02/02/2026
Rachel Hollis built an empire telling women to "wash their faces," work harder, and take control of their lives. She had the perfect marriage, the perfect family, the thriving business, the Instagram-perfect life that millions of women aspired to. Then her husband asked for a divorce. And everything she'd built her brand on—the marriage, the partnership she'd written books about, the life she'd held up as proof that hustle and positivity could create perfection—shattered. "Didn't See That Coming" is Rachel's reckoning with the fact that sometimes life punches you in the face regardless of how hard you worked, how positive you stayed, or how perfectly you performed.
This book is messy, raw, and completely different from Rachel's previous work. She's not the confident guru telling you how to fix your life—she's a woman falling apart in real-time, trying to figure out how to survive when the narrative she built her entire identity around explodes. Some people hated this book, felt betrayed that she didn't have all the answers. I found it brave. Because the hardest thing any self-help author can do is admit: I don't know. I'm lost. Everything I told you might have been wrong. The advice I gave doesn't work when life really breaks you. And I'm just as scared and confused as everyone else.
Here are seven truths from this vulnerable, uncomfortable book about surviving what you didn't see coming:
1. You Can Do Everything "Right" and Still Lose—And That's Terrifying
Rachel thought she'd figured it out. Work on your marriage. Communicate. Prioritize your relationship. She did all of it. Wrote about it. Taught it. And her husband still wanted out. The lesson that destroyed her (and me reading it): sometimes you do everything right and still lose. Your partner still leaves. The business still fails. The diagnosis still comes. Hard work and positive thinking don't make you immune to devastation. This is the truth no self-help book wants to admit because it undermines the entire premise that you control your outcomes. You don't. Not always. And accepting that is both liberating and terrifying.
2. Your Identity Can't Be Built on Someone Else—Even Your Spouse
Rachel's identity was wrapped up in being "Dave Hollis's wife," in their partnership, their brand, their story. When he left, she didn't just lose a marriage—she lost herself. She had to figure out who Rachel was outside of "Rachel and Dave." This gutted me because I've done this—built my identity around a relationship, made "we" more important than "I," then had no idea who I was when the "we" ended. If your identity depends on another person staying, you're building on sand. You need to know who you are alone before you can be part of a couple. Otherwise, you're not in a relationship—you're in an identity crisis waiting to happen.
3. Grief Doesn't Care About Your Brand or Your Image
Rachel had built a brand on being in control, having answers, radiating positivity. Then grief came and she couldn't control it, had no answers for it, and couldn't positive-think her way through it. She describes crying in public, falling apart in meetings, barely functioning. Her brand said "girl, wash your face and get to work." Her reality said "I can't get out of bed." The bravery here is admitting the gap—that the polished version she sold wasn't the full truth. Grief doesn't care about your image. It doesn't care that you're supposed to be strong. It breaks you anyway. And pretending it doesn't just makes you a liar.
4. The Narrative You Sold Yourself Might Be the One Keeping You Stuck
Rachel believed in the fairy tale: soulmates, forever love, the one perfect person. When that narrative shattered, she had to rebuild her entire worldview. Maybe soulmates aren't real. Maybe love isn't always enough. Maybe "forever" is a hope, not a guarantee. This is hard because we're all attached to our narratives—the stories we tell ourselves about how life works. When reality contradicts the story, we have to choose: keep forcing reality into the narrative, or let the narrative go and build a new one. Rachel chose the latter. It's painful. But it's also freedom from a story that was never true.
5. You're Allowed to Grieve What You Thought Your Life Would Be
Rachel grieved the future she'd planned—growing old with Dave, co-parenting as a team, building their empire together. None of that was happening. The life she'd imagined was dead. And she had to mourn it before she could build something new. This permission—to grieve the future you lost, not just the past—changed how I think about disappointment. When your life doesn't go as planned, you're not just dealing with present pain. You're grieving the entire future you built in your imagination. That future deserves mourning, even though it never existed. You're allowed to be sad about what won't be, not just what was.
6. Asking for Help Isn't Weakness—It's Survival
Pre-divorce Rachel preached self-sufficiency: you don't need anyone, you've got this, be your own hero. Post-divorce Rachel admits: I couldn't have survived this alone. She needed therapy, friends, family, help with her kids, someone to literally make sure she ate. The old Rachel would have called this weakness. The new Rachel calls it survival. I'm still learning this—that needing people doesn't make you pathetic, that asking for help doesn't make you a burden, that you don't get bonus points for suffering alone. The strongest thing you can do when you're drowning is grab the hand reaching toward you.
7. Starting Over at 40 (Or Any Age) Isn't Failure—It's Just Life
Rachel had to rebuild her entire life at 38—new identity, new home, new future, new understanding of herself. She thought she was done with the "figuring out who I am" phase. Turns out, you're never done. Life keeps breaking you open and demanding you grow in ways you didn't plan for. Starting over isn't failure. It's not evidence you did something wrong. It's just what happens when life doesn't follow your script. The fact that you have to reinvent yourself at 40, or 50, or 60 doesn't mean you failed the first time. It means you're brave enough to keep growing instead of staying in a life that no longer fits.
"Didn't See That Coming" is Rachel Hollis at her most human—stripped of the glossy confidence, admitting she doesn't have it figured out, confessing that the life she sold as aspirational was actually falling apart behind the scenes. Some people can't forgive her for this. They feel betrayed that she wasn't perfect, that her marriage wasn't , that her advice didn't save her from devastation. I think that's the wrong response. The bravest thing she did was stop performing perfection and start telling the truth: life breaks everyone eventually, and all the hustle and positivity in the world won't prevent it. What matters is what you do when the life you built crumbles.
Do you hide and keep performing strength? Or do you admit you're shattered and start rebuilding from the pieces? Rachel chose honesty. And yes, it's messy and imperfect and sometimes contradicts everything she said before. But that's what growth looks like. That's what surviving the unsurvivable looks like. Read this book not for answers—Rachel doesn't have them. Read it for companionship in the devastation, for permission to fall apart when life doesn't go as planned, for the reminder that starting over isn't failure. It's just being human in a world that keeps demanding we grow.