Last weekend I have released my anti-stress journal Collectie van Rampen.
Launching a first book is like throwing your first newborn-party: everyone is happy for you, you show something to the world that is intensely dear to yourself and you don’t have a clue what the life of it is going to be like. You honestly don’t know what to expect.
A book launch is stepping onto the podium, into the spotlight. I needed to do that, although it wasn’t easy for me. I’m not that guy that says “hey, it’s me, look at what remarkable stuff I did again today” (unless I’m joking, I often am).
So I have learnt that if you do something big (creating and publishing a book is something big), you need to acknowledge that for yourself.
So often, I work long and hard to create something, and then jump onto the next checkpoint. I flee into the future, into the new. Afraid what others might think of what I did here, and then I say “hey, but look at this awesome new thing I’m doing”.
My learning is that sometimes you do more right to yourself and what you did, if you do step into the spotlight with what you have and have done.
Not for the applause. For yourself. And for all the people that were already watching the whole time when you were building the podium.