Why put your work out there?

Because you don’t know who is listening. (Careful: you might help someone.)

You could so very easily hide your work (and yourself) behind the veil of anonymity and publicity by never publishing your work, never stating your opinion and keeping it all to yourself.

Why don’t you wait until it’s perfect (HINT: that’s actually never) or do another revision? Maybe think on that one again before you publish, it might be just a little off. Maybe you’ll offend someone?

Oops, maybe you’ll help someone.

Spoiler Alert! You are not someone else!

They’re not going to come out of the woodwork if you don’t have any wood. You think you have nothing to offer, but you don’t know where other people are coming from, you don’t know how what you present is going to resonate with someone else because, spoiler alert, you are not someone else.

Someone might find your work (or your opinions or your videos or your writing or your podcast or your voice or your experiences or your whatever-it-is-that-put-out-into-the-world) valuable, meaningful and helpful. But you’re not going to know if you don’t put it out there. Sure, there’s a chance that they never see it, that the person you’re meant to connect to is also hiding away and if you’re hiding away, you’ll never find each other.

So why bother at all?

Because there’s that chance. The chance that they’ll find you and you’ll make a difference in their lives.

That they’ll make a difference in your life because you made a difference in their life.

I’m sorry, did that give you the chills? It did for me. When you can make even the tiniest difference in someone else’s life, is there anything more powerful? Anything more beautiful? It might be your spouse or your child or a complete stranger, but it’s going to matter to them and it’s going to matter to you.

But look at the odds: what if they don’t find you? What if you don’t reach the millions of people you want to reach to spread your message?

Because there’s a chance that you’ll help someone. Because there’s the tiniest sliver of a possibility that what you put out there is received by someone else. Remember that you don’t need to reach everyone to be a success, All You Need is One.

So please, put your work out there. It just might help someone, it just may influence another person on the planet who will be so grateful that you are who you are and did what you did.

If you don’t want to believe the numbers, if you don’t want to believe anyone, think about this: what if that person is right in front of your nose? Someone you see or know or are close to? But they don’t know what you’re doing because you don’t put it out there. What if that person is me?

Think about what has helped you, affected you, changed you. What if that person, hiding away in their own world, didn’t put out there what they thought wouldn’t help anyone and you never received it? Think of that the next time you’re in doubt.

Think of that magic number of people you need to reach. Think of the number of people in the world you need to help in order to change the world. Ooh, here’s a crazy thought: what if in fact that this person you help is so close to you that you wouldn’t have ever thought you could them? What if this person who is touched, moved to tears or just given the slightest twinge of happiness is so near and dear to you that it doesn’t it cross your mind that you would or could reach that person. Careful now, this one is going to take some time to sink in. What if that person you reach with your work is none other than you?