Welcome to Issue 55 of A Good Reputation, a newsletter about how to become a better storyteller to grow your brand. (Did someone send you? Subscribe here.) (Miss past issues? Read those here.)

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Hello Reader,

One of my storytelling students had her best-performing post ever last week, and she completely panicked.

It got hundreds of thoughtful comments, and even a few DMs—including a couple from prospective clients.

Score, I thought. Perfectly executed proof that the stuff I teach actually works.

I was thrilled for her. And I expected her to be thrilled. But when I asked her how she felt about her successful first attempt at public personal storytelling, thrilled wasn’t it.

The feeling, she said, was "deeply uncomfortable."

She wasn’t basking in validation as much as she was struggling with the complicated tangle of emotions that come along with getting noticed by a large group of people.

And while she was sitting there feeling deeply uncomfortable on our group call, I was feeling deeply confused.

Isn’t this exactly what we all say we want? To be seen and recognized? To have our words and ideas land somewhere and spark a conversation that leads to tangible business outcomes?

And yet, when it actually happens, many of us want to crawl back into our safe corners of obscurity.

If I’m being honest (which is the ultimate goal here), I sometimes feel that way too—especially when something I publish gets lots of attention.

I’m proud when people connect with what I write, but the pressure to repeat that funny, smart, or insightful thing hits right after. Imposter syndrome creeps in, and I get all in my head with the same nagging questions that I hear many of my students speak out loud.

Who am I to say anything? Do I actually have the authority to speak on this topic? And what the hell do I have to say that hasn’t been said before?

So many signals this week kept telling me the same thing.

While we claim to fear obscurity or sameness, we’re even more terrified of visibility because standing out means standing wide open. And that means risking misunderstanding, criticism, and judgment—or worse, indifference.

So we cling to the safe middle and follow the proven paths. We use the same language, the same design, and the same strategies that have already been validated by someone braver who took the first risk.

And then we wonder why everything—from brands, to architecture, art, and people—feels like it came out of the same agency, firm, AI tool, or Justin Welsh coaching program.

But when you start to take a closer look, the whole “sea of sameness” issue isn’t born out of a crisis of creativity or homogenization of culture driven by the rise of algorithms.

Beneath the sameness narrative is a deeply human conflict we all must figure out how to navigate on our own.

And that’s the tension between our most pressing need to feel seen and our most basic need to feel safe.

A Good Observation

This isn’t just a personal pattern. We can see the same thing playing out everywhere in culture.

In a thoroughly researched and epically written blog this month titled “The Decline of Deviance,” Adam Mastroianni makes the case that nothing is new anymore. Across every cultural field—film, TV, music, books, games—the data show we’re recycling ideas rather than inventing new ones. And even when new work appears, it sounds and looks more homogenous than any other period in time.

Adam's take is that this aesthetic flattening is tied to the broader decline in deviance, as fewer people are willing to risk standing out because we live in a world that prizes safety and optimization over experimentation.

And, while I think he’s onto something, I also think he's missing the most important piece of what that sameness is costing us.

The real cost of avoiding risk is that we stop connecting.

When we play it safe, we lose intimacy along with our originality. It's like we don't just start to look alike, we start to feel alike, too—all guarded, and polished, and unreachably safe.

At some point, safety stops protecting us and starts separating us. And the safer we try to be, the further we drift from the very thing we’re craving.

So if our ultimate desire is to be chosen, understood, and respected, we have to face our fear of being misunderstood, misjudged, and rejected. I guess the hard truth here is that we can’t have one without risking the other.

In other words, you can’t be seen without risking being seen wrong.

It can be a hard pill to swallow, but that human connection we all crave requires us to get naked. (Or, at the very least, strip down to our undies.)

While I'm still navigating how to balance those conflicting needs, I’ve found that the best way through that tension is trust.

A Good Takeaway

The first thing I put my trust in is the belief that people, in general, are ultimately good. That most of us want the same things and are driven by our collective human need to connect, not to condemn each other.

And the second is to trust in myself. To have confidence that if someone does misunderstand, criticize me, or twist my words, I can handle it.

Because that’s all trust really is: a confident relationship with the unknown.

If someone takes a jab at me for something I’ve shared, I usually have two choices. I can either pause and ask if there’s truth in it—if there’s something I can learn, or a perspective I’ve missed. Or I can remember that sometimes, criticism says more about the giver than the receiver.

Neither is easy, and both require resilience. And that kind of resilience only comes from practice. Like a muscle, trust that you can relinquish control of the outcome and handle whatever people throw back at you, gets stronger the more you use it.

Personal storytelling, in many ways, is simply an exercise in public self-trust.

Every story you tell about your work, or your life, or your mistakes, is a small act of bravery. A rep in the gym of vulnerability, if you will.

If you’re here, reading this newsletter, it’s because you want to build a good reputation. You want to become a better storyteller. But you can’t tell great stories if you aren’t willing to take great risks.

And by now, I hope you can see that I don’t just mean creative risks, but emotional ones.

So start there. Take a good, honest look at yourself and ask: What’s true? What are you hiding? What risks have you taken or mistakes have you made that still sting but could help someone else feel seen in the meaning you've given your experience?

Help us see you for who you really are. Help yourself see you for who you really are. We can't expect to be understood when we don't explain ourselves.

In the two decades that I've been publicly putting myself out there, I've learned that trust and connection are built in the moments you dare to be seen. That's also when you really start to create a life and a body of work that feels bold and inspired.

And anything that happens from there—whether it’s praise, criticism, or silence—becomes either a good lesson or a good story.

Most of the time, it’s both.

A Few Good Resources

1. If you're looking for an in-person opportunity and a safe space to explore your story, applications are officially open for the 2026 New Narratives Retreat.
2. Steven King agrees that fear is what holds most people back from being great. Read his other hot takes on how to become a storied storyteller.​
3. Speaking of fear, my friend Lucy is hosting a 2-day workshop next week called The Step You're Scared to Take: From Fear to “Hell Yes.”
4. And for a little more inspiration, another student in my cohort wrote about her experience with overcoming the fear of visibility.​

Hope you have a good one,
Renee