A couple of weeks ago, I attempted to reverse-engineer Havi Brooks’ blog to see how she built such an incredible community in about a year. And she responded with some really eye-opening stuff that answered a lot of my questions.

I have a feeling I’m going to look back on that post later as a Moment When Everything Changed. (I have a couple of those moments actually, but I’ll save that for later.)

My idea of “being real” — it grew. My willingness to dig into some of the actual stuff that me and everybody else with a website struggles with — that grew, too. cj Madigan and I were talking today about this very thing. This writing about things that everybody thinks but nobody says. My homegirl Danielle LaPorte would call it truth. I call it scary.

Egads…I wrote that?!

After that post, I made a commitment to write about what’s really going on. Not just about theory or “best practices”, but about the real ins-and-outs and ups-and-downs of having an online enterprise. And to do that…guess what? I have to write about what I know. Me. My business. My struggles and victories. I have to admit to the universe that I don’t know everything. Surprise! (I bet you had no clue.)

So I’m being more vulnerable, more open. I’m saying what I really think about what’s going on right now. I’m launching out of my current experience instead of the usual “Once upon a time, I used to struggle with fill in the blank. But now, I’m really quite perfect. And I’m here to help you.”

The not-so-good part (You know. In case you wanted to try the same thing.)

I’ll just warn you — in the past couple of weeks, I have squirmed around in my chair, just waiting for someone to point out all of my flaws. I know. Not much faith in humanity and all. But I can certainly see them, and now everyone else can, too.

For example, I still can’t believe I actually wrote about an instrument that would show invisible horns on potential clients who are social media-hopeless. Crap! What kind of awful person am I? Just because some people have a vastly long learning curve doesn’t mean that they’re the devil! (But you know that’s not what I meant, right?) And after I push “Publish” on this post, I’ll probably writhe in anguish until somebody reassures me that they’re not going to abandon me for lost.

The so-good-it-completely-outweighs-everything-else part

This week, I got to help somebody start to break away from their soul-sucking job. I got to reassure them that yes, this online thing really can be done. You don’t have to be internet-famous to have a really, really successful online business doing what sets you on fire. Heck, you don’t even have to be good at getting comments (though Mark over at Heart of Business has really great advice for that.)

I got to connect with super bright, super talented people. I’ve had opportunities to take on new projects and collaborate with people I admire and respect. I got to hear one of my clients tell me that I’m their secret weapon. (Yeah…that was the best thing right there.)

I swear, this correlation between risk and reward is SO powerful. Small risk, small reward. Big risk, big reward. It certainly makes you wonder if the “safe” path needs to be re-named.