Retreat Recap: Day Three // From the Notebook of Natasha Murphy

CIA TO CEO: Espionage to Entrepreneurship

Emily Hikade, Founder of Petite Plume

Listening to Emily speak, there was this intensity you couldn’t miss. Her background as a CIA operative working undercover in conflict zones is wild on its own, but what really got me was how straightforward she was about it all — no exaggeration, no romanticizing it. Just the actual story and what she learned from it.

The part that landed hardest was when she talked about almost dying in a plane crash over the Indian Ocean during an assignment. She said everything shifted when she thought about her sons growing up without her. She didn’t frame it like some dramatic movie moment — it was just a turning point. A real decision about who she’d been versus who she wanted to be.

What stuck with me wasn’t about balance or juggling everything. It was about picking what actually matters and committing to it without making excuses.

Key Takeaways

1. Build a brand, not a product. Companies that win do it because their identity and purpose drive everything — not the number of SKUs or how they stack up against competitors.
2. Growth compounds quietly. Speed without direction just burns money. Real empires get built by staying consistent and disciplined over time.
3. Be profitable and protect your time. Time is literally the only resource you can’t get back. Guard it and everything else — your decisions, your boundaries, your clarity — gets better.
4. Hire the right people and put them in the right spots. When you do, the whole operation moves faster and you work less hard, not harder.
5. Relationships matter more than data. Doors open in rooms, not in spreadsheets. Opportunity lives where people actually know you and trust you.
6. Listen constantly. Pay attention to what your customers are saying, what your partners need, what’s happening in the market. That’s where you figure out what to build next.
7. You need some combination of risk tolerance, optimism, and discipline to make it as a founder. Most people don’t start until they feel ready. You have to start before that.
8. Get paid upfront. It protects your business, it sets expectations, and it makes people take you seriously.
9. Discomfort is part of the deal. The person you need to become to grow is usually someone you can’t imagine being yet. That gap is uncomfortable. That’s the point.
10. Your network is real capital. Who you know directly changes what’s possible for you. Build those relationships like your business depends on it — because it does.

Recommended Books:
Grit, Traction, Million Dollar Women, The Mom Inventor’s Handbook

Memorable Quotes:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” — Mark Twain

“To the women who came before me, I see you and I am grateful. To the women who are beside me, thank you, I stand with you.To the women who will come after me, thank you — I fight for you.”