I personally have to write about something publicly 5 or 6 times before I even really know what I think about it.

It’s different than just editing it for myself privately. When I draft and redraft my thinking in public, I have skin the the game. There are stakes. And for me, it's the stakes that really push me to think clearly and honestly. It always takes my ideas further than they could have ever gone in private.

What that teaches me is that if I really want to understand my thoughts, I have to be willing to be misunderstood by people. The emotional feedback loop is just as important as the intellectual one - because thinking in private lets you protect your ideas, but thinking in public forces you to earn them.

If you want to break through to the next level of your thinking, it may be time to suck it up and let people misunderstand you for the sake of getting to where you want to be.