I don’t think there was one moment when I decided to start Reinventing Out Loud. It’s been sitting somewhere in the back of my mind for years, although it didn’t have a name and I certainly didn’t have a business plan for it.

I’ve always been someone who researches things to death. I investigate. I compare. I try things. I change my mind. I find something that works and immediately want to tell somebody about it so they don’t have to spend the same ridiculous amount of time I did figuring it out.

I suppose I’ve always liked showing people the good, the bad and the ugly—and, when possible, finding something funny in the ugly.

One of the most rewarding parts of my career had very little to do with technology. I loved getting to know the people I worked with and helping them with things that technically had nothing to do with whatever I had been hired to do. Sometimes it was career advice. Sometimes it was helping someone work through something personal. Sometimes it was just sharing something I’d learned the hard way so maybe they wouldn’t have to.

Those moments mattered to me. A lot.

But I spent most of my adult life with work at the center of everything. I was always going to exercise more when things calmed down. Eat better when things calmed down. Make more time for people I loved when things calmed down. Try some of the things I’d been curious about for years when things calmed down.

You can probably guess what happened.

Things never calmed down.

Then the dogs accidentally helped.

My sister and I started working on Two Dog Lovers, and suddenly I was supposed to make content. I assumed that would be easy. I have dogs. I love dogs. I have approximately eleven billion pictures of dogs on my phone. How hard could this possibly be?

Apparently, harder than I thought.

I found myself staging things, planning shots, trying to create moments that looked natural instead of simply having natural moments. And somewhere in the middle of doing that, I kept thinking: It would be so much easier if I could just film my actual life.

Me cooking something. Going for a walk. Growing sprouts in jars on my kitchen counter. Trying to exercise. Trying to meditate. Buying some gadget I have absolutely convinced myself is going to change my life. Trying something everyone on the internet swears is amazing and discovering that, at least for me, it is absolutely not.

That felt natural.

Then another thought occurred to me. Maybe documenting all of this wouldn’t just make content easier. Maybe it would make me more intentional.

There’s a big difference between saying, “I really want to get stronger,” and knowing you’re going to come back and tell people whether you actually did anything about it. There’s a difference between saying you want more joy in your life and actively looking for it. There’s a difference between wondering what you want next and deciding you’re actually going to find out.

That’s when this started to feel like more than content.

Which brings me to the terrifying part.

For decades, I knew how to do my job. That doesn’t mean I always felt confident. I have had imposter syndrome with the best of them. But I had evidence: titles, reviews, awards, compensation, people who trusted me, problems I knew how to solve.

I had spent a very long time becoming competent.

And now I’m voluntarily doing something where I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.

Excellent decision.

I’m learning to make videos, talk to a camera, build an audience, write more personally and put things into the world that people can judge. People I worked with for years may see this. People I know personally may see it. I may make something I think is wonderful and twelve people may watch it.

I may look ridiculous. I may fail.

And perhaps even more unsettling: I might succeed at something and discover I don’t actually want it.

That possibility hadn’t occurred to me at first. We talk so much about being willing to fail. But sometimes trying something teaches you that you can do it—you just don’t particularly want to.

That seems useful too.

So why do any of this publicly?

Because I think there’s something powerful about letting people see the middle.

We’re usually shown the transformation after the transformation: the new career, the new body, the new relationship, the new business, the new life. Much less often do we see the part where somebody is standing in her kitchen wondering whether she has completely lost her mind.

I’m interested in that part—the trying, the changing-your-mind, the occasional flop, the surprising win. The thing you thought would make you happy that didn’t. The thing you almost didn’t try that changed something.

And I think vulnerability gives other people permission to be vulnerable too. If I’m willing to be a beginner in public after spending years in a world where I was decidedly not a beginner, maybe someone else will feel a little less ridiculous being one too.

That’s the Out Loud part.

Not because I think everyone needs to put her life on the internet. Please don’t. We have enough people doing that already.

It’s because I want to be honest about the process while I’m still in it.

What I hope happens

Yes, I would love for this to become successful. I’d be lying if I said otherwise.

I’m excited by the possibility of building something new, creating a community, working with my sister, and showing my nieces that you can do something completely different at a stage of life when people sometimes expect you to start narrowing your world. I would love for whatever I build here to eventually let me do more of the things that matter deeply to me, including finding bigger ways to give back.

But there’s something else I want.

I want a woman to find Reinventing Out Loud six months from now and feel a little more possibility than she felt five minutes earlier. Not because I’ve figured out the formula for a perfect next chapter. I absolutely have not.

I want her to think: Maybe I’m not done either.

Maybe the door I assumed was closed isn’t actually closed. Maybe I can change my mind. Maybe I can try the thing. Maybe it doesn’t have to work perfectly to have been worth doing. Maybe I don’t even know yet what I want—and that’s not a reason to stop looking.

That’s what I’m trying to find out for myself.

And for once, instead of waiting until I know how the story ends, I’m going to tell it while it’s happening.

Out loud.