The Talk I Was Most Afraid to Give

The talks that scare you most are usually the ones that matter most.

I've spoken on craft, on publishing, on the intersection of faith and fiction, on the writing life in all its unglamorous reality. Most of those talks live in territory I know well. I've inhabited it for years, and while preparation still matters, there's a foundation of familiarity underneath it.

The talk I was most afraid to give was different.

It required me to speak from a place I hadn't finished processing. To stand in front of people and talk honestly about a season of my life that still felt raw. The long hiatus from writing, the complicated tangle of reasons behind it, what it cost and what it eventually produced. It required me to be a person telling her own story rather than an author talking about craft, and those hold two distinctly different kinds of pressure.

What I discovered is that the talks that cost you something personally are the ones that give the most back to an audience. They're not looking to delight in your suffering. That's not what impresses them. And while I've been burned multiple times by those who sought to gain from exposing my weaknesses or struggles, I've tried hard to not let that stop me. 

Because honesty is disarming.

When a speaker is willing to be genuinely vulnerable, a room responds with a generosity that is almost overwhelming. This isn't the performed vulnerability, where a false reality is presented with the intent to manipulate. This is the real kind, the kind that still has some uncertainty in it because the speaker hasn't worked out everything yet.

People don't connect with polished. They connect with true.

The talk I was most afraid to give became one I'm most grateful I gave. The fear, it turned out, was pointing directly at the thing the audience most needed to hear.

Is there something you've been afraid to say or share because it felt too personal or too unfinished? What's held you back? I'd love to hear in the comments.