Hesitating at the Top

Fear that once kept you safe can quietly become the reason you never start again. In “Hesitating at the Top,” Gabby opens on a playground slide, because the questions a kid asks at the top (Is the tube dark? Will I fly off the curve? How do I stop?) were never irrational. They were a small brain doing its job. Then she follows that thought into adulthood, where the same instinct can turn into the voice saying you never finish anything, so why start. She talks through the restarts behind this show, including her first podcast, The Growing Black Girl, which got two episodes and then three years of silence, and what was different this time. Along the way: a Steve Jobs line about connecting the dots, Hilary Duff’s advice in A Cinderella Story and why it sounds too simple, a TikTok question about values that changed how she talks to her own fear, and why awareness alone doesn’t cure the behavior. There’s no answer here, just a both/and: being informed by your past without being hardened by it, and honoring what fear got you through while noticing where it’s still steering. It ends on a question. What’s your slide, and what are you still bracing for at the top even though your track record says the tube is empty? New episode just dropped, go check it out. Related episodes: “Because You’ve Been Conditioned” and the Late Bloomer episode.