Fear will fkn kill you

Why didn’t you start sooner?

Unequivocally, without a doubt, 100%…

Fear of so much that it’s hard to explain, much less wrap the logical part of my brain around it considering I’m a fairly confident person.

Fear of failure.

Fear of putting myself out there.

Fear of saying something wrong, worthless or <gasp!> disagreeable.

Fear of what others think.

Fear of what I think.

Fear of not getting it right.

It wasn’t money. I had money to buy a bike, shoes and coffee.
It wasn’t time. I had time to watch netflix and scroll on social media. (Godbless Madam Secretary and all 5 of its seasons. Tea Leoni for #president2024)

It was fear. 

And the longer I didn’t take action, the more substantiated the fear became. The larger it loomed in the recesses of my mind, festering like an infection gone untreated. All of a sudden something that was a pebble and could’ve been kicked aside had grown into a boulder, and the strength needed to overcome its inertia required much more force. 

So, as cliche as it sounds, as overhyped as it is:

Start. Begin.

The thing that finally gave me the momentum (not motivation) to begin was a mind shift from “create for others” to “create for yourself”. When I thought about creating content that pleased me, with no regard for ‘how many’ or ‘how’ it was consumed by others, I felt the boulder of fear shrink. Psychologist-talk for a shift from external to internal validation. Millennial-talk for embracing “zero fucks given”.

To all my creatives and people out there not yet crushing the tiktok game… share what you have lived and share what you have to say. Experience after all, is the greatest of teachers. Whether you are 20 YO and naive or 60 YO and feel irrelevant, each of us has insight, perspective and wisdom to share. It can feel like a young gun’s world sometimes. But I’m excited for what “older” generations using today’s tools can create and share.