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The People You Thought Would Be Watching · Just Julia

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: The people you thought would be watching on starting something new,
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: the quiet need for encouragement,
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: and why the smallest gestures can matter more than we think.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: When I started writing on Substack, I didn't really tell people.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: A few, yes.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: I told my family in New Zealand.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I told a handful of friends, my parents, and my sister in Brazil knew.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: But some of my closest friends still don't know.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think part of me wanted to protect it.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: When something is very new and you are not entirely sure what it is going to become,
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  SPEAKER_00: telling people can feel strangely exposing.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: You are not just saying, I wrote something.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: You are saying, this matters to me.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: And somehow that feels much more vulnerable.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: My parents don't speak much English.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: So when I published my first articles, I would send them the Portuguese translation.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: They read them.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it took a few days.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about them.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then little by little, it became normal.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Another article from Julia,
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: another link, another thing I was doing somewhere on the other side of the world.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: My parents have never subscribed to my Substack.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: They don't go there to leave a like or a comment.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: They probably don't understand
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: that those tiny things can help something new find its way to more people.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I know how ridiculous that is.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: We don't say that enough.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Before something has followers,
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: customers,
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: subscribers,
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: readers or proof that it was a good idea,
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: there is just you standing beside something you made hoping somebody will notice.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: A first article,
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: a new company,
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: a podcast, a website, a LinkedIn post after years of never posting anything.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: We like to talk about entrepreneurship as though the difficult part is the strategy.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Find your niche, build your audience, be consistent, create content, keep going.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: But before all of that, there is a much more understanding.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: I could hide behind the company name, the title, the meetings, the emails, the job description.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I am in a strange moment where I don't know exactly what comes next.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I will return to corporate.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I will build something on my own, perhaps both in some form.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I know that whatever comes next will require me to become more visible.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: So recently I started posting on LinkedIn.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: I had barely posted there before.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you,
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: posting something you have written and watching almost nobody react to it is
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: a very efficient way to discovering exactly how confident you are.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: You press published.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Then you pretend you don't care.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Then you check.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Then you tell yourself likes don't matter.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Then you check again.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's ridiculous and almost completely human because perhaps you spend three hours reading.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you deleted it twice.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you nearly didn't post it because you thought, who am I to talk about this?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then somebody you know scrolls past it in two seconds.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: They have no idea what happened before.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: I have always tried to support people when I see them starting something.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean always,
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: long before I started writing publicly,
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: long before I found myself wondering what I might build next.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: A friend of mine became involved in a startup and started posting about it.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't understand everything she was doing.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't going to become a customer.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't need to.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: I liked her posts.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: I have done the same on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: A heart on a story,
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: a like, an insightful reaction, a small signal that says, I see what you are doing.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Recently at Mindvalley University,
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: I met a Brazilian girl who had just left corporate and was beginning a business
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: in personal development and manifestation.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when I see her posts, I like them.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes if I'm being completely truthful, I don't even listen to the whole thing.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: I still press like.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: There is another woman I knew years ago
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: who has started creating something completely different online.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't seen her on social media for a long time.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: I came across her again recently and I thought, oh, she's creating something new.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like, like.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: I have always done this.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: What has changed is that now I understand the other side of it.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now I am the one starting from zero.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: I am the one writing something for three hours and wondering whether to publish it.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the one posting on LinkedIn after years of barely posting anything.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the one watching something reach hundreds of people and Then seeing
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: a tiny handful of reactions underneath it.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly,
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: I find myself thinking, whoa,
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: all of those little hearts I gave away so casually over the years weren't quite
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: as meaningful as I thought.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you are the person on the other side of the screen, you notice them.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: You also notice who is missing.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: That has been particularly strange on LinkedIn.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: When I lost my job, I received beautiful messages.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Anything you need, you can count on me.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you need a reference, just ask.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe people meant that.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: You write your first post after years of saying almost nothing publicly,
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: and the room becomes surprisingly quiet.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: A post can have hundreds of views and only a handful of reactions.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, nobody always.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the point.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I suspect that's when encouragement can matter most.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'm not liking the post.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm liking the courage took to post it.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: We are told constantly that we shouldn't need experience.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: I understand the principle.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: I know that.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I also think we use the language of self-confidence sometimes to pretend
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: that we don't need each other.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: We do.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Especially at the beginning.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Not an audience of thousands.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Not consistent praise.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Just a few people who understand that you are doing something that scares you a little.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: A friend who shares it.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: A former colleague who leaves a comment.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Your sister subscribing.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Your mother pressing a little hard,
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: even though she doesn't completely understand what Substack is.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Tiny things,
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: things that take seconds,
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: and perhaps that's why their absence can hurt more than seems reasonable.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about looking toward the people you assumed would be watching and for
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: a moment finding an empty chair.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: The other day I met a friend who has also been without a job for some time.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: I told her I had started posting on LinkedIn.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Then I said something I would normally be embarrassed to say out loud.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Can you please go and like my posts?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: I laughed.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Just so I don't feel like a complete loser.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was funny, but it wasn't entirely a joke.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: I am learning to do things publicly that I used to do privately.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm also learning something I didn't expect.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: The people.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying not to confuse their attention too.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: They
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: have their lives, their worries, their own words happening thousands of kilometers away.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I have mine.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Still, this experience has changed.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Or perhaps it has simply made me understand something I was already doing.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: When I see someone beginning, I try not to scroll past too quickly.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: I know that what takes me two seconds may have taken them three hours to create
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: and considerably longer to find the courage to share.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I press like.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: It costs me nothing.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: I know what it might have cost them to press publish.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you prefer to listen,
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: go to the Just Julia podcast, which is also available on Spotify and Apple podcasts.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.