Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously

Earlier this year I put a playground screensaver on my laptop, a reminder that this whole thing—this app, this experiment, this what-if—was supposed to feel like climbing a jungle gym, not filing taxes. Not a high-wire act in front of a packed theater, but monkey bars and hopscotch. Because the second you take yourself too seriously, you freeze up. You start asking the questions that kill creativity: Will anyone care? Will a billion-dollar company copy me? Will this even work?

Spoiler: those are the wrong questions.

Better question: Does this feel fun?

Because Gistvox is, at its heart, a playground for voices. A sandbox for ideas. It’s not about polish. It’s not about your résumé. It’s about that thing you thought of in the shower, or during your commute, or in line at the grocery store. Two minutes to say it out loud before it slips away.

And here’s a secret: recording your voice is addictive. Not in a scrolling-till-3am way. Addictive like noticing music where you never did before. You’ll start to hear the weight of a pause, the music of a breath. You’ll realize that the crunch of someone eating chips in the background sometimes makes a story better. You’ll record a thought three times in a row and, weirdly, the first take will often be the best. Humanity has a sound. That’s the point.

So no need rehearse. Don’t write a script (unless that’s fun for you). Don’t delete your first try because it wasn’t “perfect.” Perfection is boring. Boring is forgettable. What we’re building here is alive.

We’ve stacked this thing Lego brick by Lego brick. No investors, no billion-dollar war chest, just one foot in front of the other until we had something that worked. And the playground is finally ready to be enjoyed.

When you share a story on Gistvox, remember this: it’s not a TED Talk. It’s not the Gettysburg Address. It doesn’t need to be forever. It’s just your voice, in the moment, stitched into the voices of others. Together, they make something better than any single brick could.

So go ahead. Hit record. Say it messy. Say it twice. Say it with a laugh in your throat.

Just don’t take yourself too seriously.

This is play. And play is the whole point.