Don't Let Others Tell You What You Can't Do

Around three years ago, I was living in London. I had pretty traumatic events while living there, so I decided to go to Thailand for a while (but that’s another story).

One of the things that I remember while in London is that I was trying to help the company I worked for. There was a couple of times where I jumped in and wrote something to help.

They never said anything. Just ignored it. I felt that they were looking at each other silently, saying, “why this Spanish developer is writing, this is ridiculous. What does he think he is?”. Nobody said that to me, ever, but that’s what I felt from the environment.

And there is some truth to that. Yes, I’m Spanish. Yes, I’m a developer. Yes, my grammar is not brilliant.

And?

Because they put those tags on me and put those tags on myself, I decided that I shouldn’t write in English. Because, you know, who am I to do so?

So, I tried to write in Spanish, but I wasn’t getting any feedback from it. I didn’t know where to post. There wasn’t a community of people that I liked. I like the community around business, makers, startups in English. I was enjoying reading and listening to podcasts, but… I couldn’t participate because I thought so or because a group of people made me feel that I couldn't do it (my fault).

But in the past weeks, I wrote some trendy articles.

Writing is not about having perfect grammar. Yes. Those things would help, but they can be improved with time, practice, and perseverance.

Do you know how many people said to me: your writing sucks!?

Zero.

In fact, I have at least 20/30 comments saying the exact opposite—even some direct messages on Twitter from top-performance encouragement to write more.

So, no matter what people have said to you. No matter what you have said to yourself. Or what others made you believe. If you want to do something, do it. Who cares what others think.

I’m writing now. So, go and do what you want to do.

If people said to you that you are a bad designer, a bad writer, that you are not made to be an entrepreneur. It doesn’t matter. Find your way.

There are no rules. If others were successful using skills that you don’t have or talents you don’t have, it doesn’t matter. There are thousands of paths to achieving the same.

Find yours.