Publish before you feel ready
I just watched Episode 0 of Suara Berkelas, an Indonesian podcast, on their YouTube membership. They released it on purpose with their old studio and makeshift mics, everything looking amateurish.
It turns out what holds us back isn’t skills that aren’t ready yet. It’s the ego that demands we look ready from day one.
I’ve been posting my writing for a month now, and I still go through this.
Showing the old set
They literally show their old set. Random mics. Bare-bones lighting. A way of talking that hadn’t settled yet.
It’s not a nostalgic throwback. It’s a statement: “This is what we used to look like, and it’s precisely because we dared to publish stuff like this that we got to where we are now.”
The ones who rise aren’t the ones waiting until they’re ready. The ones who rise are the ones who dare to publish first.
The voices before I hit “Post”
All this time, what’s kept me from posting hasn’t been one big thing. It’s the little voices that show up right before I hit “Post”:
- “This caption’s too long.”
- “My insight isn’t deep enough.”
- “The head of my office might see it.”
One voice shows up, and one draft goes back into my Notes app. For months they piled up there and never went anywhere.
What stings even more: what we see from big creators is always the end result. Lots of followers. Clean editing. Sharp opinions.
What we don’t see: their first 10 awkward posts, the nervous first video, the first draft that not even their own mom liked.
We compare other people’s highlights with our own behind-the-scenes. No wonder we always feel like we’re losing.
What made me think the longest is that taste and skill turn out to be different things.
Our eyes are already trained to see what’s good, from scrolling through top-tier content every day. But our hands can’t match it yet.
That gap between eye and hand can only be filled by the number of attempts. Not by watching another tutorial. Not by waiting for the mood. Volume. Most of which will be bad.
That’s the part a lot of people cut out because they’re embarrassed.
What happened when I posted anyway
I started writing threads on Threads at the end of March.
The first time I posted, my hands were sweaty. I almost deleted it 3 times before I finally hit “Post”, haha. I was just scared, I guess.
A month later, someone DMed me offering a paid deal to write threads as a KOL (key opinion leader).
What left me speechless: if I’d given in to the “this is so bad” voice last month, that DM would never have happened.
There’s one pattern I’ve noticed. People who insist on looking smart from day one usually stop at one of two points. They overplan and never launch. Or they launch once, get embarrassed and run off.
The ones who keep going are the ones who accepted from the start: “Yeah, I’m still an amateur right now. So what.”
Not because they don’t care. But because they know there’s something more expensive than embarrassment.
Now, every time I’m about to post and the “this is bad” voice shows up, I swap the question.
Not: “Is this good enough yet?”
But: “6 months from now, will I regret posting this more, or not posting it?”
In 99% of cases the answer is the same.
And here’s the funny part: the posts that once embarrassed me half to death, I’ve now forgotten which ones they were, haha. But hopefully they were informative, at least.
What I noted for myself
- Publish first, polish later. An amateur version 1 beats a version 10 that’s still in your head.
- High taste without volume means getting stuck in the gap. Only attempts bridge it.
- Today’s embarrassment, you’ll have forgotten in 6 months. The regret from not posting compounds.
Episode 0 wasn’t released as a throwback. It was released for one message: the ones who rise aren’t the ones who were perfect from the start. They’re the ones who dared to be bad first.
And being bad at the start isn’t failure. It’s where everyone begins.
The episode is on the Suara Berkelas YouTube membership (in Indonesian). Really worth it if you’ve been holding back from starting something.