you
pick
anything
you
want
and
you figure out
how you do it
Teo, my 5-year old, has been watching us go through our daily grind of building a company. Apparently, he also has been having some thoughts of his own on just *how* to do something new. So he scribbled down this simple little poem. A kindergartener’s mantra of staccato-ed sounds. More for himself than for anyone else, of course. Yet I wanted to share it with you, all you brave beginners out there. For to be a beginner – at the age when you think “you ought to have learned everything by now” – is a vulnerable place to be in. You are full of doubt. You think you are alone. You put yourself out there and wonder, will I be understood? It takes a single-minded drive and an unquenchable desire to do whatever-IT-is-that-you-want-to-do. And then you find out that IT requires tuning into your beginner’s mind, into your own inner 5-year-old.
My friend Laura Miller writes so beautifully in her new article, Absolute Beginners:
“Beginner’s mind is good for us. There is flexibility and fluidity in not knowing. It is not proud; it is pure. There is no room in a beginner’s mind for anything else but what it is doing. It takes in nothing but what is directly in front of it and requires its full attention. It is a true meditation. All parts of our self flowing together, cooperating, and integrating.”
What will you try doing today that you have been wanting to do for a long time, but never dared?… 😉