I Found My Voice in a Minivan (And It Was Screaming)

The case for using your time badly

Photo by Raymond Petrik on Unsplash

The engine is off, but the cabin is still humming with the ghost of the AC. My coffee is sweating a ring into the cupholder, and in the rearview mirror, a kid in a minivan three rows back is screaming, that specific, high-pitched siren that means absolutely nothing is wrong, but everything is loud.

I have exactly twelve minutes before the school doors swing open and my life becomes a series of logistics and juice boxes.

I’m not in a cabin in Vermont. I don’t have a leather-bound journal or a quiet mind. I’m squinting against the windshield glare, typing into my phone’s Notes app with sweaty thumbs, my heart thumping against my ribs because I’m finally saying the thing I’m afraid to say.

That paragraph was the seed he of Courage to Create, a publication that now reaches over 6,000 subscribers. It wasn’t polished. It was full of typos I wouldn’t find until the next morning. But it was honest. Most people think they need more time, a better desk, or a silent house to finally start. They’re wrong.

You don’t need a ritual. You just need to stop hiding behind your good intentions.

The Story We Tell Ourselves

You know the story. I lived inside it for years.

I’ll start writing when things calm down. When I finish this project at work. When I have a real office or at least a door that closes all the way.

The problem with “when” is that it never shows up. There is no magical Tuesday where your calendar clears and your creative ambitions politely introduce themselves. “When” is just a dressed-up version of I don’t believe I have anything worth saying.

And here’s the part that took me longer to admit: I had time. Ten minutes in a waiting room scrolling headlines. Fifteen minutes before a call, refreshing my inbox for no reason. The time existed. What didn’t exist was my willingness to use it badly.

Because using it badly, drafting something imperfect, unfinished, something that might embarrass me, felt worse than using it for nothing at all. The books on writing were safer than the writing itself. The podcast about creativity was less risky than the paragraph that might fail.

If you can’t find three minutes to create, you’re not too busy. You’re hiding behind a stack of good intentions.

What Finally Cracked It Open

I want to tell you what changed, because it wasn’t discipline. It wasn’t a better productivity system. It was permission.

I use the VIA Character Strengths survey with coaching clients: a research-backed assessment from positive psychology. I’d watched it land with people dozens of times, that specific quiet when something true gets named out loud. But I hadn’t turned it on my own writing until one evening, laptop balanced on my knees, house finally still.

I pulled up my results and read them like a stranger would. Honesty was first. My face got hot, because I knew exactly what it meant. I’d spent months trying to reverse-engineer the voices of writers I admired, sharper hooks, shinier metaphors, instead of trusting my own. Seeing Honesty ranked first felt like getting caught. The thing that made my writing different was the thing I kept trying to polish away.

The second was Love of Learning. I thought of every stolen hour, the parking lot notes, the phone drafts on the train, the ideas I typed into my alarm app at midnight so I wouldn’t lose them by morning. I’d never called it learning. I’d called it obsession. But the assessment named what I’d been doing all along: teaching myself, in real time, how to say true things out loud.

The messy conditions weren’t a liability. They were the story.

The 3-Minute Protocol

Here’s the thing about three minutes: it’s not enough time to write something good. That’s the whole point.

1. Set a hard timer. When the clock is running, your brain can’t ask but is this good enough? it can only ask what comes next? Perfectionism needs idle time to operate. Three minutes doesn’t give it any.

2. Write the thing you’re actually turning over right now. Not the insight you’ve been saving for six months. What’s sitting unfinished in your head today? Something you’d be slightly embarrassed to have overheard.

3. When the timer goes off, don’t re-read it. Send it to yourself as a draft or hit publish. The re-reading is where momentum dies.

The bad draft isn’t a problem to solve. It’s the prerequisite for the better one.

Stop Waiting. Start Messy.

If you’ve been sitting on a draft for two months or two years you don’t need more “inspiration.” You need a deadline and a room full of people who are also willing to be bad at this for an hour.

I’m hosting the Start Messy Intensive

• The 60-Minute Sprint: We aren’t “finding our muse.” We’re outrunning your inner critic using timed, high-velocity constraints.

• The “Messy” Guarantee: You will leave with a draft that is objectively terrible and that is exactly why it’s a win.

• The Outcome: 500 words out of your head and onto the screen. No fluff, no “theory,” just the momentum you’ve been missing since 2022.

The parking lot is open.

I’m Ready to Be Bad at This: Join the Intensive

When & Where

Saturday, Mar 21 || 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM EDT || via Zoom

Free for paid subscribers and Founding members

Non-paying subscribers can purchase a ticket for $33

The 3-Minute Challenge

I want you to go to the comments right now. Don’t overthink it. Don’t edit the grammar. Just give us the one “ugly” sentence or the “half-formed” idea that’s been sitting in the back of your head all week.

Drop it below. No judgment. No polish. Just the truth.

What’s the one thing you’re currently too “busy” to say?

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