A speaker shares the anxiety she felt before this commencement, then tells graduates to "go for the no" and act boldly anyway. Self-doubt doesn't disappear, she says. It just doesn't get to decide what you do.
Chapters
Last week I stood in front of 350 graduating students at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University, plus 1,000 of their family members, as their commencement speaker. Me, a keynote speaker of 20-something years, someone who literally talks about self-doubt for a living, and I was nervous. Here's what was running loop in my head leading up to that moment: like, they know I'm not famous, right? Like, they know I am so totally human and struggle to make it all work and sometimes can't find my keys, let alone make a real dent on the kind of impact that it feels like a commencement speaker should have made. And then the spiral got feistier. What if this is too much, too bold? And then, of course, the flip side of that: what if it doesn't go far enough? What if you miss the chance to do something real here, Sally? So I had a choice: play it safe, deliver something forgettable, or practice exactly what I was about to preach. The theme of my address: go for the no. Get so comfortable with the possibility of rejection that you're willing to look like a fool in pursuit of something true and needed. So despite all the self-doubt spiraling, I asked 1,000 people to stand up and shout something totally ridiculous, joyful, and pointed.
I'm here! I'm suckin' it!
And I'm loud! And they did. That self-doubt spiral, it's not going to go quiet. It never does. But it also doesn't get to drive.
