Imagine you're standing on the edge of a cliff and you're looking out at this giant abyss.

And you know that what you want is on the other side.

That the very thing you're called to do, the journey of a lifetime that means the most to you

that you know you should be on.

But instead of making one giant leap,

you hedge, you grab a handrail or a rope,

you sort of tiptoll along the outside, bracing yourself for the possibility of a fall.

Look, in a perfect world, we'll say, when we know that we should be somewhere when something's calling us,

we would always take the leap.

And the times that I've done that in my life, I don't regret it at all.

In fact, I attribute taking massive action to a lot of the growth that I've had in my life.

But I think it also benefits us to be practical.

We can't always do that.

We're not always ready to do that.

Sometimes you have to earn confidence one little step at a time. And so what I want to do is tell a story about that very courage,

about using what you have where you are to start taking action now,

even if you're not ready to leap without reservation.

It's a reminder that beginnings are rarely graceful,

but they're necessary.

And years from now, when you look back,

you might laugh at the ways you softened your first steps that you hedged.

But you'll also realize that starting even imperfectly, even with training wheels, was everything.

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