All of My Failures Can Be Traced to My Silence ~ By Danielle LaPorte
My tribe,
If you haven’t already read this, you must.
It resonated deeply with me and several of my friends and I know it will with you too.
Silence isn’t just a breakdown of communication—it can be so. much. more.
I was just on the receiving end of the unrelenting, angry, hurtful but much-needed release of a pressure-cooker of silence gone awry. My one word of advice? Don’t let silence fester into a bomb loaded with resentment, rage, regret and failure as shrapnel. There will be collateral damage.
I’ll let Danielle take it from here.
Carry on,
xox
All of my failures can be traced to my silence. Every. single. one.
Getting fired from the company that I co-founded happened because I had gone months without speaking up. Lots of money on the line. Better keep my mouth shut and give this a chance to work.
When I hurt a colleague’s feelings, which was completely avoidable, it was because I didn’t have the courage to speak to them directly. I overpaid for some things because I didn’t want to appear unreasonable, so I just stopped… negotiating. I didn’t want to demotivate people who worked for me/with me so I just… didn’t bring it up. Shit, I have a tattoo that I’d really rather not have because I didn’t talk back to the tattoo guy.
Failed to protect. Failed to love. Failed to lead. Failed to make art. Failed to speak up.
“Failing” and “succeeding” aren’t very poetic terms.
In-between the labels of “failure” and “success” are all of the painful things that make us so much more beautiful.
But after you lose out (like, on a BIG DREAM) because you kept your mouth shut; or you take a piece of someone’s heart with you because you took the easy (silent) way out, then speaking up starts to seem like less of a heroic act and just way more… practical. “Practical” as in… voicing your truth becomes a life practice.
Truthing isn’t necessarily easier to do, but it brings incredible ease to your life. And the more you do it, the easier it becomes. The courage, the classy delivery, the compassionate humor, it all becomes more accessible when you’re using your voice every day.
Your voice is a muscle. You need it to rise to the occasion of your life. That’s why it’s called speaking up.
Danielle LaPorte is an invited member of Oprah’s inaugural Super Soul 100, a group who, in Oprah Winfrey’s words, “is uniquely connecting the world together with a spiritual energy that matters.”
She is author of The Fire Starters Sessions, and The Desire Map: A Guide To Creating Goals With Soul—the book that has been translated into 8 languages, evolved into a yearly day planner and journal system, a top 10 iTunes app, and an international workshop program with licensed facilitators in 15 countries. Her next book, White Hot Truth launches May 15, 2017.
Named one of the “Top 100 Websites for Women” by Forbes, over 5 million visitors go to DanielleLaPorte.com every month for her daily #Truthbombs and what’s been called “the best place online for kickass spirituality.” Her multi-million dollar company is made up of nine women and one very lucky guy, working virtually from seven different cities.
A speaker, a poet, a painter, and a former business strategist and Washington-DC think tank exec, Entrepreneur Magazine calls Danielle, “equal parts poet and entrepreneurial badass…edgy, contrarian…loving and inspired.” Her charities of choice are VDay: a global movement to end violence against women and girls, and charity: water, setting out to bring safe drinking water to everyone in the world. Her favorite person is her 12-year-old son.
You can find her @daniellelaporte and just about everywhere.
