You Just Have to Start (Even When It Makes Zero Sense)

This weekend at the football state championships, I had one of those moments you can’t plan for — the kind that sneaks up on you when you’re cold, tired, and just trying not to lose feeling in your fingers.

I was handing out medals to a team of boys who had just won their championship. Pure joy, loud energy, the kind of moment that feels bigger than the field you’re standing on, frozen fingers.

And right in the middle of the medal line, a kid stops. Looks at me. And says:

“I heard you speak earlier this week, and it really inspired me.”

Young Sir.
You just won a whole state title.
You don’t need to say ANYTHING to me right now.
And yet… he did.

If my face wasn’t frozen solid, there would’ve absolutely been a tear.

It took me a minute to process it. Moments like that have a way of stopping you more than the final score ever will.

Because the truth is: this moment only happened because I started.

I started speaking.
I started writing.
I started building ideas that didn’t have a clear direction yet.
I started showing up in rooms where I wasn’t sure anyone was listening.
I started posting even when it felt embarrassing.
I started building GRL when it was just me and a Google Doc.

None of it made sense at the beginning.
But here’s the thing I’ve learned over and over:

You don’t get these moments if you never start.

The biggest obstacle was never time or strategy. It was caring what people thought.

Honestly? The hardest part wasn’t the work.
It wasn’t the planning.
It wasn’t the consistency.

It was caring — deeply — about what other people might think.

What they’d say.
How I’d look putting myself out there.
Whether people would talk behind my back.
Whether I’d be “too much” or “not enough” or “who does she think she is?”

Those thoughts used to eat at me.

But here’s what I know now:
If people are talking badly behind my back… I truly could not care less.

Because moments like this — moments of gratitude, moments of impact, moments where someone stops you on a freezing field to say “you inspired me” — those override every ounce of fear.

They remind me why I started in the first place.

And let’s be real: impact doesn’t show up right away.

Most of the time, impact looks like:

• Speaking to a room and wondering if anyone absorbed what you said

• Posting online and hoping it reaches the right person

• Creating programs before anyone asks for them

• Showing up even when enthusiasm is low

• Choosing consistency over comfort

• Believing in something that hasn’t grown roots yet

Then out of nowhere — 4.5 years in — a kid reminds you that the seeds you planted didn’t disappear. They grew.

A friend asked me, “Doesn’t that moment make you feel like you’re having an impact?”

I said no.

Not because the moment wasn’t meaningful.
Not because I wasn’t moved.
But because I’m wired in a way where the work never feels “done.”
I’m always climbing.
Always building.
Always thinking, What else? What next? Who needs this? Who am I missing?

It’s not perfectionism.
It’s possibility.
It’s knowing that there’s always more good we can do — even if we don’t see the results in real time.

The truth is simple: you just have to start.

Even when it feels awkward.
Even when you're talking to what feels like an empty room.
Even when you feel unqualified.
Even when people misunderstand what you're trying to build.

Even when you think, Why am I doing this?
Even when the fear of being judged is loud.

Start anyway.

Start small.
Start quietly.
Start inconsistently if you have to.
Just start.

And then go back to it again and again and again.

Because the consistency — the showing up, the trying, the building — is what eventually leads to moments like a kid on a cold November night saying, “You inspired me.”

That’s the kind of moment that reminds you:
The fear was never the truth.
The work was worth it.
And the only way you get here…
is by starting.