Megan Tamte remembers the jeans. Not because they were particularly extraordinary, but because they represented something unattainable. It was a pair of Esprit jeans that her fifth-grade self couldn’t yet afford. So, she got creative, selling things and starting little ventures to earn money so the coveted denim could eventually be hers. As children do, she was just following what delighted her. Adults, on the other hand, can spend years trying to recover these truths we understood intuitively as kids. And Megan had unknowingly discovered her passion for both business and beautiful things.
This memory resurfaced during my conversation with Megan for my Rise to More podcast. It was something she had recently been mulling over: Who was she before her career, marriage and children — before the expectations of adulthood?
It’s an unexpected question from someone whose life has been defined, at least publicly, by building EVEREVE, one of the country’s most successful fashion retailers. There’s often an assumption that an entrepreneur spends their life evolving into someone they are not yet, someone new. Listening to Megan, I wondered if maybe the most important work of adulthood is just the opposite. Maybe we spend decades unraveling the noise around us to remember who we are and come back to someone we knew all along.
Photography provided by EVEREVE
Every great startup story focuses on the company. We share the numbers, turning points and growth, assuming that success is a straightforward, replicable strategy. EVEREVE has certainly achieved incredible success, but it took more than the right business plan. This story began with a mom frustrated by impersonal and cold shopping experiences after having children. Megan envisioned something different: A place where women could feel safe and more confident after leaving the store — a vision that became EVEREVE.
Sitting across from Megan, I was less interested in the accomplishments of the business than the woman who managed to build it without letting it consume her. The company, the work and the development can be all-consuming and, sometimes, we forget to separate our identity from the thing we invest decades in creating. She spoke honestly about that crossroads. Those early years called for resilience, embracing ambiguity, trying new tactics and a deep faith that her idea would work. When EVEREVE started to flourish, it came with more certainty and security, but Megan realized she didn’t know who she was without a struggle.
This is something founders rarely talk about publicly, though I see it often with my clients: Achievement can feel disorienting, sometimes more than failure. Both require us to ask a profound question: Who am I now? Megan found answers in revisiting simple practices that she had used to ground herself when she was starting the business.
When EVEREVE was just a few local stores, she would handwrite notes to customers. Guided by a deep sense of gratitude, she wanted them to feel seen. As the company grew, this became impossible to maintain. In the midst of success, we can forget about the things that got us there. As life becomes busier and more demanding, we no longer make the time for the practices that once mattered so much — ones that defined the person who created the company. Megan loved that ritual of expressing her gratitude with handwritten notes, so she started doing it with her staff.
What I know for sure: Success requires anchoring and practices that connect to the self as much as it requires vision. In a sea of chaos, something powerful happens when we silence the noise and listen to the whispers of our own soul — something I write about extensively in my book Healer in Heels. In it, I also talk about taking intentional time to visualize and pray, two ingredients that can create such creative energy.
So, it’s no surprise Megan begins each day in reflection before diving into the demands of leading a national company. She pours herself a cup of coffee, journals about what she’s grateful for and what’s heavy on her heart, and then prays for people in her life who need it. The modern mythology of success and leadership focuses on the celebration of success and relentless productivity, but often ignores the importance of inner coherence and alignment. As Megan described her quiet morning hours, I knew that stillness was precisely the thing that allows her to lead without becoming captive to ambition and the ego around it.
Maybe this is why EVEREVE stands apart. In other stores you will certainly find beautiful items, but EVEREVE offers a sanctuary for women to feel comfortable and confident in a stage of life where it’s difficult to embody those feelings. Such a vision could only come from someone who understands that self-assurance is not something we can purchase. I think again about that little girl finding ways to buy an ordinary pair of jeans. She had no idea that her curiosity and creativity was a premonition to the big and fulfilling life she would lead. We spend so much of adulthood trying to create a sense of purpose to guide us, and Megan’s story captures something so simple and hopeful for us all: The clues may have been there all along.
