What would you do if you had 10x the courage?

During a recent keynote, I asked the audience my favorite question:

"What would you do if you had 10x the courage?"

One of the women shared that she would create content to help people who needed her expertise most. She seemed genuinely excited to do it. Her face lit up.

We had a chance to connect after the keynote and as we talked, it became even clearer to me that she felt she had a calling.

"I feel a drumbeat inside to do this. I want to help people," she told me.

I asked her what stood in her way.

"Fear. What if I can't? What if everything I want to share has already been said? I feel like I don't have anything that unique to offer," she told me.

I've heard this so many times.

From accomplished, capable, brilliant people who have so many gifts and abilities...

...and a belief so loud it drowns out everything else:

That the world doesn't need their specific voice.

That someone else has already said it better.

That they don't have anything special to offer.

(Heck, I feel this way myself sometimes. I almost quit writing my first book because I felt like everything I wanted to write had already been written.)

Here's what I told her:

The drumbeat you feel is not random. It is the truest signal you have about where your impact is meant to go.

And the belief that everything has already been said?

That is fear talking.

Nobody has said it in your voice.

With your experience.

From your specific vantage point.

With your energy.

To the specific people only you can reach.

Your differentiator isn't what you share. It's that you are the one sharing it.

Your "you-ness" is your gift. And it's your responsibility to share it.

The world does not need another version of what already exists.

It needs your version. The one only you can create.

The drumbeat you feel inside doesn't lie.

The fear does.

If you have been sitting on something you feel called to build — a body of work, a business, an offering, a next chapter — and a voice in your head keeps telling you there's no room for you, please hear this from my heart into yours:

That voice is not protecting you.

It is keeping you from the people who need exactly what you have to offer.

If you have something you feel called to create or share and you don't do it, you are literally stealing it from people who need it.

So don't listen to that voice of fear.

Listen to the drumbeat instead.

To the pull you feel towards what feels true and meaningful to you.