Last night I was fortunate to be on a conference call about blogging with Penelope Trunk and Alex Fisher (from Young Profession Finance). And I should confess that I was a huge mess of excitement yesterday as I contemplated questions to ask or comments I thought I might want to make.
It was slightly overwhelming as I dialed in last night. It reminded me of high school when you realized that you were about to spend time with someone much cooler than yourself.
When I started blogging, I got this idea in my head that Penelope Trunk would not be interested in answering questions from me because I was convinced that nothing I could say would be interesting enough for a response. And I’ve carried this idea in my head for the last two years. It was a very stupid idea too.
The problem with a stupid idea is that it cripples you. Especially when you keep the idea to yourself. If an idea lurks solely in your head, no one will be able to correct you when it’s horrible or guide you to success when you are on the right path.
When you keep that stupid idea inside, you might be temporarily saved from judgment but ultimately, you are only stopping yourself from being brilliant later.
I’m not really afraid of doing stupid things either. Stupid things can always be corrected later. I know this to be true because I do stupid things all of the time. And I have yet to do something so stupid that I can’t recover from it.
Still, I am afraid of having (and sharing) stupid ideas.
Back to the conference call – I received some great advice last night and heard some things that changed the way I looked at blogging. Advice that I could have been using for the last year but I wasn’t using it. Why? Because that stupid idea living in my head made it physically impossible for me to hear it any sooner.
In the end, I only held myself back.
Let’s face it: the people who inspire you are not going to track you down to tell you something brilliant or give you that swift kick you need to get yourself out of neutral. But they will be sharing those moments of wisdom with the person who took a few minutes to ask for it.
In the long run, building relationships allows you to be stupid and recover from it. Because when you are not only having the conversation but growing from it, other people will want to see past your prior mistakes. Your community will want you to succeed.
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