Tip #1: Be Findable
Connection. I adore connection. It’s the word that keeps popping up over and over again in my head and in my journaling as I try to figure out what I really want to be about.
Connecting is all about seeing someone else and building a bridge between you- whether it be through your words, a message, artwork, or in how you interact with people. Even in the vast list of skills I know I need to learn (or improve) to be a better designer and writer- connection is something that I hold as perhaps most important than anything else. What is the greatest creator in the world if no one knows them? Still the greatest, sure, but for who? For what purpose?
So often what comes up both in myself and in the people I talk to is just so much unbridled fear. Fear of being seen wrong, fear of starting too early, fear of missing out, fear of taking up too much space. There’s this dark abyss inside so many of us that believes that all the void wants to do is judge us- not support or connect with us. And we couldn’t be more wrong.
There is a void. A nameless, faceless void that we share our content with, write our posts for, send e-mails too, share our hearts with when we’re on the Internet- but it is not uncaring. And it usually just wants to connect with you.
That expert in a field you want to pursue? Only a DM away. That speaker at the event or conference? Only an e-mail. The person that may one day hire you? Maybe only a follow or a website click from setting the dominoes in motion. We never know what can go wrong when we show up, but we also never know what could go wonderfully and amazingly right.
And when you send that DM, e-mail, or link- will there be a history of you showing up genuinely? A way for them to see what you’re capable of, be updated on your growth, and continue connecting with you? Or will there be nothing because for the 1,00345th time you convinced yourself no one will care anyway?
I know it’s a high bar to set- but I never again want to meet a student or a creative or a business owner who is not showing up somehow, someway. That can’t give me a link or an e-mail sign-up or an Instagram handle because they’re too afraid or too “busy” to be findable, to keep connecting with me. Because I want to find them to be able to connect with them- to see their face pop up on my stories and remind me that they exist or hear about their lives in my Instagram feed or discover that they are capable of things I never dreamed they could do.
This week’s blog is short and sweet but after a full week of listening to amazing, talented, and capable people tell me their fears- I wanted to just put it out there: start. showing. up. You are worth the space. We want to see you. So much is possible- and that’s a far better promise than you may think.
Start setting up those dominoes- the website, the Instagram posts, the stories, the e-mail lists- so that when that magical thing happens, they’ll connect to something incredible. (And I’m also only a DM or e-mail away too if you ever need any support there.)
