On Courage, Vulnerability and Doing the Damn Thing!
The question of the day is, if I’m not going to be in my own corner, who is? This question came to me as I was skiing along on a quiet trail through the woods. My first ski of the season and one of the places I do my best thinking, like a moving meditation where my mind can just do its thing.
I was reflecting on an experience I’d had that morning. A year ago, I published and launched a book, “Women, Leadership & Saving the World: Why Everything Gets Better When Women Lead” and at the beginning, I was putting myself out there a lot. The launch party, guesting on a lot of podcasts and doing all the things you’re supposed to do when you write a book. But somewhere in there I got a vulnerability hangover and pulled back. You know those vulnerability hangovers? When you put yourself out there – tell someone you love them, say what you really think, have the difficult conversation, go after what you really want, publish a book – and it’s exciting and scary, and it feels right but also like too much. But you screw up your courage and do it. And then feel the need to crawl into bed, pull up the covers and regroup.
That’s what I did with the book. I retreated to my little house in the woods and kind of pretended for a good 6 months that I didn’t write a book, and I didn’t put it out there, and maybe I’d just get on with life as it was before and leave it alone.
But back in January of 2023 when I was in the brave space of putting myself and the book out there, I did something really confronting. I researched the mailing addresses of everyone I could find who I quote or cite in the book. And I started mailing them copies of the book with a thank you card, thanking them for the inspiration, for their work, their courage, their leadership. And it was steeped in imposter syndrome for me, but I did some of it anyway. I’m talking Tarana Burke, Glennon Doyle, Brené Brown – you feeling the imposter syndrome with me now? Yeah, that’s how it was.
I did mail some of them. The least scary ones. But then I put the list and the books and envelopes away in a drawer and I avoided them. For six months. And then over the holidays this year I decided to re-read my own book, to reconnect with the messages and the sense of purpose and passion that drove me to write the damn thing in the first place. And it did reconnect me and reminded me that it was an imperfect, but good, piece of work.
This morning I opened that drawer, and I wrote the last dozen or so thank you cards and put the mailing labels on the envelopes and sent them. And I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know if any of those amazing leaders will get the books and cards, if they’ll read them, if they’ll care. And what I realized this morning is that it doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that I did the damn thing. I did what was in my control to do and sent the books. Imperfectly.
And that’s the lesson that showed up on my skis. That all I can do is get behind myself, have the courage to be vulnerable and do the damn thing. That’s it. It doesn’t really matter if Melinda Gates gets behind me if I’m not already behind myself.
I often say to women in our WLI programs that I am over here believing in you even when you’re not able to believe in yourself. And I hope it helps, to have a person over here holding the thread while someone else journeys through the labyrinth of life and leadership. But the end goal is really for each woman to have that belief in her own self. To be behind herself, so that having someone else there is a nice to have, but not a need to have.
I’m not talking about independence and going it alone. I’m talking about finding the approval you seek inside yourself. I’m talking about knowing you’re enough. I’m talking about being in your own corner, first and foremost. And I truly believe that is what allows us to be generous in giving that same support to others.
So, if you’re willing to brave the discomfort, I invite you to join me in the absolutely painful and beautiful place of courage, vulnerability and doing the damn thing. I’ll meet you there.
