How qualified do we need to be to do what matters to us? So many inspirational podcasts and postings involve billionaires with disruptive industry-changing solutions, or people who have done some of the most extraordinary things that people can do. So, we connect, get inspired and use this connection however we use can. However, many of us still sit and say “Well, I’m not really qualified to do ______.” Or “I’m just not that guy/woman [who I read or who was on stage].” We do what we do, but we don’t go as far as we might dream. Unless we just do. Unless we say “Fuck it; I’m all in. I’m gonna see how much is possible, how far I can go.”
We all have or have had something stirring inside us to create or do. We have a goal, a mission, an ambition—for ourselves and/or for others. We always wanted to learn blacksmithing, piano, or whatever it is. We may have forgotten what itis. But when we ask again, we remember what it was. We remember those things and the times we told ourselves we couldn’t do them, shouldn’t do them, weren’t qualified to do them, or weren’t as qualified as someone else.
I had the thought when I wrote the book The Wolf that Wins, “Who am I to do this?” I was afraid I didn’t have the qualifications to do it, that my stories weren’t good enough, that they didn’t rise to a level of those of others: the guys with amazing military triumphs, those with incredible business creations, etc. I’d ask myself many times, “Do you think these stories will help anyone, that anyone will want to read them?” There were countless times I listened to people on stage instruct and inspire me and others as I yearned (often with tears in my eyes) to do the same thing, only to just talk myself down. I’ve been clawing at the idea of delivering a message like this for years and have just drawn it back and pushed it down because I was afraid I didn’t measure up and that I couldn’t help.
Here’s what struck me and made me drive forward: I realized as I wrote that there’s power in my being as an ordinary person, someone who has at times forgotten to dream and worked to remember these dreams. I realized there’s something both unique and inspiring about not having the usual qualifications of authors I’d read or lecturers I’d been inspired by. Even more importantly, if the value I have as a person is helpful to anyone, then WE ALL have value to share. I sincerely believe that’s true. We owe ourselves and this world all we have.
My son told me this morning about a young guy he really respected who was gunned down in cold blood. He said, “That was it. His life was over. It made me see my problems in a different way. It made me want to just go for it in my life.”
I understand.