February 14, 2008

DIVING IN

Frankly, I'm a bit confused. A few months ago, I discovered the existence of some sort of online group of people who had either hiked The Westcoast Trail previously, or were planning to, and I decided to peruse some of the information and conversations. In order to do so, I needed to create a name and password to be able to enter. This turned out to be a Facebook site and so without much forethought, I filled in the required information and left a couple of comments, including a link to my own WCT book. Last night, my daughter informed me that she and a friend had been on my Facebook profile and commented on how inadequate my efforts had been, as evidenced by the fact that there were no comments or something. I didn't really understand most of her commentary, being a technophobe, as you know. Another example of my leaping in, without doing the due diligence. Some people need to have all the facts before going into action - I apparently, am not one of them. Until today at lunch, I thought this might be a negative thing, but I'm currently reading a book by John Wood called, "Leaving Microsoft to Change the World." Let me offer a direct quote from his book,

" Stop Talking, Start Acting

If you are thinking about making some adjustments in your life to allow you to help change the world, my hearfelt recommendation is not to spend too much time thinking about it. Just dive in.......

The biggest risk is that a lot of people will try to talk you out of pursuing your dream. The world has too many people who are happy to discuss why something might not work, and too few who will cheer you on and say, "I'm there for you." The more time you spend navel-gazing, the longer you give those negative gravitational forces to keep you in their tether."

Entering a Facebook chat may not be earth shattering, but let's not stop from trying to change the world in front of us, just because we need someone else's opinion. Leaders are those who take the leap and accept the consequences. And to my daughter, I may not know what I'm doing, but I am doing, how about you?

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