On being seen.
“If you’re not being criticized, you’re probably not doing anything exceptional.”
There’s a very specific kind of fear that comes when you put yourself out there. A tightness in your chest. A quickening of your pulse. A heat rising up the back of your neck. A sinking feeling in your stomach that whispers, “What will people say about me?”
It’s the fear of being judged. The fear of someone you once knew rolling their eyes behind your back. The fear that someone will call you unqualified, unworthy, or say you are foolish for even trying.
When we were just getting started with That Clean Life, I heard through the grapevine that someone from my past, someone I hadn’t thought about in years, was making fun of what we were building. Saying I wasn’t qualified. Saying it wouldn’t work. Saying it was silly.
It stung.
Not because I believed them, but because deep down, I had my own fears whispering the same thing. Their words just echoed what I was already battling internally. Maybe I wasn’t qualified. Maybe it wouldn’t work. Maybe it was silly.
But I kept going. I moved through it. I didn’t let their opinions decide my future. And thank goodness for that, because if I had listened, everything that came after would have never happened.
You will never know if you don’t try. You’ll never know what you’re capable of, the impact you could have made, how good it could have gotten.
It’s not just about putting your work out there. It’s also about making big, scary life decisions. The ones no one else will understand. Like leaving your secure job with great benefits to take a risk on something new, moving to a new place, or making a change when it feels safer to stay the same.
Those decisions come with their own kind of judgment. Their own whispers behind your back. And it takes a different kind of courage to stand firm anyway, to trust that your future is bigger than their opinions. Along the way, you realize something else too. That the people who do understand, who believe in you even when the outcome is uncertain, are rare and precious. Hold them even closer.
I talk to so many inspiring entrepreneurs who are capable of building something great, creating something beautiful, doing something important… yet they never do. Not because they can’t, but because they’re scared to be seen making the leap.
What a shame.
The world doesn’t need more critics. It needs more builders, more people willing to be bad at something before they get good, more people willing to risk being misunderstood for a while if it means living a true life.
If you feel scared, it doesn’t mean you’re not ready. It means you’re doing something brave.
Keep going.
We need what you’re building.