Don’t wait to get your work online
This is your sign to think again, if you’ve ever thought you had “plenty of time” to finally start or complete what you’re here to do and get it into words & online.
I still vividly remember the day I got the email from Mukee, my first ever paying client. We had gotten her documentary The Pussy Talks—an intimate portrait of female sexual anatomy—into powerful words and had launched her website the year before.
When I noticed the email, I was seated in the cafeteria of the crowded Whole Foods flagship in downtown Austin alone, working.
I popped open the message and the sinking feeling in my stomach immediately told me it was bad news.
The subject: Mukee Health Update. The content: Stage IV cancer.
The symptoms we had been collectively monitoring that started as inexplicable lethargy several weeks prior, turned out to be fatal and final.
As much as I would have wanted, I couldn’t hold onto my tears inside that public, lofty-ceilinged, loud cafeteria. My heart broke open right there and soon I was sobbing.
Mukee, a native Australian living in Phoenix, wanted to go home to family ASAP.
Within a few days, I flew out to Phoenix to help her sort through
a lifetime’s worth of belongings, records, and educational resources. Within a month, her family in Australia flew out to Phoenix to take her home.
Mukee was one of those strong-as-an-ox type people you thought would live on forever. But by the fall, this beautiful soul had passed.
There was no more time left.
She was young when she passed—in her 50s, health-conscious, self-reflective, and she knew she was here to make a difference in the sexual health and vitality of the planet. She was the embodiment of what life looks like when
humanity is free from sexual shame.
I wasn’t there in Mukee’s last moments… I could only watch and engage with the photos she chose to share of her last weeks on social media.
But I am damn proud that we got her documentary The Pussy Talks online one year before she left. Here’s a bit of content we made for her instagram account…
These days, Mukee’s award-winning documentary and life’s work lives in a trust that allows her ground-breaking work to continue to make a life-altering impact on as many people as it can.
She honestly doesn’t even feel gone most of the time. Maybe, she really will live on forever.
Here’s a question for you, and it’s a big one.
Where have you tapped the breaks on your “what I’m here for” vision, thinking you have plenty of time?
Maybe you’ve been ‘working on’ your website for years, you’ve been ‘playing with’ a business idea for decades, or you go about living as if you’ve got forever (or at least another decade) to figure it all out. This kind of thinking can blind us at any age or stage in life. I know I deal with this myself at times.
But the truth is we don’t know how long we’ve got left… And you and me? We only sleep well at night when today was more of a “doing my life’s work” vs a “business as usual” kind of day. We know that someday doesn’t exist.
In the comments below, I’d love to hear about a time when you accomplished a project or task that was meaningful to you. If you’re willing to, please share:
What was the project?
How did you make it a priority?
What were the challenges you faced?
Did anyone help you bring it to life?
How did you feel when it was complete?
With no boss or external deadline to produce the dreams we have inside us, it can get so easy to leave sharing our gifts and dreams on tomorrow’s to-do list. Your insights might just help someone reading this take action on a project that’s important to them.
