The Look That Says "Of Course It Didn't Work"
That's what I'm actually afraid of.
The microphone is sitting on my desk. Sound dampeners mounted on the wall. The mixer I spent months researching just sitting there, plugged in, waiting. Everything I told myself I needed to start my podcast? I've been collecting it piece by piece since 2021.
What’s left is just me and the fear.
I’ve been good, really good, at collecting reasonable explanations for why the timing wasn’t right. I needed better equipment first. I needed to understand audio production better. I needed clarity about what I wanted to say. I needed to feel more confident.
At some point those reasons stopped being true and became excuses.
The shift was gradual. I’d spend weeks researching microphones, convinced that finding the perfect one was the responsible thing to do. Watched tutorials on audio editing. Wrote notes about potential episodes, organizing them into folders I’d revisit but never act on.
Each step felt productive. Like I was moving forward.
Each one let me believe I was heading toward starting without actually having to start.
I have everything now. The setup is professional. I understand how sound works. I know what I want to talk about. And confidence? That was never going to show up before I started. It only comes from doing the thing that scares you.
So here I am, staring at equipment that’s been ready longer than I’ve been willing to admit, finally naming what’s actually in the way.
The waiting room I built
There’s this particular kind of procrastination that doesn’t look like procrastination at all. It looks like preparation. Or simply being responsible and thorough.
I’ve gotten very good at that version.
First, I told myself I needed to understand the technical side. So I learned. Studied audio quality, compression, hosting platforms, and distribution.
Then I needed the right equipment. So I saved, researched, bought the mixer, microphone, and dampeners. Piece by piece until the setup was professional.
Then I needed more clarity about my message. So I wrote outlines, brainstormed themes, and mapped out potential conversations. Pages of ideas I never recorded.
And somehow, years passed.
Each reason felt valid at the time. Each one gave me permission to not be ready yet.
What I didn’t see was the pattern underneath.
I was building a waiting room and calling it preparation.
When voice feels different than words
Writing here has been vulnerable in ways I didn’t fully anticipate. Putting these thoughts where anyone can read them, knowing that some people who find their way here don’t always have my best interests at heart. That’s been harder than I expected.
There are moments when hitting publish feels almost physical. Like I’m handing something precious to strangers and just hoping they’re careful with it.
But voice is different.
Text gives you distance. You can edit it, refine it, make it just right before anyone sees it. You can read it back to yourself and adjust anything that doesn’t sound the way you meant it. Control the pacing, the emphasis, every single word.
Voice is immediate.
It carries emotion you can’t fully control. Hesitation comes through whether you want it to or not. Uncertainty shows up in the pauses. Excitement changes your cadence. You can’t take back the way something lands when you’re speaking in real-time.
Voice is you without the buffer of perfect phrasing or time to think through how something sounds.
I think that’s what I’ve been afraid of. Not the content itself, but the intimacy of it. The way my voice would make everything feel more real, more exposed. The way people could hear me trying, hear me uncertain, hear me figuring it out as I go.
There’s something undeniable about hearing someone’s actual voice. It cuts through all the noise. You can tell when someone believes what they’re saying. You can hear them reaching for language that doesn’t quite exist yet. You can feel the difference between performed confidence and genuine vulnerability.
Writing lets you hide a little.
Voice doesn’t.
And maybe that’s the point. Maybe the very thing that makes it terrifying is exactly what makes it worth doing.
The invisible resume I carry
This fear isn’t just about the podcast. It’s about something bigger I’ve been coming to terms with.
When I look at the people around me, I see clear markers of success. Titles, companies, degrees, accolades. Things you can point to that say “this person has accomplished something.”
I look at my own path and see a series of hard lessons.
Experiences that taught me discernment, boundaries, and emotional literacy. An ability to stay grounded when things fall apart. The capacity to love people without needing them to complete my story.
I carry what I call an invisible resume. Years of internal work that made me a better person, more self-aware, more whole. Skills that matter deeply but don’t come with credentials.
I know how to read a room. I know when someone’s words don’t match what they’re actually saying. I know how to hold space for complexity without needing to collapse it into simple answers.
But there’s nothing external to show for it. No credential that says “this person did the work.”
Some days, I wonder what any of it counts for.
There are moments when I’m afraid to share what I’m working on next because I know how vulnerable it feels to be seen trying when you don’t have conventional success to point to. When your track record looks like a series of things that didn’t work out the way you planned, even though each one taught you something essential.
I’m afraid that if this doesn’t work, people will look at me with that particular expression.
The one that says of course it didn’t.
You know that kind of look that isn’t even surprised.
That fear has kept me small in ways I’m only starting to recognize.
Starting this podcast means stepping into visibility without the safety net of conventional credentials. It means saying, “I have something worth listening to,” even when the proof isn’t obvious from the outside.
That terrifies me.
And I’m starting to understand that that very terror is only information, not a stop sign.
What ended this month
I’ve been wrapping up a contract as January closes. Spent months contributing to a project I thought I was aligned with, and gradually it became clear that the values I was orienting around weren’t the ones being put into practice.
What struck me wasn’t the misalignment itself. That happens. People shift, priorities change.
What struck me was how clarity arrived indirectly rather than through honest conversation. Surface-level reassurances that didn’t match what I was observing. Words that sounded right but felt off.
I’ve learned to pay attention to those moments. When someone keeps telling you everything is fine, but the actions tell a different story, that dissonance is information.
The gap between stated values and enacted values became too wide to ignore.
I’m taking it as information rather than failure. It helped me refine what I actually want to build and who I want to build alongside. I know now that I’m not suited for environments where there’s deception instead of honest reflection.
That realization felt like all the clarity I ever needed.
One door closed. I’m choosing to see it as the kind that needed to.
"I'm learning to love people without needing them to complete my story.”
The decision I’m making
I‘m moving to the Bay Area.
That sentence carries more weight than it probably sounds like it should. It means selling my home. Leaving the city I’ve lived in for years. Walking away from everything familiar and rebuilding in a place where I don’t have established roots.
Choosing possibility over comfort.
The work I want to build requires proximity and context. Ideas don’t grow in isolation, and being closer to the ecosystem matters for what I’m trying to create.
I need to be there.
But I’d be lying if I said this decision feels easy. There are nights when I lie awake questioning everything. Wondering if I’m being brave or reckless. If I’m trusting my intuition or running from something I can’t name.
Selling my home means letting go of the stability I worked hard to build. It means betting on a version of my future that doesn’t exist yet.
And I’m also being intentional about finding a longer-term contract role while I develop my own idea. I don’t feel pressure to rush my vision into funding or external validation. I want it to take shape carefully, from the inside out.
That requires patience I’m still learning how to hold. The willingness to let it develop without forcing it into a timeline that feels more comfortable.
Staying whole in motion
The past month has been full of movement. North Carolina, back to the Bay Area, and Japan this week.
Being in motion has been grounding in an unexpected way.
There’s something about disrupting your routines that makes everything sharper. You notice things you stopped seeing. You pay attention differently when nothing is automatic.
But the movement also brings up questions I can usually ignore when I’m settled.
Am I making the right decision?
Am I trusting myself enough?
Am I confusing growth with risk?
I notice how easily my mind wants to measure my life by visible markers. How quickly it discounts the years of internal work that don’t come with accolades attached.
I’m practicing a different relationship with uncertainty. One where staying in motion while things remain unresolved isn’t a problem to solve but a state to inhabit.
What’s changing underneath
I’m no longer orienting my life around being chosen, understood, or validated by the people in front of me.
That’s the shift I keep coming back to. The one that feels like the actual transformation happening beneath everything else.
I used to need people to see me clearly. To understand what I was trying to do. To confirm that I was making the right choices. I’d collapse into their approval or their doubt, measuring myself by how they responded to me.
I’m learning to love without attaching my worth to the outcome.
I’m not waiting for someone to finally see me clearly or confirm that I was right to believe in them. I care. I invest. I show up honestly. But I’m staying whole while I do it.
When someone doesn’t see me the way I hoped they would, I don’t fall apart anymore. When a project doesn’t go the way I imagined, I don’t lose myself in disappointment. When doors close, I stay standing.
The most meaningful shift has been internal.
I’m practicing staying whole in motion. When people meet me now, I want it to be from that place. From wholeness, not from need.
If they recognize me, it feels mutual. If they don’t, I stay standing.
That doesn’t make the uncertainty disappear. But it changes how I carry it. Changes what I’m willing to risk because I’m not risking my sense of self anymore. Just risking the outcome.
Starting this podcast is the next iteration of that practice.
What responsibility feels like
I know what my story holds.
I know the way I think, the questions I ask, the patterns I name can help people feel less alone in their own messy inner worlds. I’ve seen it happen in my relationships and the responses I get to these Substack posts. The messages from people who say, “I thought I was the only one who felt that way.”
I feel that as a responsibility paired with fear.
There’s power in voice. In letting people hear you work through something in real-time, without the polish of perfect clarity. In creating space for honesty that doesn’t wait until you’ve figured everything out.
The conversations I want to have aren’t the ones where I interview someone about their success story. They’re the ones where we sit in the middle of things together. Where uncertainty is welcome. And where we’re honest about what we don’t know yet.
I want to talk about what it’s like to build something when you’re not sure it will work. What it feels like to choose yourself when everyone’s watching. How you hold possibility and doubt simultaneously without collapsing into either one.
I want to have conversations that feel like what happens at 1am when someone finally tells you what they’re actually afraid of.
I’ve wanted to do this since 2021. The desire has been consistent.
I’m not forcing it into a launch plan or a perfect timeline. I’m acknowledging that everything I said I needed is finally here. The equipment. The experience. The clarity about why this matters.
What’s left is the choice to stop hiding behind logistics and start showing up in my full voice.
That terrifies me.
And I’m doing it anyway.
When the excuses run out
This season hasn’t delivered neat answers. What it’s given me is a steadier relationship with my own judgment and intuition, even as things remain unresolved.
I understand myself more deeply than I ever have.
Still, there are moments when I measure myself against people around me and feel behind. I worry about the look that might follow if it doesn’t work.
But I’m learning that staying honest with myself, even when I’m afraid, is enough movement for now.
The mixer is sitting on my desk. The sound dampeners are ready. Everything I said I needed is here.
The season when all my excuses run out feels both frightening and revealing. It’s time to confront the truth that I’ve been delaying this because of fear.
There’s a strange kind of freedom in that.
When the excuses run out, what’s left is just the truth. You want to do this. You’re afraid. Neither of those facts changes the other.
You can want something and be terrified of it. You can know something matters and still question if you’re capable. You can feel unprepared and do it anyway.
I don’t know if my voice will reach the people who need to hear it. I don’t know if starting this podcast will feel like finally stepping into something that was always waiting, or if it will be another lesson in trying things that don’t work out the way you hoped.
What I do know is that the excuses have run out. What’s left is just the choice to start.
And maybe that’s the only prerequisite that actually matters.
Maybe the point isn’t to feel ready. Maybe it’s to recognize the moment when staying in the waiting room stops serving you and becomes the actual obstacle.
I’ve stopped waiting for confidence to show up. I no longer make excuses for why now isn’t the right moment.
The right time is when the excuses disappear, leaving only fear and desire.
And then, you choose the desire.
Until next time,
🖤 Joni @ The Rebirth Files
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