Vol.1, Ed. 43 March 8, 2026 - ✨Dance Full Out

“Nobody cares if you can't dance well. just get up and dance." Martha Graham

Dear Brilliant Community,

This week in the sustainability business incubator I’m part of, our topic was client acquisition.

No slides. No presentation.

Just questions.

The guest speaker—someone I respect and admire—spent the session asking us very direct things:

• How much time are you actually spending on acquiring clients?

• What are you doing consistently?

• What conversations are you starting?

  
  

At one point we started talking about my newsletter.

I mentioned that I’ve been writing and sending it every week for the past several months.

Forty-three weeks now.

Without missing one.

He paused and said something that landed harder than I expected.

“If your newsletter wasn’t so good, I would tell you to stop writing it. I think it lets you stay in your head.”

Now, this is someone who has helped many entrepreneurs grow their businesses. Someone whose perspective I respect.

And to be honest, the comment stung a little.

Because the newsletter isn’t something I casually do.

It’s something I’ve committed to.

Every week.

But the more I sat with his comment, the more I realized something else was happening.

He wasn’t criticizing the writing.

He was pressing on something deeper.

For me, the newsletter functions a lot like what Julia Cameron calls morning pages in The Artist’s Way. It’s where I empty my head. It’s where the thoughts that would otherwise swirl around all day finally land somewhere. Writing helps me untangle ideas, notice patterns, and see things more clearly.

If I didn’t write them down, those thoughts wouldn’t disappear. They’d just sit in the background, louder and more distracting.

So in that sense, the newsletter isn’t the distraction.

It’s the clearing.

But the conversation also forced me to admit something to myself.

There are areas where I haven’t moved as boldly as I could.

I’ve done things. I’ve taken steps. But I also know there are moments where I overthink, where I try to figure out the “right” way to do something instead of just moving.

And sometimes that can feel uncomfortable to admit.

Maybe even a little embarrassing.

But recognizing it is part of the work.

My daughter is a dancer, and she once explained something to me that I’ve never forgotten.  She said, “When you’re rehearsing, you can’t just mark the choreography. You have to dance full out. That’s how the muscle memory forms.”

If you only half-move through the steps, your body never really learns them. When the performance comes, you won’t be ready.

You have to dance like the performance is already happening.

That metaphor has been sitting with me all week.

Because entrepreneurship works the same way.

You can study the steps.

You can analyze the choreography.

You can think about the music.

But eventually the music starts.

And you have to step onto the floor.

Not perfectly.

Just fully.

The truth is, many of us already know the next thing we should do.

The conversation we should start.

The offer we should make.

The event we should host.

The idea we should test.

But instead of moving, we keep studying the choreography.

Preparing a little longer.

Thinking a little deeper.

Waiting for a certainty that usually only comes after we move.

Clarity matters.

Reflection matters.

Thinking deeply matters.

But muscle memory only comes from movement.

Maybe the real reason that comment stayed with me is because it touched something I already knew.

The newsletter helps me think.

But thinking alone isn’t the dance.

The dance is movement.

And right now, it’s time to dance full out.

Field Notes

A few questions I’m sitting with this week:

• Where might you be marking the choreography instead of dancing full out?

• What is one step you already know you need to take?

• What would it look like to move on it this week?

Sometimes clarity doesn’t arrive before movement.

Sometimes clarity arrives because of it.

Be Well,

Soyini