Hi, I'm new here.

An honest take on my first publication.

Putting yourself out there in writing form is… weird.

Not necessarily scary, just… intimate. Almost as if you’re talking to a room before you know who showed up.

Lately I’ve had lots of conversations with people who want to start a Substack or show up more on LinkedIn or just use their voice more in general. Almost every conversation hits the same moment. The desire and the intention is there, but then they sit down to write and everything feels heavier than expected.

Talking about who you are is easy in bullet points: Wife. Mama. Founder. Advisor. Connector. Problem solver. Firstborn daughter. Libra. Enneagram 7…. short & safe.

But when you’re staring at a blank page, those titles are useless. They don’t tell you what to say. So the questions begin to change.

What’s my actual voice?
What’s my “lane”?
Is this even worth putting out there?
Will anyone care?

People say “don’t overthink it and just write”. And I believe that. I’m a big fan of starting before you’re ready. But I also think there might be something healthy about pausing here. Sitting with the unknown for a sec and asking not what am I, but who am I and what do I actually want to say with it?

Here’s what that looked like for me this week…

I wrote two Substack drafts. Which, if you’re a parent, you know means this happened after the kiddos bedtime, on the couch, with a quiet voice inside saying “you should really be sleeping right now...”. One was about how AI might actually make us more human. The other about high-agency thinking.

Then I shared them with my husband. Because he’s the person who sees me most clearly and helps me gut check when I feel unsure.

He started by telling me they were really good. Complimented the writing. I could feel the but coming next. Then he said, “but they’re too surface-level for you.”

It was exactly what I needed to hear. And probably why I showed him in the first place.
They were ideas I believe in and ones I can explain well. But they weren’t coming from my lived experience. They sounded more like headline chasing. They were… safe.

He started reminding me of things I’ve actually lived through. All the things I’ve built without a playbook. The decisions I made that didn’t come with certainty. The people I’ve met along the way and what came from those connections. Chapters that have been (and still are) messy, unresolved, and real. The parts with weight. The parts people actually recognize themselves in.

And something clicked.

If this space is going to matter, to me or to anyone else, it can’t just be about the things I think are “worth saying.” Or the things I think people want to read. It has to be real. What I’m actually living. What’s being built, questioned, and figured out in real time.

Because the reality is no one has this figured out. Writing is vulnerable. Choosing what to say is vulnerable. Even hitting publish is vulnerable. Pretending it’s not just creates distance and makes everyone else feel like they shouldn’t participate unless they show up with Carrie Bradshaw level confidence.

So instead of starting with perfectly packaged insights or a confident takeaways, this felt like the only honest place to begin.

Admitting that finding my voice is awkward and something I know I’ll grow into. That it’s unfinished. And that I’m choosing to be real before I’m ready.

There are enough people in the world who want that version of us. The one that isn’t polished or borrowed or trying to sound like anyone else. The one thinking out loud and telling the truth from exactly where they’re standing and where we’re going.

If we stay in that “lane”… showing up gets simpler.

Thanks for being sitting at the table with me. Cheers!
Meg