The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. –Amelia Earhart
When I was a little baby Executive Director, at the helm of a $250K organization, I went to see Rich Berlin for some advice.
(For those of you who don’t know Rich Berlin, check out the podcast episode I did with him. He’s a legend.)
Anyway, he leaned back in his chair as I verbally vomited all of my anxiety, looked me square in the eye and said, “Rhea, the hardest thing in the world is to raise a budget under a million dollars.”
I was floored. Uhhh, thanks, Rich. At that point, a million dollars to me might as well have been eleventy billion dollars. He might as well have said “Climb Everest blindfolded while on a pogo stick” because that’s how impossible it felt.
But, the thing is (dammit!) he was right.
In that moment, I also decided.
I decided that I was going to raise a million dollars.
I didn’t know how, I didn’t know when, but I made a decision in my heart that if Rich Berlin could do it, so could I.
That’s the thing about any amount of money or any goal.
You just have to decide that it’s what you’re going to do.
Believe hard and run like hell after it.
Sometimes when we’re setting audacious goals, we scare ourselves and start to hedge, backpedal and make alternative plans before we even start. We’re already setting ourselves up to fail.
Burn the ships.
Decide, commit, feel the fear and do it anyway.
Be brave enough to blow your own damn mind whether it’s raising more money than you thought you could, launching a business or writing a book.
After all, as Helen Keller said, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
PS: I also decided to write a book–which both scared me and blows my mind. It’s coming out at the end of March. If you want to be in the know about the launch and other goodies, sign up for my newsletter at rheawong.com.
