When I started writing in public, my biggest fear was looking stupid. 

But I stuck with it and eventually published The Good Entrepreneur.

When I started RISE, my biggest fear was that we would fail.

But, with the help of a great team, we persevered and found success.

Heck, even writing this email, I am wondering if someone will read and think to themselves, "boy, that Nick is a fool."

It's scary to put your thoughts out for anyone to trample on. And yet that is precisely what we need to do if we want to grow.

That is because our ability to be vulnerable correlates to our ability to be loved. In the lowest moments of my journey, I believed I was enough and didn't need help. However, through the support of some kind and intentional souls, they showed me my blind spots and helped me move forward.

During that time, as I opened up to what was really inside of me, I waited for the worst to happen, and it didn't. Instead, the exact opposite happened; I found a community dealing with similar feelings. And we found each other and connected on a deeper level.

Beyond this community, Brene Brown has helped me the most in my mindset. These quotes are some of my favorites, and I share them with you today, hoping they will bring you hope and courage when you need it the most.

• "I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make a choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage, or we can choose comfort, but we can't have both. Not at the same time." 

• "When I see people stand fully in their truth, or when I see someone fall down, get back up, and say, ''Damn. That really hurt, but this is important to me, and I'm' going in again''—my gut reaction is, ''What a badass.''

•  "You either walk inside your story and own it, or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness." 

• "A lot of cheap seats in the arena are filled with people who never venture onto the floor. They just hurl mean-spirited criticisms and put-downs from a safe distance. The problem is, when we stop caring what people think and stop feeling hurt by cruelty, we lose our ability to connect. But when we're defined by what people think, we lose the courage to be vulnerable. Therefore, we need to be selective about the feedback we let into our lives. For me, if you're not in the arena also getting your ass kicked, I'm not interested in your feedback.

• "Sometimes the bravest and most important thing you can do is just show up."

So here I am, just showing up, trying to help, and trying to be vulnerable by sharing this mindset that I use to frame everything I do.

Homework for all you entrepreneurs

Take out your journal, write down the following questions, and answer them after some time of reflection:

• What truth do you need to be told to set you free to thrive?
• If our real ability to thrive isn’t about our net worth but about our true worth, what are you investing in to make yourself wealthy?
• If you have the courage to pry open your emotional vault and take a peek inside, what would you see?
• If you have the willingness to ask for and accept help, who would you ask? What would they say?
• If you have the vulnerability to allow yourself to truly be seen, what would people see?