START NOW // There’s no time like the present

“Just get started, Don’t let self-doubt get in the way, most people don’t even take that first step.”

Nadya Okamoto

Having an idea, or a dream, or a vision is one thing, but ‘failure to launch’ is a very real problem. It’s a stumbling block that few manage to get past. Whether that’s a podcast, or your own business, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed at the prospect of bringing your vision to life. Putting the wheels in motion can sometimes be the hardest part. From my own experience working at Nike, the mantra Just Do It is a great metaphor for any creative endeavor in life.

To build on the Just Do It message, I would advise everyone to pick up a copy of Shoe Dog, written by Nike co-founder Phil Knight. This book helps you realize, his now global brand started with very humble beginnings. Today, when you step foot on the Nike Campus in Beaverton, Oregon there are beautiful shiny buildings in honor of great athletes past and present. There are gyms, childcare, running tracks, football pitches, whatever you need they have it. However, what most people don’t realize is that Nike was started by selling shoes out the back of a VW bus at track meets.

I mean it actually goes back further when Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman were importing Japanese shoes and selling those. Knight explains his own vision:

“So that morning in 1962 I told myself: Let everyone else call your idea crazy. Just keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t even think about stopping until you get there, and don’t give much thought to where “there” is. Whatever comes, just don’t stop.”

And that’s the thing with getting started. Even if you don’t know where you’re going, that’s all good, just get started. Phil Knight didn’t have the end vision of a sprawling headquarters with gyms and climbing walls, nor prototypes for the Air Jordan’s, but that didn’t stop him getting the wheels in motion, or the idea off the ground. Sometimes the smartest move is to just begin. Pick up the pen, open the laptop, start typing or drawing.

Quite often that initial act then gives way to a funnel of ideas pouring in, but it’s only by open- ing the mind to the task at hand that it happens. It could be anything, starting your career path, starting a blog, to making YouTube videos, to painting, starting your own business, the crucial thing is to just get going.

The analogy I like the most for getting started is, ‘Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.’ Those words come from Martin Luther King Jr. one of the greatest political activists in history.

Now Martin Luther King Jr. became a civil rights activist early in his career leading the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott as well as helping to found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, serving as its first president. With the SCLC, King led an unsuccessful 1962 struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia (the Albany Movement), and helped organize the 1963 non-violent protests in Birmingham, Alabama. For many though, his most well-known moment was helping to organize the 1963 march on Washington, where he delivered his famous I Have A Dream speech.

That speech has been watched millions of times and is still referred back to now. However, that was after a decade of leading the aforementioned movements and so I’m sure when he began his work he didn’t think his journey would involve speaking to a march in Washington, let alone the world. Step by step, his following grew as did the movement, and that moment went down in history. I would call that having faith in the staircase.

Last year on a trip to London, my wife had her own vision of that faith. While it pales in comparison to the civil rights movement, for her it was a big moment. After having two children and being out of the workforce for five years, she woke one morning and said, “I had a dream last night, that I have my own kids’ clothes brand.” Now this was quite a bolt from the blue, but you could see the fire in her eyes. She had passion to do it.

By the time I got home from work that day, she had found a supplier from South Korea, registered a website, oylalakids.com started a social channel and was putting all the elements in place that she would need to set up this brand. Now it would have been so easy for her to say, “oh I should do it next year when the kids are older, and I have more time.” Or, “if only I was better at social media,” or, “I’ve never built a website,” but she didn’t listen to those doubts and just got it going.

Twelve months later her business has a great following, repeat customers from around the world, and has met other entrepreneurs on the way building their own businesses. Our bedroom has also been transformed into a storage facility, but that’s a very welcome by product of this venture, it’s been so inspiring to see a vision come to life.

Many ideas and projects never get off the ground, not because they are bad ideas, but because a lot of people will have themselves wrapped up in their own stories to the point where they can’t see the way forward. It’s much easier to say to yourself, “I’m not business minded, I wouldn’t know how to do that,” but you will be surprised what happens when you try.

There’s a term in real estate investing that really struck home with me and it applies to most everything - analysis paralysis. Basically, analysis paralysis is just getting stuck in the weeds of looking at every single part of a deal or property; would it be better if it was on that corner instead of here? Does that roof look like it might need replacing? Could that tree fall on the house? What will it be worth in a few years? How are the neighbors?

When you buy a house, there are a million and one things to think about and it feels so daunting trying to guess all the unexpected costs down the line. The potential hazards and drawbacks. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to map out every single thing, which is why some- times it’s best to just get started. Yes, there will be some negatives but there will also be a ton of positives you maybe didn’t ever even consider. With analysis paralysis you see a lot of people who buy every book there is, take every class there is and end up working themselves into a frenzy trying to find the right thing. This can be a good approach, but doesn’t necessarily lead to a productive outcome.

Depending on the market, the crazy thing about buying a house is you may have less time to see it before putting an offer in than you would buying a new TV. The whole process kind of coaxes you into action and helps with that forward momentum.

You’ll see in my interview with Nadya Okamoto how much of an inspiration to me she has been. In her work with period.org she has created the world’s largest youth run NGO. “Just get started,” she says. “Don’t let self-doubt get in the way, most people don’t even take that first step.”

Again, much like the MLK example, when Nadya started saving money from babysitting jobs to buy care packages of menstruation products for homeless women in Portland, I bet she never envisaged making the Forbes 30 under 30 list, or being able to serve over one million women with sanitary products.

When you do get started that’s the first part. The second is committing to it for long enough to see it actually take shape. Long enough to be able to make it a success. Long enough to understand if you even enjoy it and most importantly, long enough to learn.

The two best examples I saw of this is from podcaster Matt Barr and YouTube creator Keltie O’Connor. They both had a similar approach at the outset.

Matt essentially decided to hold himself accountable by spending some money on the equipment. That way he knew he would have to commit to making a go of this for a while. He also then recorded three episodes and put them all out at once. ‘If I just released one, everyone would be like, “oh Matt’s done a podcast,” whereas with three episodes they know it’s actually a thing.’

For Keltie she just committed to it, but worked quietly on her own for a while to turn it into some- thing. ‘Around the first or second year I wouldn’t tell anyone I even had a channel, then four years ago I committed to three uploads a week and then three years ago I was like, “I’m doing this, I’m going to be a full-time YouTuber.”

Both examples show the importance of commitment. Just get started, yes. But then commit.

Way back in the day when I was snowboarding, we couldn’t really get the right kind of video content we wanted for ourselves. So one day I was driving and thought, I have enough good friends who are great snowboarders, I think we could make that into something. I was also hangry too,
so quickly settled on the name Hungerpain, and off we went. I shared a very rough looking plan with my idea and before you know it, people are offering to help film, edit, do motion graphics and someone who knew how to run events was helping build out the after party for the premiere (thanks Liz!). I didn’t know how it would look at the end, but by getting started, sharing my idea, having other people hold me accountable (probably 20 of them) all made Hungerpain a success. During the project I also learnt valuable skills that I have put into practice throughout my marketing career.

This chapter isn’t just about starting your own projects though, getting started is just as relevant to getting into a career. One of the best entrepreneurs I met along the way was Chris Den Ujil, festival organizer and music promoter. He had this to say:

“I think that the number one thing I learned, when you get out of college, jump in full committed into something for at least 18 months. Even if you hate it. Commit and learn what it feels like to have a bad day, to have a good day, to work through things you don’t like, things you do like. Then leave. Take Inventory of the things you really loved and take inventory of the things that you’re good at, you’re not good at. Get experience and commit to it.”

Sometimes until you fully commit to something, it’s hard to even know how it will feel. A lot of people in this book tried careers and just figured out, you know what, this isn’t for me and that’s totally fine. The key is you learn from it and will know how to help shape your future from it. Knowing what you don’t want to do is just as valuable as knowing what you do want to do. Once you start on that journey you’ll see that there are so many potential avenues forward it’s just having that mindset that you will make it. Camo & Krooked, the Austrian DJs, summed it up really nicely:

“Don’t let anyone tell you that this or that isn’t possible because if you think it’s going to work, then it will actually work. It’s just a matter of time”

If you enjoy watching Ted Talks on YouTube there is a great speaker I would urge you to spend some time watching, Simon Sinek. Simon’s the author of Start With Why, Why Leaders Eat Last, and Together Is Better. For anyone working in the strategy space his talk on finding the why of a business is amazing. He has a couple of quotes that really resonated with me on the getting started subject.

“Dream big, start small. But most of all, start.”

“It doesn’t matter when we start, doesn’t matter where we start, all that matters are that we start.”

With all new ventures, careers and projects it does feel like if you are ready and willing to take that first step, take that leap, the world will reach out its hands and guide you on your way. I’m confident in this, especially when I read some of the stories in this book like that of Foster Hunting who quit a job at Ralph Lauren, a job most of us would only dream of, to drive around the US in a VW van. He took that first step even though he couldn’t see the whole staircase. Turns out that staircase led him on a wonderful journey...

This is an excerpt from the book, The Anti Blueprint Project, exploring unconventional routes to happiness.

In the time since writing this I listened to an amazing podcast from Rich Roll with Steven Pressfield the author of “War of Art” and would recommend everyone watch it if you enjoyed this chapter of the book. It focuses on the self talk that can occur when we start on a new project.