Little I’s, Big Vision

This post is dedicated to Izzy. And to you, if you find I’m speaking to you, too.

Dream big, little i. Dream big

The other day I received a personal email from Izzy {not her real name}, one of my readers and Inklings subscribers. She wrote to me in response to a post where I asked readers to let me know what is challenging about finding the voice of your business. Izzy is a hot luminary of a creative person — I know, I’ve seen her work. But she isn’t believing that so much of herself these days. Here’s an excerpt of her email to me, used with her permission:

What if you are simply having trouble getting up the courage to follow your dream? Finding your voice is, of course, key, but what if you’ve lost your motivation and have fallen silent? Maybe there are more of us out there who need a clear answer to that first, before we confidently climb on the rooftops and summon our “peeps”. i know i do.

Here’s what I noticed about Izzy’s short letter: the last sentence of it.

i know i do.

I’m all for non-traditional use of lowercase {as in the e.e. cummings tradition}, but what strikes me about Izzy’s use of it is that she only uses it when she’s referring to herself. She uses standard punctuation everywhere else but for ‘i’.

Why?

I’m no pop psychologist {well, okay, sometimes I am}, but I think it has to do with the Little ‘i’ Complex that so many of us suffer from.

So often I think the most daunting part of “coming out” as a creative entrepreneur — finding your voice, calling in your right peeps, doing your thing — is getting over the feeling of littleness.

i don’t matter.

i’m not good enough.

i suck.

i’m not a risk-taker.

i don’t know who i am right now.

i couldn’t stand to fail.

i’m not sure i even want to do this.

Sound familiar? It does to me. {How do you think I wrote this?}

The truth is, we are all little i’s. But some people have attracted more Big I — influence — than others, so that makes them seem and appear bigger than than the rest of us little i’s . But stripped of that — because influence and popularity can be fleeting —  those Big I’s are just little i’s, too. They doubt themselves, too. They question their talent and their ability to appeal to their right people, too.

What if your entrepreneurial mentor or creative idol told you she felt like a little i most days? What would you tell her?

On bad days,  I feel like a teeny-tiny little i. I feel too little to do the things I want to do. I’m not enough. I’m not equipped. I’m not super magically spiritually infused with the essence that people are attracted to. Or so I tell myself.

Heck, I’m even scared this post isn’t doing justice to Izzy’s email. That it isn’t tapping into what we really need to talk about. That you’ll stay silent because I haven’t reached you where you need to be reached. That you’ll stay scared.

But I’ve got big vision. Cinematic big. It rolls in the background of my little i-ness like a crackly spooled black and white movie reel. It reminds me that a little i like me can do big work, too. We can start wherever we are. We can touch one person. We can create one tiny thing. We can dare to capitalize ourselves.

Do you find yourself feeling like Izzy feels? How do we get over this enough to even envision ourselves capitalized?