The biggest thing that prevented me from starting my business and my channel was that I only saw people when they were at their peak. I only saw people after they’ve been doing something for 20 years and they’ve perfected it. They have huge budgets that allow them to do amazing marketing, great sales. And I was like, well, I could never do this. Never.

But I knew that having a creative outlet was essential to my complete and utter happiness. I knew I needed to take action be truly free.

And that’s what paralyzed me. But I never realized that those people, at one point in time, took a first step that is just the same as mine (or it could have even been worse). That’s what I want you to realize.

And I’ve heard it before. Like, “everything begins with a single step,” blah, blah, blah. But I was thinking, but this doesn’t apply to business, marketing, to art. There’s just talented people who are born that way, and then there’s me.

To prove my point, I challenge you to scroll back to some of your favorite YouTubers’ or artists’ history and go to one of their first videos. Two of my favorite are Browney, a fitness influencer, and Hope Scope, who reviews athletic wear and other clothes. Scroll back to the beginning of their or your favorites’ history and see how their videos were. Browney when he first started he was 15 or even younger. It’s probably videos that his friends would have made fun of him for. So it’s all about being willing to look silly, willing to have your friends and family see your creations, see your truth, see your ideas.

I mean, that’s it. You just have to be willing for the world to see who you truly are, because that’s what it comes down to. To be truly happy, we need to be fully expressed. But our biggest fear is that we will be shunned, rejected, crucified, punished for who we truly are. So we shy away.

We hide that part of ourselves. We pretend we’re somewhere we’re not. We put on masks. We take jobs that aren’t us.

We just do things that are not aligned with our true soul purpose, to fit into a box we think people want us to be in. So if you are willing to be silly, to do what your heart desires, regardless of what people will think, you can have it all.

And the thing about it, one, you will never be not terrified. I don’t want to say you’ll “never be ready,” because I think a lot of people are ready, but whne it comes to actually doing it, it feels like death. So they don’t do it. Because a part of you is dying. All old, outdated part that needs to be replaced with something greater. So think of it as the hardest thing you’re ever going to do. To die before you actually die.

But after that, nothing will ever be as hard.

So it seems to you like, oh, this is so fucking difficult. If I have to do this, how is the rest of my life gonna be like? Do I have to keep doing this over and over again? Even though you’re going to have to do things that are scary, this is the scariest thing you’re going to have to do. So, for example, if you’re an author, putting out that first book or that first short story, having people read it and criticize it and give their opinion will be ten times harder than doing it the second time.

The second time is still going to be hard. You’re still going to be nervous. But once you do it for the first time, it’s much easier to keep going because you have a deep, deep fear that you’re not good enough and that your stuff is not going to measure up. And that’s fine. You know what?

What if I told you your stuff is not good enough, but nobody cares? Put it out there. So today if it’s an Etsy account, if you have to put it on Amazon or put it on your social media or send it out to ten people, and it might be a fucking terrifying thing, but I’m here to tell you, do it. So take whatever you’ve been creating, or if it’s not something, if it’s your ideas, you want to share a message that you really believe in, it will be incredibly fucking scary. But that’s the only way to move forward in your life.

I’ve tried it. I procrastinated. I tried to go around, I tried to go under, I tried to go over. And the only way is through. And your heart knows what that is.