WEBVTT
00:00:00.400 --> 00:00:03.279
The climb does not start when it looks like a climb.
00:00:03.520 --> 00:00:08.720
It starts when you take a step that feels slightly beneath the person you think you already are.
00:00:08.960 --> 00:00:10.400
Maybe it's too small.
00:00:10.640 --> 00:00:11.919
Perhaps it's too late.
00:00:12.080 --> 00:00:16.480
One thing's for sure though, it's too ordinary to survive a dinner conversation.
00:00:16.719 --> 00:00:21.359
Most people never begin because they're waiting for the staircase to look like something worth photographing.
00:00:21.519 --> 00:00:28.239
They want the title, the clean narrative, the moment that proves that they indeed have arrived.
00:00:28.559 --> 00:00:36.719
What they do not want is the first unimpressive step, the one that makes you think, if this is the comeback, the comeback needs a publicist.
00:00:37.119 --> 00:00:39.119
I spent a long time in that waiting room.
00:00:39.280 --> 00:00:40.640
The chairs were comfortable.
00:00:40.799 --> 00:00:42.719
The coffee, however, was terrible.
00:00:42.880 --> 00:00:48.560
Then I learned the only reliable way up is a sequence of steps that do not look like much while you're taking them.
00:00:48.719 --> 00:00:51.520
That is not a slogan, that is just life.
00:00:51.759 --> 00:00:54.960
Slogans came later after the fluorescent lights.
00:00:55.119 --> 00:00:58.560
I'm Hugh O'Neill, and this is constant momentum.
00:01:25.040 --> 00:01:29.599
Not a theory I invented on a weekend with a legal pad and a sense of destiny.
00:01:29.920 --> 00:01:35.359
These are things I lived, usually while appearing less impressive than I preferred, which was most days.
00:01:35.840 --> 00:01:44.159
The earlier conversations were about the pain that finally gets your attention and the doubt that clocks in the minute you decide to do something about that pain.
00:01:44.480 --> 00:01:45.680
Doubt is punctual.
00:01:45.840 --> 00:01:46.879
I'll give it that.
00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:50.480
It also works weekends and does not require benefits.
00:01:51.040 --> 00:02:00.239
Today is the practical part, how you start, and how you stay with it when the first steps feel inadequate compared with the resume you are still carrying in your head.
00:02:00.560 --> 00:02:02.719
The resume in your head is always current.
00:02:02.959 --> 00:02:08.400
The one in real life, however, is usually two versions behind and slightly wrinkled.
00:02:08.800 --> 00:02:12.000
I'm going to talk the way I talk when I'm sitting with someone I mentor.
00:02:12.080 --> 00:02:14.800
If it meanders, that is not a production error.
00:02:15.039 --> 00:02:17.840
That is how an honest conversation sounds.
00:02:18.719 --> 00:02:22.159
Have you ever noticed the sentence, quote, I'll start when?
00:02:22.479 --> 00:02:35.520
When the kids are older, when work calms down, when I feel more confident, when the plan is clearer, when I will not look like a step backward, when I have the right notebook, and of course when the weather is emotionally supportive.
00:02:35.759 --> 00:02:37.360
I lived in that sentence.
00:02:37.599 --> 00:02:39.680
It is a very polite way to do nothing.
00:02:39.840 --> 00:02:41.599
It sounds responsible.
00:02:41.919 --> 00:02:43.759
It photographs as patience.
00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:47.680
It produces the same result as hiding with better manners.
00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:51.439
After I left school, I did not become a cautionary tale overnight.
00:02:51.680 --> 00:02:54.479
Cautionary tales require a little narrative discipline.
00:02:54.719 --> 00:03:00.800
I became a young man with a warehouse shift and a social calendar that conveniently prevented self examination.
00:03:01.039 --> 00:03:02.719
I called it a phase.
00:03:02.960 --> 00:03:04.400
Phases are useful.
00:03:04.639 --> 00:03:08.159
They require no end date, and of course no board of directors.
00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:11.599
Then my brother John asked how long I intended to waste my life.
00:03:11.840 --> 00:03:13.280
He did not raise his voice.
00:03:13.599 --> 00:03:14.960
He did not need to.
00:03:15.280 --> 00:03:17.360
Accuracy does most of that work.
00:03:17.599 --> 00:03:20.560
Volume is for people who do not have a good line.
00:03:21.039 --> 00:03:25.680
I would love to tell you that I stood up, thanked him, and began a new chapter before dessert.
00:03:25.840 --> 00:03:27.280
That is not what happened.
00:03:27.520 --> 00:03:28.719
I sat with it.
00:03:28.960 --> 00:03:34.000
And to be honest, I disliked him briefly, which is often the first sign that someone is right.
00:03:34.319 --> 00:03:41.840
Then I took a job in a pharmaceutical warehouse, tuition reimbursement, and that was the turning point such as it was.
00:03:42.080 --> 00:03:47.199
A badge, a schedule, and night classes I would not have advertised at a reunion.
00:03:47.439 --> 00:03:51.199
Reunions are for people who peaked on time, and that certainly wasn't me.
00:03:52.639 --> 00:03:55.680
I want to talk a little bit about what first steps actually look like.
00:03:55.919 --> 00:03:58.000
Small steps can sound tidy.
00:03:58.319 --> 00:03:59.599
They were not tidy.
00:03:59.759 --> 00:04:02.319
They were fluorescent and slightly sticky.
00:04:02.560 --> 00:04:05.439
I was twenty three in remedial classes with 18 year olds.
00:04:05.680 --> 00:04:10.800
You sit there after a full shift and try to look like this is all going according to plan.
00:04:10.960 --> 00:04:13.120
Meanwhile, you know it's not.
00:04:13.360 --> 00:04:21.360
The person next to you is highlighting a textbook with the energy of someone who still believes sleep is optional and that the future happens in a straight line.
00:04:21.600 --> 00:04:27.519
You're eating something from a machine in the hallway that was designed by a committee that had given up a long time ago.
00:04:27.759 --> 00:04:29.600
Then you do the assignment.
00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:31.920
That sentence is doing a lot of work.
00:04:32.240 --> 00:04:33.199
Do the assignment.
00:04:33.360 --> 00:04:34.959
Does not sound like transformation.
00:04:35.199 --> 00:04:36.800
It sounds like homework.
00:04:37.120 --> 00:04:41.199
Transformation in my experience spends a lot of time disguised as homework.
00:04:41.439 --> 00:04:44.959
Then you come back the following week, which is the actual test.
00:04:45.279 --> 00:04:46.800
Week one is intention.
00:04:47.040 --> 00:04:49.519
Week one still has a little theater to it.
00:04:49.759 --> 00:04:52.639
You can tell yourself that this is the start of something.
00:04:52.879 --> 00:04:54.879
Week two, however, is character.
00:04:55.120 --> 00:05:01.199
Week two is when you realize that building still smells the same and nobody clapped when you sat down.
00:05:02.079 --> 00:05:04.800
Then you ask a professor to show you something again.
00:05:05.040 --> 00:05:08.480
There's a particular silence that follows that request, and you know what?
00:05:08.720 --> 00:05:11.680
Your ego fills that silence immediately.
00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:16.639
Ego is a terrible intern, fast, loud, and almost never helpful.
00:05:17.040 --> 00:05:19.439
Then you take the work nobody else wanted.
00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:26.879
Inventory, the extra shift, the problem that had been sitting in the corner because it was inconvenient and did not come with an audience.
00:05:27.199 --> 00:05:29.120
None of this resembled a career.
00:05:29.360 --> 00:05:36.319
It resembled a man who had lost time and was willing finally to look average while he made some of it up.
00:05:36.560 --> 00:05:44.879
Average, it turns out, is a very productive neighborhood if you actually live there instead of driving past it on the way to an imaginary better address.
00:05:47.199 --> 00:05:52.160
I want to pause here because this is where people nod and then still do not start.
00:05:53.040 --> 00:05:54.480
Perhaps it feels late.
00:05:54.639 --> 00:05:56.240
Perhaps it feels too small.
00:05:56.399 --> 00:05:59.439
It feels like you're the only adult in the room who has to begin again.
00:05:59.680 --> 00:06:00.639
You are not.
00:06:00.879 --> 00:06:03.519
You're just the only one you can see from the inside.
00:06:03.759 --> 00:06:05.519
Everyone else is also editing.
00:06:05.680 --> 00:06:07.600
They're just doing it off camera.
00:06:08.879 --> 00:06:15.040
If you need to step to feel worthy of you before you take it, you will become a curator of almost beginnings.
00:06:15.279 --> 00:06:16.879
I was excellent at that.
00:06:17.120 --> 00:06:19.920
I could almost start with real artistry.
00:06:21.040 --> 00:06:24.480
This is the part that quietly wrecks more people than failure ever does.
00:06:24.800 --> 00:06:25.600
Comparison.
00:06:25.839 --> 00:06:28.160
Comparison does not show up as jealousy.
00:06:28.399 --> 00:06:30.079
That would be too honest.
00:06:30.560 --> 00:06:33.360
Jealousy at least admits the temperature in the room.
00:06:33.600 --> 00:06:36.720
Comparison shows up as taste, standards.
00:06:37.120 --> 00:06:39.120
I'm just not willing to start there.
00:06:39.360 --> 00:06:45.040
What you're actually saying is I would rather stay still than be seen beginning where I actually am.
00:06:45.519 --> 00:06:47.680
I did this constantly in my early twenties.
00:06:47.839 --> 00:06:53.120
I looked at people who were already in motion and decided my next available step was beneath me.
00:06:53.519 --> 00:06:57.279
They had internships, they had a plan that actually sounded like a plan.
00:06:57.600 --> 00:07:02.879
I had a night shift and a used textbook that still contained someone else's panic and the margins.
00:07:03.120 --> 00:07:07.519
So I treated their progress as evidence that my step didn't count.
00:07:08.160 --> 00:07:09.680
That is not discernment.
00:07:09.839 --> 00:07:11.519
That is vanity doing math.
00:07:11.680 --> 00:07:13.759
And vanity is really bad at math.
00:07:13.920 --> 00:07:16.240
It only counts the numbers that flatter it.
00:07:16.800 --> 00:07:22.160
You compare your backroom to someone else's front window and then use the difference as permission to wait.
00:07:22.399 --> 00:07:24.079
The wait feels principled.
00:07:24.319 --> 00:07:25.040
It's not.
00:07:25.360 --> 00:07:29.920
It is a way to keep the story of your potential intact without putting any of it at risk.
00:07:30.240 --> 00:07:36.800
Potential is a wonderful museum, very clean, no fingerprints, but it's also close to the public.
00:07:37.759 --> 00:07:40.000
And here's the part with a little more edge.
00:07:40.160 --> 00:07:44.079
The people you are measuring yourself against are rarely thinking about you.
00:07:44.399 --> 00:07:50.240
They are busy taking their own unimpressive steps and privately wondering if those steps even count.
00:07:50.639 --> 00:07:56.560
You're the only one holding a private scoreboard and then calling the scoreboard, quote, high standards.
00:07:56.879 --> 00:08:01.439
High standards that never leave the house are just opinions with good posture.
00:08:03.680 --> 00:08:08.720
Pride, however, is sneakier than comparison because it can sound like self-respect.
00:08:08.959 --> 00:08:10.800
Self-respect is a good thing.
00:08:11.040 --> 00:08:16.000
Pride is self-respect after it's had a couple of drinks and started talking about its own brand.
00:08:17.199 --> 00:08:20.800
A smaller step is not just inconvenient, it's an admission.
00:08:21.360 --> 00:08:23.120
I'm not where I said I would be.
00:08:23.279 --> 00:08:25.360
I'm not the exception I've been performing.
00:08:25.519 --> 00:08:28.879
The gap between the story and the facts has become visible.
00:08:29.040 --> 00:08:32.320
And Pride would rather manage the story than close the gap.
00:08:32.639 --> 00:08:37.840
Pride is a gifted public relations department for a company that is not shipping anything.
00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:44.799
After I left college, Pride wanted me to keep acting like the kid who did not need to try.
00:08:45.039 --> 00:08:49.200
Effort in that version of me was for people who were not naturally sharp.
00:08:49.360 --> 00:08:52.159
So I avoided the places where effort would be obvious.
00:08:52.480 --> 00:08:54.320
Warehouse work I could justify.
00:08:54.480 --> 00:08:55.440
It was a job.
00:08:55.679 --> 00:09:00.559
Night classes I could hide, sort of, if I left the details vague.
00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:03.759
However, asking for help I could not hide.
00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:05.360
That was the line.
00:09:05.600 --> 00:09:09.759
The line is always the thing that would make you look like a beginner.
00:09:10.480 --> 00:09:12.639
Pride will let you work hard in private.
00:09:12.879 --> 00:09:16.240
What it will not let you do is look like a beginner in the public.
00:09:16.559 --> 00:09:24.720
That is why people stay in jobs they've outgrown, relationships they are managing, and plans they keep revising instead of starting.
00:09:24.960 --> 00:09:27.440
The revision still feels like intelligence.
00:09:27.679 --> 00:09:30.639
The first small step feels like a demotion.
00:09:31.759 --> 00:09:34.559
To be clear, it's not a demotion.
00:09:34.720 --> 00:09:36.000
It's an audit.
00:09:36.320 --> 00:09:38.240
Audits are unpopular for a reason.
00:09:38.399 --> 00:09:41.039
They have no interest in your own narrative.
00:09:41.600 --> 00:09:43.600
Failure at least can be dressed up.
00:09:43.840 --> 00:09:45.440
You can get a little tragic about it.
00:09:45.600 --> 00:09:49.519
You can say the timing was wrong, the room was wrong, the people were wrong.
00:09:49.679 --> 00:09:52.399
A humble beginning offers none of that cover.
00:09:52.639 --> 00:09:57.120
It just sits there under fluorescent lights and asks whether you are willing to be seen learning.
00:09:57.600 --> 00:10:01.360
Fluorescent lights are honest in a way that vanity lighting is not.
00:10:01.759 --> 00:10:04.159
I was not willing for a long time.
00:10:04.399 --> 00:10:08.799
I preferred the dignity of unused ability to the embarrassment of used ability.
00:10:09.120 --> 00:10:11.440
That is always a poor trade.
00:10:11.759 --> 00:10:14.639
It just does not feel like one while you're making it.
00:10:15.120 --> 00:10:18.799
Unused ability is quiet and well reviewed.
00:10:19.120 --> 00:10:20.879
Used ability sweats.
00:10:22.720 --> 00:10:25.440
I'm going to shift gears a little bit and talk about fear.
00:10:25.679 --> 00:10:29.440
Underneath both pride and comparison is a simpler fear.
00:10:29.759 --> 00:10:35.840
If I take this unimpressive move, I will therefore become the unimpressive move.
00:10:36.240 --> 00:10:39.759
You take the beginner class and imagine yourself still in it ten years later.
00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:45.360
Same seat, same vending machine, a little more gray, still explaining that this is temporary.
00:10:45.519 --> 00:10:48.639
You take the lesser title and imagine it as a tattoo.
00:10:48.799 --> 00:10:50.000
I thought that.
00:10:50.240 --> 00:10:54.320
I'd have very active imagination and very little evidence to support it.
00:10:54.799 --> 00:10:58.000
What actually keeps people in place is not the small step.
00:10:58.159 --> 00:11:02.480
It is the refusal to take it while continuing to talk as if they might.
00:11:02.799 --> 00:11:04.559
Talking protects the image.
00:11:04.879 --> 00:11:06.399
Doing spends it.
00:11:07.440 --> 00:11:10.559
To be clear, a potential is an excellent hiding place.
00:11:10.799 --> 00:11:12.720
No one can fire you from it.
00:11:12.960 --> 00:11:16.480
No one can measure it either, which is exactly the point.
00:11:16.720 --> 00:11:20.720
The moment you take the step, you can be evaluated.
00:11:21.039 --> 00:11:24.159
Pride finds that rude and uncomfortable.
00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:34.639
This is not only an early career problem, which is fortunate if remedial math is no longer on your calendar and you've moved on to more expansive forms of starting over.
00:11:35.279 --> 00:11:37.679
Years later, I was running an international affiliate.
00:11:37.840 --> 00:11:45.120
It's a serious title, serious number, serious responsibilities, the kind of role that makes people assume your life has been arranged.
00:11:45.360 --> 00:11:49.759
My children were in New Jersey dealing with the aftermath of a divorce that I helped create.
00:11:49.919 --> 00:11:52.399
For three years, I flew home every weekend.
00:11:52.639 --> 00:11:55.360
Friday night out, Sunday night back.
00:11:55.759 --> 00:11:58.720
That is not the chapter you put on a keynote slide.
00:11:59.039 --> 00:12:01.039
Keynote slides prefer peaks.
00:12:01.279 --> 00:12:02.639
This was logistics.
00:12:02.799 --> 00:12:10.879
This was a man becoming fluent in airport food and the particular fatigue of doing two lies at once and doing neither as well as he wanted.
00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:13.679
I do not recommend it as a lifestyle brand.
00:12:13.840 --> 00:12:19.360
There is no merchandise line for I know every sad sandwich between here and Newark Airport.
00:12:19.519 --> 00:12:21.840
I do recommend it as evidence, however.
00:12:22.159 --> 00:12:25.600
The important step is often the one that looks like a calendar problem.
00:12:25.919 --> 00:12:29.919
Those flights kept me in their lies while the job kept me moving forward.
00:12:30.159 --> 00:12:34.320
If I had waited for a tidier season to be a father, I would still be waiting.
00:12:34.639 --> 00:12:36.799
Seasons do not clear their schedules for you.
00:12:36.960 --> 00:12:38.559
They are not that polite.
00:12:39.759 --> 00:12:41.200
Was it glamorous?
00:12:41.519 --> 00:12:41.840
No.
00:12:42.320 --> 00:12:43.440
Did it count?
00:12:43.759 --> 00:12:44.639
Absolutely.
00:12:44.960 --> 00:12:48.399
Counting and glamour have a very part-time relationship.
00:12:50.240 --> 00:12:54.960
I want to talk a little bit about how you can see this play out with other people in your life.
00:12:55.279 --> 00:12:58.559
My daughter was cut from a team that she desperately wanted to make.
00:12:58.720 --> 00:13:01.840
Then she took the feedback and eventually made that team.
00:13:02.080 --> 00:13:04.480
Being cut does not feel like a small step.
00:13:04.639 --> 00:13:08.080
It feels like a memo distributed more widely than you would have preferred.
00:13:08.240 --> 00:13:11.120
You either file it or you use the information in it.
00:13:11.360 --> 00:13:12.399
She used it.
00:13:12.639 --> 00:13:17.600
I watched that with particular mix of pride and helplessness that parenting specializes in.
00:13:18.080 --> 00:13:22.960
My son failed as businesses before he built one that employs a significant amount of people.
00:13:23.200 --> 00:13:30.320
The comfortable move after the second failure is to return to something respectable and turn the rest into an anecdote.
00:13:30.559 --> 00:13:33.919
Anecdotes are how we make retreats sound like material.
00:13:34.080 --> 00:13:36.879
He took the next imperfect step instead.
00:13:37.200 --> 00:13:39.600
Perfect steps are mostly theoretical.
00:13:39.840 --> 00:13:41.919
I have met very few of them in the wild.
00:13:42.080 --> 00:13:43.919
They are like elegant org charts.
00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:49.120
They might look attractive, but rarely do they represent how work actually gets done.
00:13:50.720 --> 00:13:56.240
Want to talk about the voice, the voice that rides in the backseat of your car, or the voice that's in your head.
00:13:56.320 --> 00:13:57.360
You know the one.
00:13:57.679 --> 00:13:59.840
Tells you this is too small.
00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:01.919
People will think you lowered your standards.
00:14:02.080 --> 00:14:03.600
You should already be further along.
00:14:03.840 --> 00:14:05.840
Have you seen what so and so is doing?
00:14:06.080 --> 00:14:07.120
I still hear it.
00:14:07.360 --> 00:14:09.279
I just no longer give it the keys.
00:14:09.440 --> 00:14:11.519
It can ride in the back where it belongs.
00:14:11.759 --> 00:14:14.320
It is good at commentary and poor at navigation.
00:14:14.559 --> 00:14:16.960
If it wants a snack, it can wait.
00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:19.279
That voice is not prudence.
00:14:19.519 --> 00:14:21.360
Prudence would like you to start.
00:14:21.519 --> 00:14:26.000
That voice is ego, trying to keep you from looking ordinary for a stretch.
00:14:26.320 --> 00:14:29.519
Ordinary for a stretch is how most durable things get built.
00:14:29.759 --> 00:14:33.279
Extraordinary as a first move is usually a costume.
00:14:34.159 --> 00:14:40.480
A mentor once told me to treat people well on the way up, because I would see them certainly on the way down.
00:14:40.799 --> 00:14:43.600
He was right, and it was not a soft lesson.
00:14:43.759 --> 00:14:46.799
The same rule applies to the earlier version of yourself.
00:14:47.120 --> 00:14:50.320
Do not despise the person taking the unoppressive step.
00:14:50.559 --> 00:14:55.519
He is doing work the polished version kept postponing while he waited for better lighting.
00:14:58.320 --> 00:15:00.080
What to do this week?
00:15:00.320 --> 00:15:05.279
I will keep this shorter than the rest because long systems have a way of becoming another form of delay.
00:15:05.519 --> 00:15:07.279
Delay loves a framework.
00:15:07.440 --> 00:15:09.919
Delay will color code the framework.
00:15:10.159 --> 00:15:12.000
I want you to write one sentence.
00:15:12.240 --> 00:15:15.679
The next step that is actually available in the next seven days.
00:15:15.919 --> 00:15:23.600
Not the fifth step, not the totally redesign life, not the version that would impress someone you have not spoken to in eight to ten years.
00:15:23.919 --> 00:15:25.279
Just the next step.
00:15:25.519 --> 00:15:27.039
Whatever it might be.
00:15:27.440 --> 00:15:29.120
Register for that class.
00:15:29.360 --> 00:15:31.600
Ask for the meeting you have been putting off.
00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:37.440
Send the email you've rewritten until it was personality and it has a personality and a small trust fund.
00:15:39.200 --> 00:15:44.000
Have the conversation you've been managing like a fragile piece of glass that might sue you.
00:15:44.399 --> 00:15:46.399
Do it before you feel ready.
00:15:46.639 --> 00:15:49.039
Readiness is often delayed in better clothing.
00:15:49.200 --> 00:15:52.240
It photographs well, but it produces very little.
00:15:52.799 --> 00:15:56.080
Readiness will ask for one more document.
00:15:56.480 --> 00:15:58.960
At the end of the week, do not grade the result.
00:15:59.360 --> 00:16:01.679
Grade whether you took that step.
00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:03.679
Momentum is in the taking.
00:16:03.919 --> 00:16:10.159
Outcomes arrive later, and they almost never match the sketch you made while you're feeling decisive at 11 p.m.
00:16:10.799 --> 00:16:12.480
That version of you at 11 p.m.
00:16:12.639 --> 00:16:13.440
is a visionary.
00:16:13.600 --> 00:16:15.120
The version of you at 7 a.m.
00:16:15.279 --> 00:16:16.320
is an employee.
00:16:16.559 --> 00:16:18.399
You need the employee.
00:16:18.799 --> 00:16:21.519
When the critic calls it too small, use evidence.
00:16:21.679 --> 00:16:25.440
The warehouse job, the night class, the work nobody wanted.
00:16:25.679 --> 00:16:33.279
The Friday flight, the conversation after the marriage ended, every larger thing sat on a step that looked insufficient at the time.
00:16:33.600 --> 00:16:37.360
If it had looked sufficient, I would have found a reason to postpone it.
00:16:37.519 --> 00:16:39.279
I was talented that way.
00:16:39.519 --> 00:16:42.720
By the way, talent is not always a compliment.
00:16:44.399 --> 00:16:49.919
I want to point out a few more examples because abstraction is really a very good hiding space.
00:16:50.159 --> 00:16:58.159
If you're early in your career, think about taking that step, that necessary step, the extra class to well round your skills.
00:16:58.399 --> 00:17:00.159
Ask for extra responsibility.
00:17:00.320 --> 00:17:03.200
The question you keep not asking because you think you should already know.
00:17:03.440 --> 00:17:04.240
Speak up.
00:17:04.480 --> 00:17:13.759
If you're midstream and stuck, think about the conversation with the person who can actually move something, not the third revision of your private plan in your head.
00:17:14.160 --> 00:17:19.599
If you're leading people, think about the decision you've been briefing yourself on for a month.
00:17:19.839 --> 00:17:24.799
Briefings are not decisions, they are delay with an agenda and coffee.
00:17:25.519 --> 00:17:35.200
And finally, if you're rebuilding a life after it came apart, think about the ordinary contact, the ordinary routine, the ordinary honesty.
00:17:35.440 --> 00:17:38.559
Rebuilding is not cinematic, it is repeated.
00:17:38.720 --> 00:17:42.000
That is why people skip it and look for a speech instead.
00:17:45.039 --> 00:17:48.880
This only becomes obvious later, which is unhelpful when you're at the beginning.
00:17:48.960 --> 00:17:50.160
I will say it anyway.
00:17:51.119 --> 00:17:55.599
Beginners are always told things will only make sense later.
00:17:55.839 --> 00:17:58.640
That is one of the small injustices of getting older.
00:17:59.680 --> 00:18:04.559
Small steps change the work, but they also change the identity.
00:18:05.519 --> 00:18:10.880
You stop being someone who discusses change and become someone who does the next thing.
00:18:11.839 --> 00:18:13.680
Nobody applauds that shift.
00:18:14.160 --> 00:18:15.920
It does not need applause.
00:18:16.400 --> 00:18:17.680
Applause is nice.
00:18:17.839 --> 00:18:20.079
It is also a poor fuel source.
00:18:20.400 --> 00:18:23.440
They also open rooms you cannot draw in advance.
00:18:24.079 --> 00:18:29.680
I could not have diagrammed warehouse to inventory to supervision to running a large affiliate during my career.
00:18:29.920 --> 00:18:38.799
Any map I made then would have included several imaginary elevators and at least one motivational quote in a font I would now find embarrassing.
00:18:39.039 --> 00:18:42.240
The stairs show themselves after you put a foot down.
00:18:42.480 --> 00:18:46.799
Standing at the bottom, insisting on the full blueprint is not a strategy.
00:18:46.960 --> 00:18:49.759
It's a parking lot with better vocabulary.
00:18:50.880 --> 00:18:53.759
I want to just put one caution out to each and every one of you.
00:18:53.920 --> 00:18:59.119
Do not turn small steps into a reason to remain in the wrong place and call it discipline.
00:18:59.279 --> 00:19:02.799
There's a difference between humble progress and hiding.
00:19:03.119 --> 00:19:05.440
You can feel it if you're willing to.
00:19:05.680 --> 00:19:08.240
I refer to it as restless discontent.
00:19:08.480 --> 00:19:13.680
The sense that you are capable of more than you are currently living is usually the signal.
00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:16.880
I've trusted that signal more than I've trusted comfort.
00:19:17.039 --> 00:19:19.039
Comfort is a gifted storyteller.
00:19:19.359 --> 00:19:21.920
It can make inertia sound like wisdom.
00:19:22.240 --> 00:19:24.640
Stale comfort is not a season of building.
00:19:24.880 --> 00:19:26.480
One requires effort.
00:19:26.880 --> 00:19:30.319
The other requires a good chair and a story about timing.
00:19:30.640 --> 00:19:35.200
Timing in my experience is often just pride looking at its watch.
00:19:37.839 --> 00:19:41.920
As we come to the close, I want to wrap up with a few important points.
00:19:42.240 --> 00:19:44.559
Starting the climb is not a mood.
00:19:44.880 --> 00:19:46.880
Moods are unreliable employees.
00:19:46.960 --> 00:19:50.480
This is a decision to take a smaller step than pride requested.
00:19:50.799 --> 00:19:53.279
Believe me, your pride will recover.
00:19:53.519 --> 00:19:56.160
It always writes a new explanation after the fact.
00:19:56.480 --> 00:19:59.039
Pride is excellent at writing memoirs.
00:19:59.279 --> 00:20:11.279
If you're sitting on something, an application, a conversation, a class, a habit, an honest look at where you are in your life, take the smallest true version of it this week.
00:20:11.440 --> 00:20:13.200
Not when conditions improve.
00:20:13.519 --> 00:20:16.559
Conditions have a talent for remaining almost ready.
00:20:16.720 --> 00:20:20.079
They are like a restaurant that is always, quote, about to open.
00:20:20.720 --> 00:20:24.240
That is how momentum starts, and that is how it continues.
00:20:24.480 --> 00:20:32.000
One unimpressive step, then another, until you notice you are no longer the person who was waiting.
00:20:32.240 --> 00:20:34.160
You are the person who began.
00:20:34.640 --> 00:20:38.480
Maybe you look slightly misplaced, and yet you still continued.
00:20:38.880 --> 00:20:41.519
Looking slightly misplaced is underrated.
00:20:41.680 --> 00:20:44.319
It usually means that you left the waiting room.
00:20:44.640 --> 00:20:47.279
The book is Overcome the Pathway to Constant Momentum.
00:20:47.359 --> 00:20:56.559
If you want help seeing the step you're walking around, usually the obvious one, which is part of why you keep walking around it, that is the work of O'Neill mentoring.
00:20:57.519 --> 00:20:58.559
Thanks for the time.
00:20:58.799 --> 00:20:59.680
Take the step.
00:20:59.839 --> 00:21:01.519
The small ones are the ones that count.
00:21:01.680 --> 00:21:02.720
They always were.
00:21:02.880 --> 00:21:05.039
We just did not want that to be true.
00:21:05.279 --> 00:21:07.039
I'll talk to you next time.
00:00:00.400 --> 00:00:03.279
The climb does not start when it looks like a climb.
00:00:03.520 --> 00:00:08.720
It starts when you take a step that feels slightly beneath the person you think you already are.
00:00:08.960 --> 00:00:10.400
Maybe it's too small.
00:00:10.640 --> 00:00:11.919
Perhaps it's too late.
00:00:12.080 --> 00:00:16.480
One thing's for sure though, it's too ordinary to survive a dinner conversation.
00:00:16.719 --> 00:00:21.359
Most people never begin because they're waiting for the staircase to look like something worth photographing.
00:00:21.519 --> 00:00:28.239
They want the title, the clean narrative, the moment that proves that they indeed have arrived.
00:00:28.559 --> 00:00:36.719
What they do not want is the first unimpressive step, the one that makes you think, if this is the comeback, the comeback needs a publicist.
00:00:37.119 --> 00:00:39.119
I spent a long time in that waiting room.
00:00:39.280 --> 00:00:40.640
The chairs were comfortable.
00:00:40.799 --> 00:00:42.719
The coffee, however, was terrible.
00:00:42.880 --> 00:00:48.560
Then I learned the only reliable way up is a sequence of steps that do not look like much while you're taking them.
00:00:48.719 --> 00:00:51.520
That is not a slogan, that is just life.
00:00:51.759 --> 00:00:54.960
Slogans came later after the fluorescent lights.
00:00:55.119 --> 00:00:58.560
I'm Hugh O'Neill, and this is constant momentum.
00:01:25.040 --> 00:01:29.599
Not a theory I invented on a weekend with a legal pad and a sense of destiny.
00:01:29.920 --> 00:01:35.359
These are things I lived, usually while appearing less impressive than I preferred, which was most days.
00:01:35.840 --> 00:01:44.159
The earlier conversations were about the pain that finally gets your attention and the doubt that clocks in the minute you decide to do something about that pain.
00:01:44.480 --> 00:01:45.680
Doubt is punctual.
00:01:45.840 --> 00:01:46.879
I'll give it that.
00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:50.480
It also works weekends and does not require benefits.
00:01:51.040 --> 00:02:00.239
Today is the practical part, how you start, and how you stay with it when the first steps feel inadequate compared with the resume you are still carrying in your head.
00:02:00.560 --> 00:02:02.719
The resume in your head is always current.
00:02:02.959 --> 00:02:08.400
The one in real life, however, is usually two versions behind and slightly wrinkled.
00:02:08.800 --> 00:02:12.000
I'm going to talk the way I talk when I'm sitting with someone I mentor.
00:02:12.080 --> 00:02:14.800
If it meanders, that is not a production error.
00:02:15.039 --> 00:02:17.840
That is how an honest conversation sounds.
00:02:18.719 --> 00:02:22.159
Have you ever noticed the sentence, quote, I'll start when?
00:02:22.479 --> 00:02:35.520
When the kids are older, when work calms down, when I feel more confident, when the plan is clearer, when I will not look like a step backward, when I have the right notebook, and of course when the weather is emotionally supportive.
00:02:35.759 --> 00:02:37.360
I lived in that sentence.
00:02:37.599 --> 00:02:39.680
It is a very polite way to do nothing.
00:02:39.840 --> 00:02:41.599
It sounds responsible.
00:02:41.919 --> 00:02:43.759
It photographs as patience.
00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:47.680
It produces the same result as hiding with better manners.
00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:51.439
After I left school, I did not become a cautionary tale overnight.
00:02:51.680 --> 00:02:54.479
Cautionary tales require a little narrative discipline.
00:02:54.719 --> 00:03:00.800
I became a young man with a warehouse shift and a social calendar that conveniently prevented self examination.
00:03:01.039 --> 00:03:02.719
I called it a phase.
00:03:02.960 --> 00:03:04.400
Phases are useful.
00:03:04.639 --> 00:03:08.159
They require no end date, and of course no board of directors.
00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:11.599
Then my brother John asked how long I intended to waste my life.
00:03:11.840 --> 00:03:13.280
He did not raise his voice.
00:03:13.599 --> 00:03:14.960
He did not need to.
00:03:15.280 --> 00:03:17.360
Accuracy does most of that work.
00:03:17.599 --> 00:03:20.560
Volume is for people who do not have a good line.
00:03:21.039 --> 00:03:25.680
I would love to tell you that I stood up, thanked him, and began a new chapter before dessert.
00:03:25.840 --> 00:03:27.280
That is not what happened.
00:03:27.520 --> 00:03:28.719
I sat with it.
00:03:28.960 --> 00:03:34.000
And to be honest, I disliked him briefly, which is often the first sign that someone is right.
00:03:34.319 --> 00:03:41.840
Then I took a job in a pharmaceutical warehouse, tuition reimbursement, and that was the turning point such as it was.
00:03:42.080 --> 00:03:47.199
A badge, a schedule, and night classes I would not have advertised at a reunion.
00:03:47.439 --> 00:03:51.199
Reunions are for people who peaked on time, and that certainly wasn't me.
00:03:52.639 --> 00:03:55.680
I want to talk a little bit about what first steps actually look like.
00:03:55.919 --> 00:03:58.000
Small steps can sound tidy.
00:03:58.319 --> 00:03:59.599
They were not tidy.
00:03:59.759 --> 00:04:02.319
They were fluorescent and slightly sticky.
00:04:02.560 --> 00:04:05.439
I was twenty three in remedial classes with 18 year olds.
00:04:05.680 --> 00:04:10.800
You sit there after a full shift and try to look like this is all going according to plan.
00:04:10.960 --> 00:04:13.120
Meanwhile, you know it's not.
00:04:13.360 --> 00:04:21.360
The person next to you is highlighting a textbook with the energy of someone who still believes sleep is optional and that the future happens in a straight line.
00:04:21.600 --> 00:04:27.519
You're eating something from a machine in the hallway that was designed by a committee that had given up a long time ago.
00:04:27.759 --> 00:04:29.600
Then you do the assignment.
00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:31.920
That sentence is doing a lot of work.
00:04:32.240 --> 00:04:33.199
Do the assignment.
00:04:33.360 --> 00:04:34.959
Does not sound like transformation.
00:04:35.199 --> 00:04:36.800
It sounds like homework.
00:04:37.120 --> 00:04:41.199
Transformation in my experience spends a lot of time disguised as homework.
00:04:41.439 --> 00:04:44.959
Then you come back the following week, which is the actual test.
00:04:45.279 --> 00:04:46.800
Week one is intention.
00:04:47.040 --> 00:04:49.519
Week one still has a little theater to it.
00:04:49.759 --> 00:04:52.639
You can tell yourself that this is the start of something.
00:04:52.879 --> 00:04:54.879
Week two, however, is character.
00:04:55.120 --> 00:05:01.199
Week two is when you realize that building still smells the same and nobody clapped when you sat down.
00:05:02.079 --> 00:05:04.800
Then you ask a professor to show you something again.
00:05:05.040 --> 00:05:08.480
There's a particular silence that follows that request, and you know what?
00:05:08.720 --> 00:05:11.680
Your ego fills that silence immediately.
00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:16.639
Ego is a terrible intern, fast, loud, and almost never helpful.
00:05:17.040 --> 00:05:19.439
Then you take the work nobody else wanted.
00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:26.879
Inventory, the extra shift, the problem that had been sitting in the corner because it was inconvenient and did not come with an audience.
00:05:27.199 --> 00:05:29.120
None of this resembled a career.
00:05:29.360 --> 00:05:36.319
It resembled a man who had lost time and was willing finally to look average while he made some of it up.
00:05:36.560 --> 00:05:44.879
Average, it turns out, is a very productive neighborhood if you actually live there instead of driving past it on the way to an imaginary better address.
00:05:47.199 --> 00:05:52.160
I want to pause here because this is where people nod and then still do not start.
00:05:53.040 --> 00:05:54.480
Perhaps it feels late.
00:05:54.639 --> 00:05:56.240
Perhaps it feels too small.
00:05:56.399 --> 00:05:59.439
It feels like you're the only adult in the room who has to begin again.
00:05:59.680 --> 00:06:00.639
You are not.
00:06:00.879 --> 00:06:03.519
You're just the only one you can see from the inside.
00:06:03.759 --> 00:06:05.519
Everyone else is also editing.
00:06:05.680 --> 00:06:07.600
They're just doing it off camera.
00:06:08.879 --> 00:06:15.040
If you need to step to feel worthy of you before you take it, you will become a curator of almost beginnings.
00:06:15.279 --> 00:06:16.879
I was excellent at that.
00:06:17.120 --> 00:06:19.920
I could almost start with real artistry.
00:06:21.040 --> 00:06:24.480
This is the part that quietly wrecks more people than failure ever does.
00:06:24.800 --> 00:06:25.600
Comparison.
00:06:25.839 --> 00:06:28.160
Comparison does not show up as jealousy.
00:06:28.399 --> 00:06:30.079
That would be too honest.
00:06:30.560 --> 00:06:33.360
Jealousy at least admits the temperature in the room.
00:06:33.600 --> 00:06:36.720
Comparison shows up as taste, standards.
00:06:37.120 --> 00:06:39.120
I'm just not willing to start there.
00:06:39.360 --> 00:06:45.040
What you're actually saying is I would rather stay still than be seen beginning where I actually am.
00:06:45.519 --> 00:06:47.680
I did this constantly in my early twenties.
00:06:47.839 --> 00:06:53.120
I looked at people who were already in motion and decided my next available step was beneath me.
00:06:53.519 --> 00:06:57.279
They had internships, they had a plan that actually sounded like a plan.
00:06:57.600 --> 00:07:02.879
I had a night shift and a used textbook that still contained someone else's panic and the margins.
00:07:03.120 --> 00:07:07.519
So I treated their progress as evidence that my step didn't count.
00:07:08.160 --> 00:07:09.680
That is not discernment.
00:07:09.839 --> 00:07:11.519
That is vanity doing math.
00:07:11.680 --> 00:07:13.759
And vanity is really bad at math.
00:07:13.920 --> 00:07:16.240
It only counts the numbers that flatter it.
00:07:16.800 --> 00:07:22.160
You compare your backroom to someone else's front window and then use the difference as permission to wait.
00:07:22.399 --> 00:07:24.079
The wait feels principled.
00:07:24.319 --> 00:07:25.040
It's not.
00:07:25.360 --> 00:07:29.920
It is a way to keep the story of your potential intact without putting any of it at risk.
00:07:30.240 --> 00:07:36.800
Potential is a wonderful museum, very clean, no fingerprints, but it's also close to the public.
00:07:37.759 --> 00:07:40.000
And here's the part with a little more edge.
00:07:40.160 --> 00:07:44.079
The people you are measuring yourself against are rarely thinking about you.
00:07:44.399 --> 00:07:50.240
They are busy taking their own unimpressive steps and privately wondering if those steps even count.
00:07:50.639 --> 00:07:56.560
You're the only one holding a private scoreboard and then calling the scoreboard, quote, high standards.
00:07:56.879 --> 00:08:01.439
High standards that never leave the house are just opinions with good posture.
00:08:03.680 --> 00:08:08.720
Pride, however, is sneakier than comparison because it can sound like self-respect.
00:08:08.959 --> 00:08:10.800
Self-respect is a good thing.
00:08:11.040 --> 00:08:16.000
Pride is self-respect after it's had a couple of drinks and started talking about its own brand.
00:08:17.199 --> 00:08:20.800
A smaller step is not just inconvenient, it's an admission.
00:08:21.360 --> 00:08:23.120
I'm not where I said I would be.
00:08:23.279 --> 00:08:25.360
I'm not the exception I've been performing.
00:08:25.519 --> 00:08:28.879
The gap between the story and the facts has become visible.
00:08:29.040 --> 00:08:32.320
And Pride would rather manage the story than close the gap.
00:08:32.639 --> 00:08:37.840
Pride is a gifted public relations department for a company that is not shipping anything.
00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:44.799
After I left college, Pride wanted me to keep acting like the kid who did not need to try.
00:08:45.039 --> 00:08:49.200
Effort in that version of me was for people who were not naturally sharp.
00:08:49.360 --> 00:08:52.159
So I avoided the places where effort would be obvious.
00:08:52.480 --> 00:08:54.320
Warehouse work I could justify.
00:08:54.480 --> 00:08:55.440
It was a job.
00:08:55.679 --> 00:09:00.559
Night classes I could hide, sort of, if I left the details vague.
00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:03.759
However, asking for help I could not hide.
00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:05.360
That was the line.
00:09:05.600 --> 00:09:09.759
The line is always the thing that would make you look like a beginner.
00:09:10.480 --> 00:09:12.639
Pride will let you work hard in private.
00:09:12.879 --> 00:09:16.240
What it will not let you do is look like a beginner in the public.
00:09:16.559 --> 00:09:24.720
That is why people stay in jobs they've outgrown, relationships they are managing, and plans they keep revising instead of starting.
00:09:24.960 --> 00:09:27.440
The revision still feels like intelligence.
00:09:27.679 --> 00:09:30.639
The first small step feels like a demotion.
00:09:31.759 --> 00:09:34.559
To be clear, it's not a demotion.
00:09:34.720 --> 00:09:36.000
It's an audit.
00:09:36.320 --> 00:09:38.240
Audits are unpopular for a reason.
00:09:38.399 --> 00:09:41.039
They have no interest in your own narrative.
00:09:41.600 --> 00:09:43.600
Failure at least can be dressed up.
00:09:43.840 --> 00:09:45.440
You can get a little tragic about it.
00:09:45.600 --> 00:09:49.519
You can say the timing was wrong, the room was wrong, the people were wrong.
00:09:49.679 --> 00:09:52.399
A humble beginning offers none of that cover.
00:09:52.639 --> 00:09:57.120
It just sits there under fluorescent lights and asks whether you are willing to be seen learning.
00:09:57.600 --> 00:10:01.360
Fluorescent lights are honest in a way that vanity lighting is not.
00:10:01.759 --> 00:10:04.159
I was not willing for a long time.
00:10:04.399 --> 00:10:08.799
I preferred the dignity of unused ability to the embarrassment of used ability.
00:10:09.120 --> 00:10:11.440
That is always a poor trade.
00:10:11.759 --> 00:10:14.639
It just does not feel like one while you're making it.
00:10:15.120 --> 00:10:18.799
Unused ability is quiet and well reviewed.
00:10:19.120 --> 00:10:20.879
Used ability sweats.
00:10:22.720 --> 00:10:25.440
I'm going to shift gears a little bit and talk about fear.
00:10:25.679 --> 00:10:29.440
Underneath both pride and comparison is a simpler fear.
00:10:29.759 --> 00:10:35.840
If I take this unimpressive move, I will therefore become the unimpressive move.
00:10:36.240 --> 00:10:39.759
You take the beginner class and imagine yourself still in it ten years later.
00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:45.360
Same seat, same vending machine, a little more gray, still explaining that this is temporary.
00:10:45.519 --> 00:10:48.639
You take the lesser title and imagine it as a tattoo.
00:10:48.799 --> 00:10:50.000
I thought that.
00:10:50.240 --> 00:10:54.320
I'd have very active imagination and very little evidence to support it.
00:10:54.799 --> 00:10:58.000
What actually keeps people in place is not the small step.
00:10:58.159 --> 00:11:02.480
It is the refusal to take it while continuing to talk as if they might.
00:11:02.799 --> 00:11:04.559
Talking protects the image.
00:11:04.879 --> 00:11:06.399
Doing spends it.
00:11:07.440 --> 00:11:10.559
To be clear, a potential is an excellent hiding place.
00:11:10.799 --> 00:11:12.720
No one can fire you from it.
00:11:12.960 --> 00:11:16.480
No one can measure it either, which is exactly the point.
00:11:16.720 --> 00:11:20.720
The moment you take the step, you can be evaluated.
00:11:21.039 --> 00:11:24.159
Pride finds that rude and uncomfortable.
00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:34.639
This is not only an early career problem, which is fortunate if remedial math is no longer on your calendar and you've moved on to more expansive forms of starting over.
00:11:35.279 --> 00:11:37.679
Years later, I was running an international affiliate.
00:11:37.840 --> 00:11:45.120
It's a serious title, serious number, serious responsibilities, the kind of role that makes people assume your life has been arranged.
00:11:45.360 --> 00:11:49.759
My children were in New Jersey dealing with the aftermath of a divorce that I helped create.
00:11:49.919 --> 00:11:52.399
For three years, I flew home every weekend.
00:11:52.639 --> 00:11:55.360
Friday night out, Sunday night back.
00:11:55.759 --> 00:11:58.720
That is not the chapter you put on a keynote slide.
00:11:59.039 --> 00:12:01.039
Keynote slides prefer peaks.
00:12:01.279 --> 00:12:02.639
This was logistics.
00:12:02.799 --> 00:12:10.879
This was a man becoming fluent in airport food and the particular fatigue of doing two lies at once and doing neither as well as he wanted.
00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:13.679
I do not recommend it as a lifestyle brand.
00:12:13.840 --> 00:12:19.360
There is no merchandise line for I know every sad sandwich between here and Newark Airport.
00:12:19.519 --> 00:12:21.840
I do recommend it as evidence, however.
00:12:22.159 --> 00:12:25.600
The important step is often the one that looks like a calendar problem.
00:12:25.919 --> 00:12:29.919
Those flights kept me in their lies while the job kept me moving forward.
00:12:30.159 --> 00:12:34.320
If I had waited for a tidier season to be a father, I would still be waiting.
00:12:34.639 --> 00:12:36.799
Seasons do not clear their schedules for you.
00:12:36.960 --> 00:12:38.559
They are not that polite.
00:12:39.759 --> 00:12:41.200
Was it glamorous?
00:12:41.519 --> 00:12:41.840
No.
00:12:42.320 --> 00:12:43.440
Did it count?
00:12:43.759 --> 00:12:44.639
Absolutely.
00:12:44.960 --> 00:12:48.399
Counting and glamour have a very part-time relationship.
00:12:50.240 --> 00:12:54.960
I want to talk a little bit about how you can see this play out with other people in your life.
00:12:55.279 --> 00:12:58.559
My daughter was cut from a team that she desperately wanted to make.
00:12:58.720 --> 00:13:01.840
Then she took the feedback and eventually made that team.
00:13:02.080 --> 00:13:04.480
Being cut does not feel like a small step.
00:13:04.639 --> 00:13:08.080
It feels like a memo distributed more widely than you would have preferred.
00:13:08.240 --> 00:13:11.120
You either file it or you use the information in it.
00:13:11.360 --> 00:13:12.399
She used it.
00:13:12.639 --> 00:13:17.600
I watched that with particular mix of pride and helplessness that parenting specializes in.
00:13:18.080 --> 00:13:22.960
My son failed as businesses before he built one that employs a significant amount of people.
00:13:23.200 --> 00:13:30.320
The comfortable move after the second failure is to return to something respectable and turn the rest into an anecdote.
00:13:30.559 --> 00:13:33.919
Anecdotes are how we make retreats sound like material.
00:13:34.080 --> 00:13:36.879
He took the next imperfect step instead.
00:13:37.200 --> 00:13:39.600
Perfect steps are mostly theoretical.
00:13:39.840 --> 00:13:41.919
I have met very few of them in the wild.
00:13:42.080 --> 00:13:43.919
They are like elegant org charts.
00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:49.120
They might look attractive, but rarely do they represent how work actually gets done.
00:13:50.720 --> 00:13:56.240
Want to talk about the voice, the voice that rides in the backseat of your car, or the voice that's in your head.
00:13:56.320 --> 00:13:57.360
You know the one.
00:13:57.679 --> 00:13:59.840
Tells you this is too small.
00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:01.919
People will think you lowered your standards.
00:14:02.080 --> 00:14:03.600
You should already be further along.
00:14:03.840 --> 00:14:05.840
Have you seen what so and so is doing?
00:14:06.080 --> 00:14:07.120
I still hear it.
00:14:07.360 --> 00:14:09.279
I just no longer give it the keys.
00:14:09.440 --> 00:14:11.519
It can ride in the back where it belongs.
00:14:11.759 --> 00:14:14.320
It is good at commentary and poor at navigation.
00:14:14.559 --> 00:14:16.960
If it wants a snack, it can wait.
00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:19.279
That voice is not prudence.
00:14:19.519 --> 00:14:21.360
Prudence would like you to start.
00:14:21.519 --> 00:14:26.000
That voice is ego, trying to keep you from looking ordinary for a stretch.
00:14:26.320 --> 00:14:29.519
Ordinary for a stretch is how most durable things get built.
00:14:29.759 --> 00:14:33.279
Extraordinary as a first move is usually a costume.
00:14:34.159 --> 00:14:40.480
A mentor once told me to treat people well on the way up, because I would see them certainly on the way down.
00:14:40.799 --> 00:14:43.600
He was right, and it was not a soft lesson.
00:14:43.759 --> 00:14:46.799
The same rule applies to the earlier version of yourself.
00:14:47.120 --> 00:14:50.320
Do not despise the person taking the unoppressive step.
00:14:50.559 --> 00:14:55.519
He is doing work the polished version kept postponing while he waited for better lighting.
00:14:58.320 --> 00:15:00.080
What to do this week?
00:15:00.320 --> 00:15:05.279
I will keep this shorter than the rest because long systems have a way of becoming another form of delay.
00:15:05.519 --> 00:15:07.279
Delay loves a framework.
00:15:07.440 --> 00:15:09.919
Delay will color code the framework.
00:15:10.159 --> 00:15:12.000
I want you to write one sentence.
00:15:12.240 --> 00:15:15.679
The next step that is actually available in the next seven days.
00:15:15.919 --> 00:15:23.600
Not the fifth step, not the totally redesign life, not the version that would impress someone you have not spoken to in eight to ten years.
00:15:23.919 --> 00:15:25.279
Just the next step.
00:15:25.519 --> 00:15:27.039
Whatever it might be.
00:15:27.440 --> 00:15:29.120
Register for that class.
00:15:29.360 --> 00:15:31.600
Ask for the meeting you have been putting off.
00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:37.440
Send the email you've rewritten until it was personality and it has a personality and a small trust fund.
00:15:39.200 --> 00:15:44.000
Have the conversation you've been managing like a fragile piece of glass that might sue you.
00:15:44.399 --> 00:15:46.399
Do it before you feel ready.
00:15:46.639 --> 00:15:49.039
Readiness is often delayed in better clothing.
00:15:49.200 --> 00:15:52.240
It photographs well, but it produces very little.
00:15:52.799 --> 00:15:56.080
Readiness will ask for one more document.
00:15:56.480 --> 00:15:58.960
At the end of the week, do not grade the result.
00:15:59.360 --> 00:16:01.679
Grade whether you took that step.
00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:03.679
Momentum is in the taking.
00:16:03.919 --> 00:16:10.159
Outcomes arrive later, and they almost never match the sketch you made while you're feeling decisive at 11 p.m.
00:16:10.799 --> 00:16:12.480
That version of you at 11 p.m.
00:16:12.639 --> 00:16:13.440
is a visionary.
00:16:13.600 --> 00:16:15.120
The version of you at 7 a.m.
00:16:15.279 --> 00:16:16.320
is an employee.
00:16:16.559 --> 00:16:18.399
You need the employee.
00:16:18.799 --> 00:16:21.519
When the critic calls it too small, use evidence.
00:16:21.679 --> 00:16:25.440
The warehouse job, the night class, the work nobody wanted.
00:16:25.679 --> 00:16:33.279
The Friday flight, the conversation after the marriage ended, every larger thing sat on a step that looked insufficient at the time.
00:16:33.600 --> 00:16:37.360
If it had looked sufficient, I would have found a reason to postpone it.
00:16:37.519 --> 00:16:39.279
I was talented that way.
00:16:39.519 --> 00:16:42.720
By the way, talent is not always a compliment.
00:16:44.399 --> 00:16:49.919
I want to point out a few more examples because abstraction is really a very good hiding space.
00:16:50.159 --> 00:16:58.159
If you're early in your career, think about taking that step, that necessary step, the extra class to well round your skills.
00:16:58.399 --> 00:17:00.159
Ask for extra responsibility.
00:17:00.320 --> 00:17:03.200
The question you keep not asking because you think you should already know.
00:17:03.440 --> 00:17:04.240
Speak up.
00:17:04.480 --> 00:17:13.759
If you're midstream and stuck, think about the conversation with the person who can actually move something, not the third revision of your private plan in your head.
00:17:14.160 --> 00:17:19.599
If you're leading people, think about the decision you've been briefing yourself on for a month.
00:17:19.839 --> 00:17:24.799
Briefings are not decisions, they are delay with an agenda and coffee.
00:17:25.519 --> 00:17:35.200
And finally, if you're rebuilding a life after it came apart, think about the ordinary contact, the ordinary routine, the ordinary honesty.
00:17:35.440 --> 00:17:38.559
Rebuilding is not cinematic, it is repeated.
00:17:38.720 --> 00:17:42.000
That is why people skip it and look for a speech instead.
00:17:45.039 --> 00:17:48.880
This only becomes obvious later, which is unhelpful when you're at the beginning.
00:17:48.960 --> 00:17:50.160
I will say it anyway.
00:17:51.119 --> 00:17:55.599
Beginners are always told things will only make sense later.
00:17:55.839 --> 00:17:58.640
That is one of the small injustices of getting older.
00:17:59.680 --> 00:18:04.559
Small steps change the work, but they also change the identity.
00:18:05.519 --> 00:18:10.880
You stop being someone who discusses change and become someone who does the next thing.
00:18:11.839 --> 00:18:13.680
Nobody applauds that shift.
00:18:14.160 --> 00:18:15.920
It does not need applause.
00:18:16.400 --> 00:18:17.680
Applause is nice.
00:18:17.839 --> 00:18:20.079
It is also a poor fuel source.
00:18:20.400 --> 00:18:23.440
They also open rooms you cannot draw in advance.
00:18:24.079 --> 00:18:29.680
I could not have diagrammed warehouse to inventory to supervision to running a large affiliate during my career.
00:18:29.920 --> 00:18:38.799
Any map I made then would have included several imaginary elevators and at least one motivational quote in a font I would now find embarrassing.
00:18:39.039 --> 00:18:42.240
The stairs show themselves after you put a foot down.
00:18:42.480 --> 00:18:46.799
Standing at the bottom, insisting on the full blueprint is not a strategy.
00:18:46.960 --> 00:18:49.759
It's a parking lot with better vocabulary.
00:18:50.880 --> 00:18:53.759
I want to just put one caution out to each and every one of you.
00:18:53.920 --> 00:18:59.119
Do not turn small steps into a reason to remain in the wrong place and call it discipline.
00:18:59.279 --> 00:19:02.799
There's a difference between humble progress and hiding.
00:19:03.119 --> 00:19:05.440
You can feel it if you're willing to.
00:19:05.680 --> 00:19:08.240
I refer to it as restless discontent.
00:19:08.480 --> 00:19:13.680
The sense that you are capable of more than you are currently living is usually the signal.
00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:16.880
I've trusted that signal more than I've trusted comfort.
00:19:17.039 --> 00:19:19.039
Comfort is a gifted storyteller.
00:19:19.359 --> 00:19:21.920
It can make inertia sound like wisdom.
00:19:22.240 --> 00:19:24.640
Stale comfort is not a season of building.
00:19:24.880 --> 00:19:26.480
One requires effort.
00:19:26.880 --> 00:19:30.319
The other requires a good chair and a story about timing.
00:19:30.640 --> 00:19:35.200
Timing in my experience is often just pride looking at its watch.
00:19:37.839 --> 00:19:41.920
As we come to the close, I want to wrap up with a few important points.
00:19:42.240 --> 00:19:44.559
Starting the climb is not a mood.
00:19:44.880 --> 00:19:46.880
Moods are unreliable employees.
00:19:46.960 --> 00:19:50.480
This is a decision to take a smaller step than pride requested.
00:19:50.799 --> 00:19:53.279
Believe me, your pride will recover.
00:19:53.519 --> 00:19:56.160
It always writes a new explanation after the fact.
00:19:56.480 --> 00:19:59.039
Pride is excellent at writing memoirs.
00:19:59.279 --> 00:20:11.279
If you're sitting on something, an application, a conversation, a class, a habit, an honest look at where you are in your life, take the smallest true version of it this week.
00:20:11.440 --> 00:20:13.200
Not when conditions improve.
00:20:13.519 --> 00:20:16.559
Conditions have a talent for remaining almost ready.
00:20:16.720 --> 00:20:20.079
They are like a restaurant that is always, quote, about to open.
00:20:20.720 --> 00:20:24.240
That is how momentum starts, and that is how it continues.
00:20:24.480 --> 00:20:32.000
One unimpressive step, then another, until you notice you are no longer the person who was waiting.
00:20:32.240 --> 00:20:34.160
You are the person who began.
00:20:34.640 --> 00:20:38.480
Maybe you look slightly misplaced, and yet you still continued.
00:20:38.880 --> 00:20:41.519
Looking slightly misplaced is underrated.
00:20:41.680 --> 00:20:44.319
It usually means that you left the waiting room.
00:20:44.640 --> 00:20:47.279
The book is Overcome the Pathway to Constant Momentum.
00:20:47.359 --> 00:20:56.559
If you want help seeing the step you're walking around, usually the obvious one, which is part of why you keep walking around it, that is the work of O'Neill mentoring.
00:20:57.519 --> 00:20:58.559
Thanks for the time.
00:20:58.799 --> 00:20:59.680
Take the step.
00:20:59.839 --> 00:21:01.519
The small ones are the ones that count.
00:21:01.680 --> 00:21:02.720
They always were.
00:21:02.880 --> 00:21:05.039
We just did not want that to be true.
00:21:05.279 --> 00:21:07.039
I'll talk to you next time.
