Where Do You Go to Make Your Point?

I’ve been writing this newsletter weekly since 2013. That’s…a long time. If you’d asked me back then if I’d still be writing – and finding joy – in writing these letters an entire decade later…I’m not sure that I would have believed you. I was in my early twenties when I dreamed up this thing. My posts were weird and meandering and trying so hard to be inspirational. But I respect them, and that version of myself, because I had found an outlet to try and understand myself.

I went back and looked at some of those earliest posts. I was writing a lot about love…about womanhood…about finding our place in the world…about goals and dreams coming true.

Eventually those writings would grow and result in a book deal. That book came out about 5 years after I first started writing online. And I’d say books are the place I know my talents and passions culminate. They’re the place I know how to best make a point.

But I’m not sure I fully realized that until last week I was at the gym doing wonderfully exhaustive sprint intervals, listening to Sheryl Crow as a guest on Cup of Justice (I’m basically an expert witness in the Murdaugh cases at this point because I cannot stop consuming anything local journalists Mandy Matney and Liz Farrell put out, but I digress).

Sheryl Crow described her own music as the place she goes to make her point.

Art has that in common. It’s a place where people have always gone to make their point. To say something. To express. To feel. To uncover. Sometimes it’s wildly overt and explicitly a point. And sometimes the point is only obvious to the person making it.

We all need a place like that to channel what we’re understanding – what we’re processing – what we’re uncovering. I think at our core we all have an artist in us because we all have the ability to create. But I don’t think art calls for everyone.

Making a point isn’t about winning an argument. It’s not about being heard by everyone. It’s about knowing where you stand and marking it, even if just for yourself. Making a point means knowing your point. What do you care about? What issues do you want to leave a mark on? Where can you leave bits of yourself, of your heart, for others to experience?

Some people, lots of people, do that with books and art and music. But some people, many many people, make their point in the relationships they make and the families they build. Some people make their point in the businesses they scale. Others make their point in the time they invest in their local communities. Or in their journals. Or in their prayers. This is all generative, both to those on the receiving end and those doing the giving.

So whether you pick up a paintbrush or pick up the phone to call your senators, where are you going to make your point? This type of engagement leaves you feeling connected, expressive, and in touch with yourself. And those are things we all definitely need more of.

I think that’s why I’m still writing here, to you, a million years later so that we can discover the world together. Thanks for letting me mark these little points for myself and for you.

Woman on xx

PS. If books are a place you’d like to make your point, get on the waitlist for my next So you want to write a book event. Announcing the next date very soon!