You’re reacting to a reaction that hasn’t happened.

Happy October Eve,

I once had a client tell me on a discovery call that the reason they hadn’t posted on LinkedIn, gone on podcasts, or written any think pieces was because they were worried about what potential investors would think of them.

They didn’t want to risk it. I understood the fear completely! I also assumed I was past it.

That is what I call The Visibility Ceiling.

I wrote about this in my book, Theatre of the Mind. The higher you rise, the more visible you become. Visibility creates its own kind of pressure because suddenly you’re not only making decisions. You’re making them while peers, competitors, customers, and potentially investors are watching.

In my case this summer, it was being visible while also building something completely new. That then creates a predictable cycle I call The Theatre Loop:

What will they think?

What if this goes badly?

Maybe I should edit it again.

Maybe I should wait.

Maybe I shouldn’t post it at all.

Silence feels safe, so you repeat the cycle. I advise others through this. And there I was doing it myself. So I did what I tell everyone else to do. I published anyway.

I’m talking openly about building Dirty Hippie, my new startup. I’ve shared the origin story. I’ve talked about being a non-technical founder entering an industry I’m still learning. I have talked about Launchpad, the incubator, growth program, and fund for high-growth software and AI founders I joined. I have even shared my first business that signed up on the marketplace. I started embracing Dirty Hippie into my weekly content instead of waiting until I had everything figured out.

And something interesting began to happen. People started reaching out.

They want to know more. They want to partner. They want to know when Dirty Hippie is coming to their city.

Building in public can look incredibly confident from the outside while feeling incredibly uncomfortable on the inside. None of this feels brave while you are doing it. It will feel like exposure and that’s the part we don’t talk about enough.

You don’t have to wait for that feeling to disappear. You just have to move through it. Do it anyway. That matters whether you’re raising capital, selling something, hiring, changing careers, launching a company, or just reinventing yourself. Take that next step… you do not need to run down the entire staircase.

So, what are you waiting to share because you’re worried about what happens next?

Maybe that’s exactly the thing you need to put into the world…

With strategy,

Melanie