When I started writing on Substack, I didn’t really tell people.
A few, yes.
I told my family in New Zealand. I told a handful of friends. My parents and my sister in Brazil knew.
But some of my closest friends still don’t know.
I think part of me wanted to protect it.
When something is very new, and you’re not entirely sure what it is going to become, telling people can feel strangely exposing. You are not just saying, I wrote something.
You are saying, This matters to me.
And somehow that feels much more vulnerable.
My parents don’t speak much English, so when I published my first articles, I would send them the Portuguese translation.
They read them. Sometimes it took a few days. We talked about them.
And then, little by little, it became normal.
Another article from Julia.
Another link.
Another thing I was doing somewhere on the other side of the world.
My parents have never subscribed to my Substack. They don’t go there to leave a like or a comment. They probably don’t understand that those tiny things can help something new find its way to more people.
And I know how ridiculous this can sound.
My parents love me.
I know that.
They would do almost anything for me.
This isn’t about whether they love me.
It’s about something much smaller.
And perhaps that’s exactly why it matters.
Starting something is embarrassing.
We don’t say that enough.
Before something has followers, customers, subscribers, readers or proof that it was a good idea, there is just you — standing beside something you made, hoping somebody will notice.
A first article.
A new company.
A podcast.
A website.
A LinkedIn post after years of never posting anything.
We like to talk about entrepreneurship as though the difficult part is strategy.
Find your niche. Build your audience. Be consistent. Create content. Keep going.
But before all of that, there is a much more uncomfortable step.
You have to let people watch you try.
I have spent most of my professional life working for companies. I could hide behind the company name, the title, the meetings, the emails, the job description.
Now I am in a strange moment where I don’t know exactly what comes next.
Maybe I will return to corporate. Maybe I will build something of my own. Perhaps both, in some form.
But I know that whatever comes next will require me to become more visible.
So, recently, I started posting on LinkedIn.
I had barely posted there before.
And let me tell you: posting something you have written and watching almost nobody react to it is a very efficient way of discovering exactly how confident you are.
You press publish.
Then you pretend you don’t care.
Then you check.
You tell yourself likes don’t matter.
Then you check again.
It’s ridiculous.
And also completely human.
Because perhaps you spent three hours writing that post.
Perhaps you deleted it twice.
Perhaps you nearly didn’t publish it because you thought, Who am I to talk about this?
And then somebody you know scrolls past it in two seconds.
They have no idea what happened before you pressed publish.
I have always tried to support people when I see them starting something.
And I mean always.
Long before I started writing publicly. Long before I found myself wondering what I might build next.
A friend of mine became involved in a startup and started posting about it.
I didn’t understand everything she was doing.
I wasn’t going to become a customer.
I didn’t need to.
I liked her posts.
I’ve done the same on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. A heart on a story. A like. An insightful reaction. A small signal that says, I see what you’re doing.
Recently, at Mindvalley University, I met a Brazilian woman who had left corporate and was beginning a business in personal development and manifestation.
Now when I see her posts, I like them.
Sometimes, if I’m being completely truthful, I don’t even listen to the whole thing.
I still press like.
There is another woman I knew years ago who has started creating something completely different online. I hadn’t seen her on social media for a long time. I came across her again recently and thought, Oh, she’s trying something new.
Like.
Like.
Like.
I’ve always done this.
What has changed is that now I understand the other side of it.
Now I’m the one starting from zero.
I’m the one writing something for three hours and wondering whether to publish it. I’m the one posting on LinkedIn after years of barely posting anything. I’m the one watching something reach hundreds of people and then seeing a tiny handful of reactions underneath it.
And suddenly I find myself thinking: Wow.
All those little hearts I gave away so casually over the years weren’t quite as meaningless as I thought.
Because when you’re the person on the other side of the screen, you notice them.
You also notice who’s missing.
That has been particularly strange on LinkedIn.
When I lost my job, I received beautiful messages.
I’m so sorry.
Anything you need.
You can count on me.
If you need a reference, just ask.
And I believe people meant them.
But then the difficult moment passes. Everyone goes back to their lives. And you begin the much less dramatic work of trying to rebuild.
You update something.
You apply for jobs.
You try to make yourself visible.
You write your first posts after years of saying almost nothing publicly.
And the room becomes surprisingly quiet.
A post can have hundreds of views and only a handful of reactions.
Of course, nobody owes me a like.
That’s not the point.
What interests me is the difference between how naturally we offer support when somebody falls and how easily we can miss the moment when they’re trying to stand back up.
Perhaps the second moment looks less urgent.
But I suspect that’s when encouragement can matter most.
Sometimes I’m not liking the post.
I’m liking the courage it took to post it.
We are told constantly that we shouldn’t need external validation.
And I understand the principle.
If you are going to build anything, you cannot depend on your parents, your friends, your former colleagues or strangers on the internet applauding every time you do something.
Eventually, you have to keep going when nobody is clapping.
I know that.
But I also think we use the language of self-confidence sometimes to pretend we don’t need each other.
We do.
Especially at the beginning.
Not an audience of thousands.
Not constant praise.
Just a few people who understand that you’re doing something that scares you a little.
A friend who shares it.
A former colleague who leaves a comment.
Your sister subscribing.
Your mother pressing a little heart even though she doesn’t completely understand what Substack is.
Tiny things.
Things that take seconds.
And perhaps that’s why their absence can hurt more than seems reasonable.
It’s not really about the like.
It’s about looking toward the people you assumed would be watching and, for a moment, finding an empty chair.
The other day I met a friend who has also been without a job for some time.
I told her I had started posting on LinkedIn.
Then I said something I would normally be embarrassed to say out loud.
Can you please go and like my posts?
I laughed.
Just so I don’t feel like a complete loser.
It was funny.
But it wasn’t entirely a joke.
I am learning to do things publicly that I used to do privately.
And I’m also learning something I didn’t expect.
The people who believe in you aren’t necessarily going to read everything you write.
They aren’t going to listen to every podcast.
They aren’t going to follow every new thing you’re trying to build.
I am trying not to confuse their attention to what I’m building with their belief in me.
Those aren’t the same thing.
They have their lives. Their worries. Their own worlds happening thousands of kilometres away.
And I have mine.
Still, this experience has changed something in me.
Or perhaps it has simply made me understand something I was already doing.
When I see someone beginning, I try not to scroll past too quickly.
I know that what takes me two seconds may have taken them three hours to create.
And considerably longer to find the courage to share.
So I press like.
It costs me nothing.
I know what it might have cost them to press publish.
Just Julia
If something in this story felt familiar, you’re welcome to stay. Every week, I write for women figuring out who they’re becoming next.
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