The silence after the applause: The story I’ll tell at TEDxNormal

There’s a version of this story where everything looks clean.

I walk onto the stage at TEDxNormal on April 11, the lights warm and steady, the kind that make it easy to forget the room is full of people. I hit my mark. I take a breath. And then the words come—clear, practiced, exactly where they’re supposed to be.

The lines land the way I hoped they would. There’s a moment of laughter in the right place. A pause that holds. A shift you can feel ripple through the room. I don’t rush it. I don’t stumble. I stay in it. And when it’s over, there’s that beat—the one that hangs just long enough to mean something—before the applause rises and fills the space.

From the outside, it looks seamless. Polished. Like a straight line from beginning to end. Like this was always where I was headed. But that’s not actually the story. The real story starts much earlier. And it’s a hell of a lot quieter.

The night no one came

That's not a genuine smile. That's the smile of a girl trying to hold it together.

A few years ago, I stood in a bookstore for a signing I had worked toward for months. I had the books stacked just right. The table set. The quiet, hopeful energy of someone who believes people are on their way. And for a while, I kept thinking—maybe they’re just running late.

But most of them didn’t come.

There are photos from that night. If you look quickly, they almost tell a different story. I’m smiling. Sitting behind a neat stack of books. Pen in hand. Ready. But if you look a little closer—really look—you can see it. The tightness around my eyes. The way the smile doesn’t quite reach them. The space around the table that never filled in. You can see the moment I started to realize what the night actually was.

I remember doing what you do. Smiling anyway. Talking to the few people who showed up like it was a full room. Keeping my voice light. Keeping the energy up. Because that’s what you’re supposed to do when the thing you hoped for doesn’t quite happen the way you imagined.

You can really see it here.

And then packing up. Books back in the box. Pen tucked away. That strange, heavy mix of gratitude and disappointment settling in my chest as I walked out the door.

That was one version of applause. Or maybe… the absence of it. And if I’m being honest, that moment has stayed with me far more than any packed room ever could. Because it forced a question I couldn’t ignore: Do I still believe in this when no one is clapping?

The question that follows you

That question has followed me everywhere since. It shows up when I’m standing in my living room, running my TEDx talk again and again, tripping over the same sentence, wondering how something that matters this much can feel so hard to hold onto.

It shows up when I decided to go back and rewrite books I had already published—books that were “done,” technically—because I knew my voice had changed and I couldn’t unsee it. It shows up in this season of transition—stepping into a new role, building something new professionally, trusting that it will come together even when I can’t yet see the full shape of it.

From the outside, none of that looks particularly impressive. There’s no announcement for “rewrote chapter three for the fifth time.” No standing ovation for “finally memorized that one paragraph.” No milestone for “kept going even when it felt uncertain.”

Definitely me feeling a bit embarassed in front of my daughter.

But that’s the work. And more importantly—that’s the part that changes you.

What the work is really doing

I think we’re taught to chase the visible moments. The launch. The announcement. The big opportunity. The applause. But what I’ve learned—through writing, through teaching, through showing up again and again—is that those moments are just the surface. The real transformation happens long before anyone sees it.

It happens when you choose to keep going after the quiet night at the bookstore. When you keep revising something that already felt finished. When you keep practicing a talk no one has heard yet. When you say yes to something new, even when it’s a little terrifying.

That’s where the work deepens. That’s where you deepen.

Why so many people stop here

April 11, 2026

And I think that’s why this middle space—the space before the applause—is where so many people get stuck. Because the feedback disappears. There’s no clear sign you’re getting closer. No guarantee it’s working. No one clapping to tell you to keep going.

Just you. And the work. And a decision.

So, when I step onto that stage in a few weeks, I won’t just be talking about “The Silence After the Applause.” I’ll be carrying all of this with me. The quiet bookstore. The rewrites. The early mornings. The doubt. The decision to keep showing up anyway. Because what people feel in a moment like that isn’t just the talk. It’s everything behind it.

An invitation

I’ll be sharing more of this story on stage at TEDxNormal on April 11—and I’d love for you to be in the room. You can grab your tickets and join me for a morning of ideas, stories, and maybe a little bit of truth about the parts we don’t always say out loud.

Because we’re all doing this work. We’re just not always talking about it.