remember one Minnesota winter showing up to school in a sundress and rain boots. My teacher called me to her desk, worried about frostbite more than fashion, and asked what I was thinking.
“Mrs. Carlson, I just feel like a storm cloud in the middle of sunshine today,” I told her.
That’s always been me. It’s why I fell into branding, psychology, and fashion. I wanted my clothes to speak before I could. Even now, as I am able to articulate exactly who I am, that doesn’t mean I want to shut that part off. Sometimes I feel like Audrey Hepburn. Sometimes Paris Hilton. Sometimes, a terrifying Slavic woman who will probably murder you in your sleep. It’s a balance.
Friday, I spoke with my good friend and business lawyer. I don’t know what I’m going to do yet—what companies, what my involvement looks like, or if I even want it. What pulls me in is the idea of paychecks I can turn around and give back with. That, and buying more expensive shoes. As a woman with a taste for wealth, an unwillingness to give sugar to a sugar daddy, and biologically born to a kind middle-class man, I unfortunately must work for my money.
Saturday was more work—coding, automation, writing—and then UFC!!!! BLOOD!! GORE! Incredible fights! Truly. And I hesitate to say this because I’m supposed to champion women’s sports, but once the women fighters came on, my god. Snooze fest. Were you afraid to punch each other? That is literally your only job. The men brought gore, heart, war, freaking blood. The women salsa-danced with enough room for Jesus to walk between them all the way to the bell.
I would have put my money on Paddy Daddy, and thank God I didn’t.
Sunday, I wrote again. Worked on scripts. Wandered from coffee shop to coffee shop. Thought seriously about reentering the business world and in what capacity. Then, Monday was industry night. I went out with all the local industry hotties. I was just a hottie, not an industry hottie, if you were wondering. Tuesday, I tried to figure out what to say to you—which of my million thoughts were actually worth sharing, which ones made me look sane or crazy, and when that has ever mattered.
Today—Wednesday—I had calls with my closest, most trusted colleagues. I solidified advisors and mentors for every step of this transition, including the very important transition of not living in someone else’s house. And can I pause to stress that I’ve been curating outfits from a single suitcase? All of my things (my shoes, my fur, my books, and my volumptuous attitude because my personality is the only fat I have) are locked nine hours away. And yet, have you seen me repeat an outfit? No. You haven’t. And if you did— No—you didn’t.
I’ve made slight progress since last week on securing a location for my short film. Everything else is set. I just need the place, I’m close. I just need a string pulled!
While writing scripts, networking in Atlanta, and deciding how, when, and if to reenter my business career(with my attitude mandatory this time), I’m also putting together a digital, audio, and hardcover book of the entire first season of What Sheridan Said. I’ve updated my website, listed an old painting for sale as a print (just in time for Valentine’s Day, hehe).
The failures, the effort, the business I keep tripping back into, the writing I refuse to stop doing, the version of myself I’m finally letting exist without sanding her down, I’m not exactly sure what it’s all adding up to. I just know I’m going to always try, on purpose, and with more honesty than I used to allow myself. If nothing else, this year already feels like a year where effort counts for something, even when the outcome is unclear— maybe, especially then.
Thank you for being here while I figure it out in real time, suitcase outfits, bad sleep habits, opinions, sassy attitude, and all. I’ll see you next Wednesday.
Participation medal or not, keep showing up.
xo,
Sheridan Guerrette
WhatSheridanSaid.com
Life Behind the Artist: Wed at 9/8C
