When I Give a Talk to An Empty Room, It's Frustrating, and Even Embarrassing. But Here's What It Means If Your Career Isn't 'There Yet.' The real problem isn't the empty rooms.

You're trying to get somewhere. But you're not there yet.

That is frustrating. And worse, it's embarrassing. You've worked hard. You've traveled far. And you think: I should be there by now — so why am I not?

I feel this too, and I've concluded that it isn't just about anxiety or impatience. It's about something more fundamental: This is what happens when we are on a path, and what's ahead is unseeable.

But if we want to keep going, we must light the path as best as we can.

Here's an example.

I do a lot of keynote speaking, typically about how people and teams can thrive in times of change. Sometimes the rooms are packed, and it's a thrill. But other times I arrive to a near-empty room — if, say, conference attendees choose to spend their time elsewhere. It's demoralizing every time. I've worked hard to become a great speaker, and I aspire to be in demand — to be someone that people can't miss. Empty rooms tell me the opposite: They say, You might never get there.

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But then I realized: The real problem isn't the empty rooms. After all, every speaker sees empty rooms — just as every salesperson hears "no," and every CEO has setbacks. The real problem is that I don't know how many more times I'll speak in empty rooms.

This is what I mean by the unseeable path.

We want life to be like a marathon — because no matter where you are in the marathon, you know how far you must still travel. You can pace yourself. You can think, Yes, my legs hurt, but I only have 8 miles to go…7 miles to go…6 miles to go…

Entrepreneurship is often the opposite of that. We run toward a goal — but we have no idea how close or far we are, no idea how to pace ourselves, and no guarantee that we'll make it. That's why setbacks feel so bad. They are disorienting.

So it's worth wondering: Is there a way to make our path clearer? Technically speaking, the answer is no. We cannot tell the future. But we can see a few things.

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Here's the first: We can see how far we've come.

A few years ago in this magazine, Drew Barrymore offered a piece of advice I often think about. She said that, when she struggles to achieve goals, she takes stock of what she's already accomplished. "We don't often take inventory of what we've done — it's very much a to-do-list kind of world," she said. "But once in a while, make an I've-done-this list."

In other words: When you only focus on the goal ahead, you only focus on what you don't have. But when you look at what you've achieved, you see the progress you've made.

And here's the next thing we can see: We can see purpose in each step we take.

That's why, whenever I'm about to speak to a near-empty room, I remind myself that there are still people in this room. And even if it's fewer than I'd like, I can still matter to them.

Then I tell myself this: There are a certain number of almost-empty rooms that I must stand in, before all the rooms are full. And after today, there will be one less room.

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How many of those rooms must I stand in? Is it 50? Is it 300? I cannot know. But I do know this: The path to success goes through empty rooms, which means that empty rooms aren't a sign of failure. They're a sign of progress. And eventually, I'll have spoken in all the empty rooms — and then never again.

This is what it means to build something, whether it's a career or a company or anything else. You are living one part of a much larger story — some parts incredible, some parts regrettable, some parts forgettable, and with many of the best parts yet to come.

So when you are feeling lost, or frustrated, or embarrassed that you aren't where you'd like to be, step back and remember: You are on an unseeable path, but that doesn't mean you're not on a path.

You have already gone far. Everything next is progress.

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