We\u00a0don’t know the extent of what we know. Or how much we know. Or how well we know\u00a0it. In March of 2016, I started my first six week writing course. I was\u00a0qualified. I\u2019d written countless books and many of them had become bestsellers\u00a0I wrote every day, I considered it my meditation practice and I was well versed\u00a0in what good and bad writing was. But when I announced the class, I was afraid\u00a0no one would sign up.<\/p>\n
I\u00a0was happy to be wrong. The class filled up right away. I took only seven people\u00a0so I\u2019d be able to pay attention to everyone and I thought I was prepared but\u00a0when the time drew near, I became anxious. I\u2019m not a fan of public speaking.\u00a0What if I couldn\u2019t think of anything to say? I reminded myself that this wasn\u2019t\u00a0public. This was my living room. I knew everyone who was coming and they knew
me. They were eager to learn, but what if I couldn\u2019t answer their questions?<\/p>\n
They\u00a0started arriving at 6:30 PM. I hugged each of them as they showed up and I invited\u00a0them to take a seat. I sat at the front of the room and tried to slow down my breathing.\u00a0I looked directly at each person in the room to make a connection and I stopped\u00a0at my close friend, Laurie. She nodded. I had invited her to join the class so
she could support me since she\u2019d been a dance instructor for decades and she\u00a0knew the ins and outs of teaching. \u201cJust be yourself,\u201d she had said. \u201cIf you\u00a0make a mistake, you can just laugh and fix it. These people are your friends. You\u2019ve\u00a0been teaching for years with each project you\u2019ve done, even though you didn\u2019t\u00a0call it a class.\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u00a0was right. I\u2019d been teaching for as long as I\u2019d been writing, guiding my\u00a0celebrity clients through the stories of their lives and helping people write\u00a0the truth about their feelings. But the critical voice inside kept telling me\u00a0that just because I knew how to write didn’t mean that I could teach. I was\u00a0choking on a heavy dose of the Imposter Syndrome. Who did I think I was? What\u00a0made me think I knew enough to help these people write?<\/p>\n
When\u00a0it was time to start, I pretended to be cool and collected. I smiled at my\u00a0group, I thanked them for coming and I began to talk about what writing meant\u00a0to me. I had a lot to say about that and pretty soon, I was speaking easily. It\u00a0felt so natural. I led the class in a short mediation so we could all get focused.\u00a0Then I gave them a suggestion about what to write, I called it a prompt, and\u00a0they wrote for forty-five minutes. When it came time to read their pieces out
loud, I saw that they were nervous and I encouraged them to stop thinking about\u00a0the other people. \u201cJust focus on what you\u2019re reading,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
When\u00a0the readings were over and my students began to ask me questions, I was\u00a0surprised at how much I knew. The upshot was that many of them kept coming back\u00a0and to this day, nine years after we started, the class continues.<\/p>\n
When\u00a0I\u2019m afraid to do something, anything, I think about that first class and I remind\u00a0myself to just walk through it, whatever it is. When we do something we haven\u2019t\u00a0done before, it\u2019s like a speed bump in the road. We can decide it\u2019s too hard to\u00a0tackle and turn around. We can barrel into it and hit a wall. Or we can slow
down, gently approach the obstruction, stay mindful and before we know it,\u00a0we’re on the other side. We\u2019re triumphant. We\u2019re home free \u2013 until the next speed\u00a0bump shows up. It will, you can be sure of that, but if you face it head on,\u00a0the obstacle will become a puzzle and when you solve it, you\u2019ll realize that\u00a0you didn\u2019t really know how much you knew.<\/p>\n
Mahatma\u00a0Gandhi said, \u201cKnowledge increases in proportion to its use.\u201d<\/p>\n
In\u00a01993, my agent called to tell me about a famous diva who wanted to write a\u00a0memoir. The trouble was that she had fired her first writer and she was a\u00a0little gun shy. She wanted me to write a chapter of the book in her voice before\u00a0she hired me, even though I\u2019d never heard her speaking voice. The chapter was about\u00a0a concert she did for thousands of people and she had gotten rained out. She\u00a0stood on the stage, the rain was pouring down on her, but she stayed there and\u00a0guided the people out so there was no dashing or trampling.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0materials her assistant sent me were two paragraphs that had appeared in the\u00a0newspaper. That was all. I was paralyzed for a moment but I decided to give it\u00a0a try and see what happened. I could bow out at the last minute if I had to. I\u00a0put myself in her place, I felt the rain and I saw the hordes of people walking\u00a0out. I wrote it, submitted it, and to my amazement, she liked it and she hired\u00a0me. If I had decided that I didn\u2019t know enough to write the chapter, I would
have missed out on a great chapter of my own life.<\/p>\n
There\u00a0is a common expression that says, \u201cWe teach what we need to learn.\u201d That\u00a0doesn\u2019t ring true to me. I\u2019d rather rephrase it as, \u201cWe teach what we need to\u00a0practice.\u201d The way I see it is if you don\u2019t know something, you aren\u2019t\u00a0qualified to teach it. But if you know something that you want to develop and improve,\u00a0everybody wins.<\/p>\n
It\u00a0takes trust and self-confidence to jump head first into a new possibility but\u00a0if you give it your all and keep putting one foot after the other, chances are\u00a0it\u2019ll work out. If it doesn\u2019t, remember Scarlett O\u2019Hara\u2019s last words in the\u00a0book, \u201cGone With the Wind.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter\u00a0all, tomorrow is another day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We\u00a0don’t know the extent of what we know. Or how much we know. Or how well we know\u00a0it. In March of 2016, I started my first six week writing course. I was\u00a0qualified. I\u2019d written countless books and many of them had become bestsellers\u00a0I wrote every day, I considered it my meditation practice and I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2729"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2730,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2729\/revisions\/2730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}