Today I’m Celebrating Someone Else’s Success

Morning! Today I'm celebrating someone else's success. My friend Mark J. Silverman just released his first solo-book (he was one of the co-authors of my recent publication, Unconventional Wisdom). I met Mark at Conferences we'd go to. At one in particular he came up to me and very excitedly (because Mark is always excited about something), he said "Stacy, someday it's my goal to write an article in your magazine."

I looked at him and replied, "Okay, our deadline is on the 15th, here's your topic. Email your article, photo and bio to me by then."

He sputtered and said "Wait, just like that. I spoke my dream out loud and it's just, okay?"

"Yes, just like that".

We went home and he proceeded to have a bit of an attack. I can't write. I'm a fraud. This is horrible. I'm so sorry you said yes because I know this isn't going to be good enough to publish. It's okay if you don't include it because I know it's bad.

So I told him a story. A story about how every month I put off writing my article until the very last second before publication. And every month without fail, I'd send my friend Allison a message that said something like 'this month's article sucks but I have to hit publish because it's due.

And how every month I'd receive messages from people about how much my article impacted them. And how at that conference we were at together people came up to me so excited to meet me and tell me how much my writing means to them, how I write straight into their soul.

I said, "Mark, every single month I write the biggest piece of shit and somehow I manage to change the world".

He wrote that first article. And then another. And then I invited him to co-Author Unconventional Wisdom. And today he launched his own book.

All while chanting our mantra "Write the biggest piece of shit and change the world". He didn't think he could do it. He had stories around why he couldn't. But he did it anyhow.

If you didn't worry about the judgement or how you were perceived, what would you be doing? Or what would you be doing MORE of? How can you change the world without being ready?