There's a photo on my phone I still smile at.
A conference room at the National Space Centre. Round tables. And about 125 people holding a copy of my book up in the air while I take a cheeky selfie or two from the stage.
My count at the time was 125. A year later I remembered it as 150. Let's just say it was well over a hundred people and leave the maths to the space scientists.
It was the Residential Property Surveyors Association annual conference. I'd been asked to speak, and the book had only been out for a short while.
If you'd told me a few years earlier that I'd write a book at all, I'd have laughed. I'm the person who used to sit on ideas for months because they weren't quite ready. Polishing. Tweaking. Waiting for the right moment.
Done Beats Perfect was me finally getting out of my own way.
So standing there, looking out at a room of surveyors waving that book at me, was a strange feeling. Proud, a bit embarrassed and very grateful all at once. A thing I nearly didn't finish was now sitting in other people's hands. None of them would have been holding anything if I'd waited until it was perfect.
Once it's out, a book does its own work
People read it on a train. They listen on Audible while they walk the dog. They pass it to a colleague. You don't get to stand next to every reader and explain what you really meant on page 40.
That's terrifying if you're a perfectionist.
It's also the best thing about putting work out into the world. Once it's out, you can't fiddle with it any more, and someone else gets to use it. The same goes for a talk, a website, a new service or a blog post like this one.
I've spoken in plenty of rooms since. Some bigger, some much smaller. That room didn't need me to be flawless. They needed someone who'd actually been through it, and they were up for a bit of fun. You try getting a room of surveyors to wave a book at you before lunch!
So thank you to everyone who held a copy up that day. You made a slightly nervous author very happy. If you've read the book since, I'd love to hear what stuck with you, and an honest Amazon review helps more than you might think.
Everyone has something sitting in a drawer. A book, a course, a business idea, a talk they keep meaning to pitch. What's yours, and what would it take to call it done?
