Stop Waiting for Permission

The comment itself wasn’t dramatic, which is probably why it stuck with me.

After a speaking gig, someone shook my hand, smiled, and said it with a tone that suggested it was obvious and settled.

“You’re lucky. You get to do this.”

He wasn’t wrong, at least not entirely. I am lucky in a lot of ways to get to do the work I do. I don’t take that lightly.

But I smiled mostly because my brain needed a second to catch up, and in that pause I remember thinking, Hussein… lucky? That’s really the word we’re going with here?

I understand why it looks that way from the outside.

You see the stage, the audience, the energy in the room when a story lands and people lean forward instead of reaching for their phones. You catch the moment, not the miles that led there.

What you don’t see are the ten years before that moment ever existed.

The years of speaking for free in classrooms and schools. The long drives to unfamiliar cities with bad coffee and worse directions. The networking events where no one knew my name and no one was waiting to hear what I had to say.

You don’t see the repetition either.

The constant work of learning how to tell stories that actually move people instead of explaining things at them. Learning how to read a room well enough to adjust in real time. Learning how to shape narratives that fit the audience sitting in front of you, not the one you rehearsed for alone.

That kind of craft isn’t discovered one day. It’s built slowly, often quietly.

It gets shaped in empty rooms, in awkward pauses, in talks that don’t quite land and force you to recover without panicking while pretending you meant it that way all along.

There was doubt the entire time. Fear too. Comparison. And that quiet question that tends to show up late at night asking whether any of this effort would ever return the favor.

And still, I showed up.

So no, I didn’t call it luck.

But I understand why someone else would.

When effort stretches across years and the payoff shows up in a single visible moment, the brain reaches for the shortest explanation possible.

Luck sounds much nicer than sacrifice.

You Don’t Need Permission. You Need Courage.

At some point, after enough years refining the craft and sitting with uncertainty, something else became clear.

Talent wasn’t the missing piece.

Direction was.

More specifically, courage was.

Not cinematic courage. Not confidence without fear. Just the willingness to take action before things feel fully earned or officially approved.

This is where many authorpreneurs stall, not because they lack ability, but because they’re waiting.

Waiting for permission to write. Waiting for permission to publish. Waiting for permission to market themselves. Waiting for someone else to validate that they’re allowed to be seen.

But permission doesn’t arrive.

Opportunity doesn’t introduce itself politely. It shows up quietly, disguised as conversations, comments, replies, and moments you only recognize if you’re already moving.

That’s when I started thinking differently about relationships.

Not networking in the stiff, transactional sense that makes everyone uncomfortable, but something much simpler and much harder to fake.

Genuine interest.

This is where the Dream 100 List becomes practical, not aspirational.

It’s not a fantasy list of people you hope will one day rescue your career. It’s a working document.

People whose work you respect. People whose thinking sharpens yours. People whose audience overlaps with the people you want to serve.

Then comes the part most people avoid, even though it’s the part that actually matters.

Reaching out.

I made a simple rule for myself, mostly to remove the drama from it.

Every week, I try to connect with five people.

Sometimes that’s through email. Sometimes through a direct message. Sometimes by replying to a newsletter or leaving a thoughtful comment that actually contributes something instead of just saying “great post.”

I’ve also leaned into shipping my book to people as a thank-you for connecting, or as a way to open a door with someone I genuinely respect and could see myself collaborating with or learning from.

There’s no pitch attached to it. No hidden agenda. No awkward follow-up if nothing comes of it.

Just connection.

This is usually where someone stops me and says, “Wait… that’s it?”

Yes.

Most messages don’t lead anywhere immediately. Some go unanswered. Some conversations fade out after a few exchanges.

That’s not rejection.

That’s just math.

You don’t need everyone. You need enough, over time, for momentum to have somewhere to land.

Courage here doesn’t look bold. It looks consistent.

What Looks Like Luck Is Usually Someone Paying Attention

This is the part that tends to get labeled as timing from the outside.

Spencer May didn’t enter my world because of a calculated outreach plan or some clever strategy.

He followed the newsletter. He paid attention. He commented thoughtfully. And eventually, he reached out.

That only happened because the newsletter existed in the first place, and because it kept going even when it would have been easier to stop publishing and move on.

His comments stood out because they weren’t performative. They were engaged, curious, and grounded.

So I did something many people don’t do, even when opportunity quietly raises its hand.

I paid attention.

I checked out his work and immediately appreciated how intentional he was about getting himself out there as a law student and creating opportunities early instead of waiting for credentials to do the talking.

Most students wait until after law school to think about networking, personal branding, and career strategy.

Spencer didn’t.

While still in school, he built professional relationships, optimized his LinkedIn presence, grew a credible personal brand, and used social media to create real opportunities in a profession built on trust.

His book, Memorable Law Students: Build & Grow Your Professional Identity as a Law Student, hit me as genuinely useful. The fact that he’s still a student made it resonate even more.

He didn’t need permission to write it. He shared what he believed worked, put his thinking in public, and helped others along the way.

That’s courage in action.

The podcast invite felt obvious. Not forced. Not strategic in a spreadsheet sense. Just the next natural step.

I was interested in his go-getter mindset and knew it would be a powerful way to unpack this exact conversation around visibility, initiative, and creating opportunity early.

We did an episode together talking about his approach to being a law student and so much more. You can check that out here.

Years of speaking refined the voice. Consistency built the newsletter. The newsletter created visibility. Visibility built trust. Trust opened conversation. Conversation created opportunity.

Nothing about it was sudden.

This is what being proactive actually looks like when you strip away the hype.

It’s not chasing people. It’s not pushing outcomes. It’s not forcing momentum.

It’s deciding that waiting quietly is no longer the plan.

Most authorpreneurs don’t struggle with talent.

They struggle with hesitation.

They wait until the book launches. Until the site is finished. Until they feel legitimate enough to reach out.

Meanwhile, opportunity is already nearby, quietly raising its hand, waiting to see who’s paying attention.

Most opportunities don’t knock loudly.

They comment. They reply. They wait.

So when someone says, “You’re lucky you get to do this,” I don’t argue.

I just know the rest of the sentence.

You’re lucky… because you had the courage to act before you had permission.

And that collision only happens if you keep showing up long enough for effort to finally meet opportunity.

Go get it my friend, opportunities await.

-Hussein