A speaker recalls a girl at a pool told to "do it scared" and argues most progress requires acting while afraid, not waiting for confidence. Learning to draw badly despite a talented family, experimenting even when you might fail, building a workplace culture that embraces discomfort and risk.
There's a really cute story I heard years ago about a public swimming pool, and there's a little girl in the swimming pool, and she's got her little swimming cap on, and her younger sister is standing on the edge of the pool, and she's trying to coax her little sister to jump in. So come in, jump. And the little sister is like getting her hands ready and getting her legs ready, and then she kind of wiggles back away from the edge. I'm scared. And the sister calls in, come, you can jump in. Just dive in. And the little girl comes close, she goes, I'm scared. And there's another lady, an older lady there near them, and she's bobbing around in the water watching this. And then she calls to the little girl standing on the side of the pool and she says, I know you're scared. Do it scared. Do it anyway. Do it scared. We have this illusion that somehow we will find all those answers, we will find all of the things we need, and there will be clarity and certainty. That we will be calm going into a situation, that we'll find this magical quantum flow in our brains, and that everything will be smooth going forward. But most of our lives, we have to do it scared and do it anyway. When was the last time you or your team tried something that genuinely might not work, that you tried just for the experience of trying? When was the last time you tried to learn to do something that you weren't good at? I come from a very creative family, and I'm trying to learn how to draw, and my drawings are embarrassing. My stick figures are embarrassing. And when I have a mother and a daughter who are as talented as they are, it's really awkward. But we need to do these things scared. We need to do new things. We need to have new experiences, and we need to cultivate this in our workplaces for the future, for the sake of the future.
Unlock the Power of Thresholds_ What Ancient Wisdom Teaches About New Beginnings
