Ep 94: Creating New Spaces Through Vulnerability with Jenn T. Grace

You have a story worth telling. Not when you have 2 million followers. Not when a traditional publisher decides you’re worthy of a deal. Not when you’ve got some dramatic, life-altering moment that feels big enough. Right now. As you are. With exactly the story you’ve been sitting on and editing out of yourself for years.

I know that might land as a throwaway line. Like, sure Tosca, everyone says that ‘you have a story worth tellin’. But I want to actually make the case for it, because I don’t think most of us really believe it. And I think that disbelief is costing us more than we realize.

We Hold Back the Most Important Part

I had a conversation with Jenn T. Grace, founder of Publish Your Purpose, a company that has been helping authors write and publish their stories for over a decade, and she had some powerful words to share.

Jenn said: We’re so focused on being the expert in what we know that we kind of skim past our story because we don’t want to expose ourselves too much. Because then people know the real us. And that’s too confronting.

Can we sit with that for a second? This is the exact reason why so much content, so many books, so many conversations fall flat. We’re giving people the tips and the frameworks and the expertise, and we’re leaving out the most important part: our story.

The stories are what resonate. Not the bullet points of what you know. What really lands in people’s hearts are the moments where something went sideways. The version of you that was hiding, afraid, figuring it out. That is what makes people lean in. This is what makes them feel seen. And that is what makes them trust you enough to actually be helped by your hard-earned wisdome.

Imposter Syndrome Is Not a Sign You’re Not Ready

I wasn’t surprised to hear that in all her years working with authors, Jenn said this; ‘I don’t think I’ve worked with somebody yet that doesn’t experience it (imposter syndrome), myself included.’

So if you have been waiting until you feel ready, until you feel qualified, until the imposter syndrome clears up and you finally feel like the real deal, I want you to know that day may not come. And you don’t need it to. Because literally everyone is in that same place. The people whose books you’ve read. The thought leaders you admire. All of them. Imposter syndrome is not a signal that you’re not ready. It’s just part of the process.

You Can Have Impact AND Income

One of the things I hear all the time, and Jenn sees it constantly in her work, is this false choice people make between doing something for impact or doing something for money. Like you have to pick. Like if it makes you money it can’t be pure. Or if you’re in it for the impact, the money won’t follow.

This is a scarcity mindset, and it’s a form of self-sabotage.

Jenn’s memoir, House on Fire, is a perfect example of why this is false. She wrote it for two reasons: to understand what the memoir-writing experience actually feels like so she could better support her own clients, and to give someone the chance to see their story reflected in hers. She said there are not a lot of books that tackle the through line of adoption the way hers does. Two months after it came out, she got a call through a friend of a friend of a friend who had been deeply impacted by it, and they were on the phone for an hour and a half on a Saturday. This woman sobbed for 45 minutes straight because, in Jenn’s words, it was the only time in her entire life that she felt like she saw her story reflected.

The impact and the money did not cancel each other out. They coexisted, because they always can when you’re coming from the right place.

The Path Illuminates Itself

You don’t have to know the whole path. You just have to take the first step.

We are so wired for certainty and control that we will sit on our story, our book, our idea, and our truth indefinitely because we can’t see the whole road from where we’re standing. And that is the smallest way to live your life. Because the path doesn’t reveal itself all at once. It reveals itself one step at a time, but you actually have to take the step. .

So if you’ve been thinking maybe I should share my story, maybe I should write about this, maybe there’s something in my experience worth putting out into the world, here’s what I want you to hear: there is. And the next step is a lot smaller than you think.

It doesn’t have to be a book. It could be a podcast interview. A blog post. A conversation. A single post where you actually show up as yourself instead of another version of the professional persona you’ve been performing.

Whatever format it takes, just start. The path will show you the rest.

And in the meantime, be kind to yourself.