The Terror and Joy of Building in Public: Morgan Ranstrom JUST PRESS RECORD Pt. 2

You know all those things everybody is doing that you were going to start when nobody was doing them but now, everybody is doing them so you talk yourself out of ever starting?

Maybe you don't, but I do. I know I'm not alone. Morgan Ranstrom said this to me in the second part of his recent return to Just Press Record.

The topic came up while discussing a clip from Anne-Laure Le Cunff and Chris Mayer's Just Press Record appearance. Anne-Laure had shared her Google story on that episode - how she felt like an impostor because "everyone was way smarter than me." Now she's brilliant with massive post-Google success, so what even was that feeling?

Here's the paradox: whatever we focus on feels saturated because we only see the 20% already doing it. We forget about the silent 80% of humanity for whom this isn't even an option yet. It really does suck to feel late - so how do you cope with it?

Morgan took me deeper into the paralysis in our talk. How you have to build a bridge. How you have to make your terror manageable. Not gone. Just - manageable.

You do it by reminding yourself you're not late, and reminding yourself perfection is a myth.

And then, you just start doing.

Morgan told me how he’s used my creative flywheel concept to help him break through his own perfectionism. He'd been stuck looking for perfect themes and structure - thinking each idea had to connect perfectly to the next. The flywheel concept freed him to realize he could just put stuff out because he wanted to in that moment, follow whatever thread interested him, without knowing what comes of any of it.

Morgan told me about his newsletter and book, how he met some of his closest friends, online and in real life, because he started putting himself out there. Yes, he was the billionth person in history to write a book, and yes, he was one of millions sharing thoughts online, but he made real friends(!).

You have to make curiosity a habit. You need it to be a habit because it's what keeps you exploring, beyond the definitions of late or the margins of non-manageable terror.

Our conversation is full of riffs like this. We agree, the terror will never fully disappear, but if we start noticing it, we can find ways to transform it from a wall into a compass - pointing us toward the work that matters most, the connections that surprise us, and the version of ourselves we're becoming through the act of building, in public, with other people who aren't worried about being late.

All that matters is that we show up.

New JUST PRESS RECORD out now. Watch: