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When was at her lowest, she did something that felt almost radical: she rested. She slept. She ate well. She got massages and acupuncture. And slowly, she healed. What she didn't expect was that healing would become her life's work.

It sounds simple, but for Bullard, rest had never come easily. She had spent years giving everything to everyone around her, and she had watched other women do the same. As a Marine veteran, cybersecurity vice president, and single mother, she had spent years performing at the highest levels.Ìý

And like so many high-achieving women, she had done it all while quietly running on empty.Ìý

Built to Endure

From the beginning, Bullard has never taken the easy path. At 17 years old, she enlisted in the Marine Corps. She’s always known she would have to take care of herself, and wanted to be a part of the best. Serving 4 years, she endured experiences that would shape her entire life, but that doesn’t mean they were easy.

"Being a female Marine is not all that you would think it would be cracked up to be. It's a lot of pressure."

Post service, she earned a degree in project management from the University of Phoenix, and built a career that eventually led her to the world of cybersecurity, where she now works as a business information security officer.

On paper, she is exactly the kind of woman the world holds up as a success story. But behind the credentials and the discipline was someone who, like so many veterans, was quietly carrying more than most people knew. Bullard has been open about living with PTSD, and about how her military experience shaped not just her strength, but her complicated relationship with rest and recovery. For a long time, stopping simply wasn't something she knew how to do.

It was when it began to affect her relationships that she realized things finally needed to change.

A Change Long Overdue

The toll eventually caught up with her, and it wasn’t from one single moment. It was several, arriving all at once.Ìý

Bullard was navigating a divorce when she started experiencing profound loss among friends. Women she loved who were dealing with serious illness or who passed away. Women who had spent their entire lives showing up for everyone but themselves. They were the ones who never said no, never took a sick day, never put themselves first. And one by one, they were gone.Ìý

The grief became impossible to separate from the wake-up call. She was watching a pattern play out in real time, and she recognized herself in every single one of them.

The toll eventually caught up with her. She found herself in the middle of her own mental and physical health crisis, forced to step away from work for an extended period of time. For someone who had trained as a Marine and spent years performing at the highest levels, stopping felt like failure. But it turned out to be the most important thing she ever did.

Slowly and intentionally, she started to heal through rest. It was something she had been convincing herself for a lifetime she didn’t need. And somewhere in that quiet, something unexpected took shape.

The Solution to The Pattern

That something became Stay In Society. Bullard recognized that rest had saved her, and understood that so many women around her were starving for the same thing.Ìý

Stay In Society is a luxury sleepwear brand built on the foundation that rest is not a reward but rather a right. Its model is a quarterly subscription service that delivers a curated sleep box directly to its customers. Inside, women find all the restful resources they need, including cooling luxury pajamas along with other accessories in order to completely unwind.Ìý

The cooling fabric is intentional. Bullard designed the pajamas specifically with women in mind, particularly those navigating perimenopause and the physical changes that come with it. But the product, she is quick to point out, is almost beside the point.

"I don't ever want to be known for selling pajamas. I'm selling the idea that you matter and you deserve to rest without guilt."

The name carries meaning too. Stay In Society doubles as an acronym - SIS - a nod to the sisterhood Bullard hopes to build around the brand. A community of women who collectively decide that showing up for themselves is just as important as showing up for everyone else.

A Supporting Community

Bullard didn't build Stay In Society alone. When her idea was still just a concept, she found her way to the Veterans Entrepreneurship Program. It’s an intensive business program through Oklahoma State University that gives aspiring veteran entrepreneurs the tools and skills they need to kickstart their idea.

"I felt like I just got a four-year degree in a week. You're taking 27 classes, and you have so many resources. It was just amazing."

Beyond the curriculum itself, the program gave her confidence in her business skills she couldn’t have previously fathomed. Before VEP, Bullard described feeling she was out on a limb. She was passionate about her idea, but uncertain how the world may receive it.Ìý

For someone who describes herself as a self-proclaimed introvert who has always struggled with networking, finding that kind of genuine community was everything. And it is exactly the kind of connection that she hopes Stay In Society will one day offer to the women it reaches.

The Power of Believing in Yourself

Bullard is officially launching Stay In Society this month, and the road ahead is one she is stepping into with both eyes open.

She understands the challenges ahead, with business logistics and the effort it takes to be an entrepreneur itself, but she’s navigated harder terrain than this. At the end of the day, what drives her forward is the women that’s already lost, and the ones she still has a chance to reach. Entrepreneurship is giving her that opportunity.

"Entrepreneurship is the greatest belief in yourself. The highest of highs and the lowest of lows, and everything in between."

It is a definition that could just as easily describe her life. From the front lines of the Marine Corps to the boardrooms of corporate America, Courtney Bullard has always bet on herself. Now, with Stay In Society, she is asking other women to do the same, starting with a good night of rest.