Tricia Rose Burt was the most recent speaker at the Amos Fortune Forum in Jaffrey, speaking on her own creative journey, and sharing her story and others through her podcast “No Time to be Timid.”

In her talk, entitled “Conformity to Courage: This is No Time to be Timid,” Burt told the story of when she was in her late 20s, working as a marketing executive. She called up the marketing director for Z100, a popular radio station. The marketing director wasn’t interested in her pitch, but told her she had an amazing voice for radio, and if she wanted to come in, they would help her make a free demo.

Burt said she turned the offer down, but is often still haunted by the “what if” of that missed opportunity, even 35 years later.

“But I wasn’t raised to be courageous, at least to be doing something new,” Burt said. “I was raised to conform, because the goal was security and stability.”

Burt said the first time she really took a risk, it was a big one – she left her lucrative corporate career, and recently divorced, decided to go to art school, and then spend some time in Ireland, creating. What was meant to be a six-month trip to Ireland turned into four years, and during that time, she met her now-husband, Eric Masterson.

After moving back to New England, Burt said she sometimes had to challenge herself to get on with the creating. After talking about creating a one-woman show for years, she forced herself to actually sit down and write it, but only after she’d been offered a show – originally for another purpose, but she asked if she could perform her long-contemplated (but still not on paper) show. With a deadline, she was finally able to put to paper the performance, initially titled “I Will Be Good,” and eventually refined into “How to Draw a Nekkid Man,” about her escape from the corporate world into art school and creativity.

Burt said what would eventually become her No Time to be Timid podcast started as a collection of ideas for an eventual memoir, but became her manifesto. Like her one-woman show, she said she gave herself a push to take the first step. She was invited onto the Moth radio hour, and asked if in the artist’s bio she could include that she was the host of the “No Time to be Timid” podcast. She said at that time, she didn’t even own a microphone, much less have any idea of how to produce a podcast.

She decided, rather than create a weekly or bi-weekly show, she’d create a season, based on the ten tenets of her manifesto: the riskiest thing you can do is play it safe, there is more than one right way in life, don’t expect a linear path, creativity is not a frivolous pursuit, logic can work against you, practicality is overrated, constraints are opportunities, failure is your friend, and there is courage in community.

She started her podcast, airing every other week, and now has several seasons under her belt. She said it’s often a task that leaves her wondering if it’s all worth it. Then, she said, she gets an email, like a recent one from a South African woman living in Spain, working a full-time job and raising children, while dreaming of writing children’s books, who got motivated to actually go after her dream while listening to Burt’s podcast.

“That listener became the voice in my head that says, ‘I can,” Burt said.

Burt is planning to release the fifth season of her podcast in the spring.

The final Amos Fortune Forum will be on Aug. 22 at the Jaffrey Meetinghouse at 8 p.m., and will feature Dayton Duncan on “How New Hampshire Helped Save the American Buffalo from Extinction.” Lecture recordings are available on the Amos Fortune Forum YouTube page.