Constant Collaboration

I met a public speaker who came to a little workshop I was offering at a local bookstore. She had worked hard to develop this career, going around the country speaking primarily to business groups and law firms about how we are not our job. That was her message and her lesson, one she had learned from experience and was now sharing with other driven, ambitious, but quietly unhappy people like she had once been. She loved the work, she was good at it, and had seen firsthand how needed her message was, particularly in the corporate world.

Like a lot of public speakers, she felt she had reached a point where she needed a book. Having a book made nothing but sense. She could sell copies at her appearances, thereby earning a little more money and allowing attendees to share her message with friends and coworkers. It’s called platform-building, something every self-help teacher, life coach, and workshop leader must do. There was only one problem, she told me.

“What’s that?” I asked.

She slumped in her chair at the end of the table around which we all sat. Her arms were folded across her chest and she was scowling like a child told to go to bed early. “I hate to write.”

“You hate it?”

“I hate it. I absolutely hate it.”

I prodded her a little. Maybe she didn’t hate it. Maybe it was just hard sometimes. No, she hated it. Every single time she sat down to write she hated it. She had tried hiring someone to write her book for her but that hadn’t gone well. She had tried talking into a recorder and transcribing that, but this hadn’t worked either. Nothing worked. It was awful. She hated writing.

Yet here she was, at my writing workshop. She was the first, though not the last, teacher/speaker I’d met who felt this way about writing, and I must confess I was unable to break through with her that evening. I have since come to understand her problem. It wasn’t the writing she hated, it was trying to communicate, to create, without inspiration. If you like public speaking, as I do, a crowd of people can help stimulate that inspiration. Then there you are staring at a blank page, and suddenly it’s as if you have nothing to say, nothing to offer, it’s just you alone in a room and aren’t you just a fraud really?

Who wouldn’t you hate that? If you’ve ever felt this way, don’t despair. Or, do despair—it doesn’t matter. The truth won’t change just because I believe a lie. Despair is just my guidance recognizing the lie and trying, in the only language it has, to point me back to what is true: that I don’t need an audience or a deadline to be inspired. It doesn’t come from a teacher or a book. It comes as soon as I remember and accept that I am always in collaboration, whether I can see who I’m collaborating with or not.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

Fearless Writing: How to Create Boldly and Write With Confidence.
You can find William at: williamkenower.com