Say you want to start your own company. Or perhaps make a career change. Maybe you want to approach your boss about that that manager position thats open in your department.
These days, there are countless resources available at your disposal to help you think through this process and take the leap.
There are user groups and weekend events entirely dedicated to jumpstarting your entrepreneurial career, tons of career coaches, and countless books and classes on the subject.
Conferences are particularly great to get the right vibe going and get riled up to take that leap.
However, most people don’t.
Most people don’t leave that shitty job.
Most people don’t pursue that idea in a real way.
Most people don’t step up.
Most people just don’t show up.
Interestingly enough, no-shows are not only rampant in career related events, its also widely rampant in personal endeavors as well.
Here’s a picture of my Mom and Dad at roughly the same age Mahrin and I are now. Here’s a picture of us for comparison.
What’s the difference? At that age, my Mom and Dad not only already had me, they were already thinking about having my brother. They showed up.
My Dad was running a successful business in Bangladesh, my Mom was playing full time Mom and part time school teacher, and they both were just making it happen.
The interesting thing here is, they had less.
My Dad had 10x less resources around starting a business back then in a country where entrepreneurship is still not encouraged. They both had 30x less resources around how to raise a kid and grow a family back then.
This is where Rule #1 comes in and truly exemplifies itself.
There is never a perfect storm and perfect time to take that next step. There will only be troughs and peaks of imperfection and its up to us to capitalize on that and just step up, and show up.
It is a universal truth that for things that we find daunting and hard, there has been countless people that has done it before us with less.
I think in today’s fast paced information packed society, when we do think about taking the next leap we get so inundated with the pitfalls and watch outs and the ins and outs, we forget Rule #1: Show Up.
Don’t wait for only that perfect moment. Start by just showing up.
Just show up.
