I love this saying. Although it is meant to be humorous - I relate to it in its entirety and d think there is a great message to all of us in its levity. I say this is my "Brand Essence" because at my core - I am a doer.

I have observed many individuals, men and women, make the mistake of waiting for something better instead of taking the initiative to make things better for themselves.

Seth Godin said in Poke the Box, "“Today, not starting is far, far worse than being wrong. If you start, you've got a shot at evolving and adjusting to turn your wrong into a right. But if you don't start, you never get a chance.”

So many people are afraid of failing that they never take the shot to just DO something. We have set such high standards of perfection for ourselves and for each other that we forget there is joy simply in the exercise of trying. Growth comes from failure. Growth comes from initiative. And I would rather say "I did it" and ask forgiveness for my failure, than to say I didn't step up to the plate and try.

One of the hardest parenting lessons I ever had in my life came when my daughter Rachel was a young pre-teen. She wanted to be a cheerleader so badly - she practiced and practiced out in the yard for months on end. The day of try-outs came and Rachel went to the tryout and could not perform the required back flip to make the squad. She walked out of the tryout to the lobby in tears mid-tryout and said she was finished. She argued that she had done it well enough and didn't want to go back in. I told her it did not matter the outcome of the tryout - but that if she did not finish what she started - I would be very disappointed in her. I made her go back in and finish the tryout and she did not make the team that year. The lesson of finishing what you started - having the initiative to see it through - was a lesson that she needed to learn. I walked to my car and cried in silence for her heartbreak. I knew how disappointed she was. But in that moment, the most important thing for her to know was not whether she won or lost the spot, but that completing the task and having the initiative to see it through - were life lessons beyond her years.

I have often thought back to that day. What would have happened if I had simply let her walk out? I know that the next year, when she practiced even harder and made the team that year and every year after for the next ten years, her greatest triumph was not in the making of the team - but of the finishing the task - and having the initiative to go back in.

#initiative #selfreliance #womenhelpingwomen #womeninleadership #entrepreneurship #goodintentions #actions #sethgodin