My friend Elisabeth and I have a weekly podcast about publishing, running, dogs, and whatever else is on our minds that day appropriately called Thinking Out Loud. I had to do some convincing her to actually podcast with me and as we did our weekly podcast, I still had to convince her at times not to go and retreat under her desk because it’s scary putting your words out there for people to hear and read. What if someone doesn’t like something you’ve said? What if you say something wrong (I do this all the time on our podcast, just listen to this week’s episode!)? What if no one listens?
But there’s also something powerful and mystical about speaking into the air. You don’t know who will hear your conversation. You don’t know if your experience will connect and help someone else who is trying to start their own business, trying to write a book, or simply trying to discover they are not alone. You don’t know, but you speak into the air and hope those words, that conversation, will land where it needs to land.
And you do this again and again, week after week, to remind yourself that you are not alone and that there’s someone else out there who is working just as hard as you are to create and to offer something to the world. Something that might inspire. Something that might challenge. Something that might just change how people see each other.
You have no idea if it will work, but you still keep speaking into the air, hoping it will.