You Can Only Find Your Voice by Talking

Sitting in the front seat of a taxi in Peru, I decided to go for it.

"Qué tal?" I asked the driver.

His face lit up. "Wow, tú hablas Español? Muy bien, y tú?"

I nodded, threw in another decent sentence, and just like that—I wasn’t another tourist.

The guy started sharing all kinds of local tips. The best hidden cevicheria, the bar with no sign where they serve the strongest pisco.

Meanwhile, my wife sat in the back, whispering corrections. She knew I had no clue what half of his words meant.

But it didn’t matter. Because the only way to get better at Spanish… is by speaking Spanish.

And the only way to find your voice? By using it.

You can study grammar for years. You can watch every tutorial, read every guide, plan every move.

But until you do the thing—write, create, speak, build—you’ll never actually learn.

Kurt Vonnegut supposedly threw away his writing every night.

Hemingway lost entire manuscripts.

Van Gogh destroyed his own paintings. Not because they were bad, but because they were necessary steps toward something better.

And if you read my book, you know I did the same. I deleted the entire early version of it—years before it was published.

The willingness to throw away your best work is the hallmark of true creativity.

You can only find your voice by talking.

By doing.

By being willing to mess up, fix it, and keep going.

So start before you’re ready. Speak before you're fluent. Build before it’s perfect.

You might surprise yourself.

Tino

PS: Your best work? It hasn’t even been made yet. But you won’t get there unless you start today.