Bernie Brown has said,

Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.

It's one of my favorite ideas, because to me it's symbolic of a building process.

Taking what would otherwise be blank space, nothingness, and stepping into it.

Believing yourself enough to say there's a void here and I can fill it.

I'm strong enough to show myself to the world, my ideas to the world, my work to the world.

I have, in Brené's words, the courage to be seen.

Seven years ago, in 2016, I wrote about my first experience with this epiphany in a video called, Fittingly, Courage.

I talk about my light bulb moment where I'm walking down the street and realize everything around me, all of it, was built by people with enough self-belief to think I can add value to the world.

I can, in one form or another, take a blank space and create within those parameters something beautiful, something meaningful.

I, not him or her, I, can be the reason things change for the better.

You know, that's a hard notion to grasp.

Because it's overwhelming to put faith or stock into ideas.

You're just writing yourself IOU notes.

And it's particularly difficult when things take time,

or don't go the way you want them to,

immediately you start to feel crazy.

And you know for a fact those around you can't see it or understand.

How could they? This is a you thing, right?

It exists in your head and your head only.

But that building to your left, that song you're listening to, the book you're reading,

that car you're driving, these things exist because those who brought them to life survived the storm.

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