Shane Parrish

And, you know, if I can do this with a nine year old, you can do it with your life.

We've all gone through moments where we didn't think we could do it, where we weren't prepared and we came through it stronger.

You can recall those moments for yourself.

For him, it was like snowboarding and wakeboarding and all these sports that he had tried that he never tried before.

And, you know, then I was like, okay, well, now, instead of looking down, instead of looking at the water, let's look about it.

Let's change our vantage point, change how we're looking into the situation and just take one step off the edge.

That's all I had to do.

and he didn't look down he took one step off the edge and lo and behold you know as soon as he hit the water he's like back up climbing and now he's like running and trying to do flips up the edge and so i i think that that's what we can do with adults too if you look at anybody in professional sports

A marathoner, when they start a marathon, they're not thinking about the end.

When things get hard and they start playing these little voices in their head and that little doubt creeps in, all they tell themselves is like, I just have to make it to that light.

And then when they hit that light, they switch it.

I got to make it to that stop sign.

And they keep that goal, they keep the distance between where they are and the goal they want to accomplish really small.

And the bigger that gap is, the bigger the gap between where you are today and where you want to be.

And if you focus on where you want to be and you don't focus on the first step, it's just going to cause that little voice of self-doubt, that little paralysis.

It's going to make it really, really, really challenging to take that first step.

If, on the other hand, you're like, okay, well, what's the first step that I can take towards this goal?

I can do that.

That's manageable.

The gap between where I am and accomplishing that first step is pretty small.