189 - Show Up Before You're Ready

January 2023. Start line. Wrong shoes. One unofficial training run to my name. I ran the half marathon anyway and it taught me more than any race I was actually prepared for.

This episode is about the lie of readiness. The way "I'm not ready yet" becomes the most sophisticated excuse high achievers use to avoid starting the things that matter. 

I share three stories: a race I ran before I understood how racing worked, a job I quit without a plan, and the two years I waited to start this podcast — and what that delay cost me.

In this episode:

• The feeling of "not ready" is a threat response, not an accurate reading of your capacity
• The difference between strategic patience and indefinite delay — and how to tell which one you're in
• Five specific actions you can take this week to start the thing you've been circling
• Confidence is a by-product of starting, not a prerequisite for it

In five months I'm going to be a dad. No book prepares you for that. This episode is me working through what it means to commit to something before you feel ready; live, in real time.

If this one lands, share it with one person who's been sitting on something they need to start. And if you haven't rated the show on Apple or Spotify, that's your one ask — 30 seconds, and it helps more people find this.

Keep getting after it, my friends.

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You're not lazy. You're not lost. You just know there's a gap between the life you're living and the one you're capable of — and that gap is getting harder to ignore.

Every week, I pull apart the mental patterns that keep capable people stuck — comfort disguised as patience, avoidance disguised as strategy, mediocrity dressed up as balance. I bring in philosophy, personal stories from the trails and the trenches, and conversations with people who decided to stop waiting.

This isn't a show about hacks. It's about the harder work: getting honest with yourself, building the discipline to act on that honesty, and becoming someone you'd actually respect.

Keep getting after it.

Transcript

The Race That Changed Everything

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January 2023. I'm at the start line. And I chose shoes at the time that looked cool. That was my whole decision process. I didn't know anything about stack height, drop, or the fact that you probably need a little bit bigger sized shoes so your feet don't get a bunch of blisters. Didn't know anything about that. On top of that, had no idea what the importance of race fueling was. That was coupled with some things that I was going through. Personally, I have had a history of an eating disorder and didn't recognize how important fuel was for race day. But I showed up anyway. My entire training block for this half marathon was an unofficial race that I did myself on a walking path in Utah. And I showed up. I wanted to see what I was capable of. And the race did something very specific for me that I couldn't have learned any other way. It connects to the two years that I lost by not showing up and the time I had everything I needed, but still didn't start. In my opinion, you need both stories. Welcome back to the Getting After It Podcast, my friends. Always happy to have you here. You get to talk to your friend Brett for a little bit. You might be talking in your car in response to things I'm saying, and hey, if you do that, that's great. I'm listening. Somewhere, I'm listening. You might be uh considered a crazy person by others, but listen, I get it. I'm there, I know you. And really happy that you took the time to sit with me today and learn a little bit about getting after. And if you are new to the show, if you don't know what it's all about, really the importance of this show is to one, help you get out of your comfort zone to do, and two, to do hard things. I was actually asked this on social media. Someone sent me a DM and was like, why do you think it's important to get out of your comfort zone? Why do you say that that's what the podcast is for? What's what's the benefit of it? I think it's a great question. I mean, it's it makes you think, it makes you really wonder, yeah, well, what is the point of all this? For me, it does two things. One, it builds my confidence. Anytime I go out and I do something very difficult, I've recognized that I feel good about myself, that I'm I I understand that I'm capable of more and that I have more in the tank. And then two, I think it it produces a valuable way of living. Um if you remember before, I've done an episode on this, but Teddy Roosevelt has this thing that he says of living the strenuous life. And that is just doing things that are not easy compared to what society says and the comfort that's offered to so many of us nowadays. It's meant to push you, it's meant to get you out of your comfort zone. And like I said, to do exactly what I was talking about on helping you recognize that you have more in the tank. I want to talk today about starting before you feel ready. And I have a few stories I'm going to share. Um, a race before I understood how racing actually works, a job I quit without a plan, a podcast I was too scared to start for two years, and something that's happening in my life right now that no matter how many books I read and videos I watch or classes I take, I will not be able to fully prepare for them. The theme is readiness and the lie of it specifically. Let's go back to the race example I was giving in the beginning because it paints a really good picture in my perspective of starting before you're actually ready. January 2023. Allie uh she asked me to run the Team Tim Half Marathon with all of her friends and family. Uh, it's a race for her dad, who he passed away from cancer. Tim was Allie's hero and many other people's heroes. And so this is usually a group of 40 to 50 people who run it, and most of them wouldn't call themselves runners to begin with. You know, they're not logging miles on Strava, they just simply show up. And I said yes, that I wanted to do it, but I didn't have a training plan. I had terrible shoes. I can't remember what I had. I was wearing sockanies, but they were probably two sizes too small, and they just looked pretty dope. So that's why I got them. I thought they looked really cool, and I had no understanding of race day nutrition, nothing like that. Um my entire running resume was that unofficial race that I ran on a on a walking path in Utah. And I would say three reasons really drove me to say yes. One, I just started dating Natalie, so I wanted to impress her. That's the truth. I I wanted to show her, like, yeah, even though I was pretty scared to go after that race, it was my first actual half marathon. Um, I was like, yeah, I'll do it for sure. And in inside, I'm like, oh my hell, I'm I'm freaking out. I had I don't know what's in store for me. And the race environment was new to me, everything was new, but I wanted to impress her, so I showed up. Second, is I wanted to run against cancer. Uh, Tim was gone. And I felt like this was a way that I could honor and show up for his memory. And then three, and this is the one that I keep coming back to, I wanted to know what I was made of. Uh and before I had the chance to actually do it in some clean way. So, race day, wrong shoes, underfueled, doing everything a training plan would tell you not to do. And I crossed that finish line at one hour and 39 minutes, and then something clicked. And it was, it wasn't arrogance, I would say it was more recognition. I started to recognize that if I can run this unprepared, what could I do if I actually trained? What if what could I do if I got serious? And I believe that that race was actually the foundation for every mile that I've logged since, because it wasn't clean. Because I was a complete beginner, and I showed up, and showing up was the actual lesson that I learned there. If I had waited for the right shoes, the right training block, the right nutrition knowledge, I would have missed one of the most clarifying moments in my athletic life. Readiness felt like a requirement, but it turns out that it was actually optional. It's not a requirement to start. In fact, I will argue that most of the time that you do something, that you set goals for yourself, you won't feel ready for. And that's completely normal. But what what is readiness? What is it actually? Your brain is not some neutral observer of what you're capable of. It is a threat detection machine, and it's good at its job. Like, I love learning about human psychology because the more that I understand how our minds work, how humans how human beings operate in their minds, I understand how you can work past many of those feelings that you have. And it's it's not the end of the world. It's just simply being human. Its job evolutionary is to keep us alive. Like, and starting something new is registered as a threat to our minds. Super interesting stuff. Like, if you want to go down a rabbit hole, I would suggest that you go and learn some of these things about human psychology because it's fascinating to try and understand how our brains work, how we operate, the things that we tell ourselves and the stories we all make up. But the reason it registers as a threat is because there's a lot of uncertainty and the possibility of failure, embarrassment, and judgment. All things that I would argue none of us like to go through. It's not fun to be judged, it's not fun to be embarrassed, but it's so important. And this is what I'm talking about with the rabbit hole because your brain cannot tell the difference between a saber-toothed tiger and a race start line. That's real. It's so interesting. And it says there's danger. It tries to stop you. Which, you know, kudos to our brain. Because if I saw a saber-toothed tiger, I would for sure get the hell out of there. I would run as fast as I can, but it wouldn't be fast enough. That saber-toothed tiger would get me real quick. Those things are another rabbit hole you can go study. All the all the ice age animals. Really fascinating. Anyways, that's not the topic we're going into today, maybe for a future episode. But your brain almost never gives you an accurate reading of what your actual capacity is. Your nervous system is ex is doing exactly what it's built to do. And the problem is we've started treating a biological protection mechanism as good advice. Seneca says this, I've said this many times on the podcast, but it applies here today. We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. He said that 2,000 years ago. The race in your head is almost always worse than the actual race. It's almost always harder. The conversation that you've been avoiding is never as bad as the version that you've been rehearsing at 2 a.m. And the business that you haven't started is always scarier than an idea, than the idea of it actually is. And your imagination is a threat response a lot of the times. It's important to imagine things, it's important to visualize things, but most of the time, your imagination will put you in a bad space, and I believe that it lies to you. Switching gears here, I want to talk about the two years that I'll never get back. Because two years before I started getting after it, back in 2020, I had the idea. I knew what kind of conversations I wanted to have. I knew what types of things I wanted to discuss and talk about. And I knew that there was something worth contributing that I could that I could do. But I sat on it. For one word. One word kept me away from this podcast for two years. And after stepping into this podcast and doing it for four years now, I'm embarrassed to say, but it was fear. Fear was what was holding me back. Specific fear of criticism, of being exposed, of having to formulate my own opinions and to defend them publicly. I was scared of all those things. I was scared that people would hear me and say, that guy knows nothing. Like, why would I ever give him the time of day and listen to what he says? I was scared of all that. But now I just understand that that's part of the part of the game. There's gonna be both sides every time. There's gonna be people who say that, and then there's gonna be people who are like, hey, that really helped me, thank you. And those are the people that I want to do this for. I don't care if someone listens to it and says, Man, that was worthless. Great. You're not my audience. Move along. But those fears were real, and I was treating them almost like data that I was receiving. Like they were telling me something um true about my own readiness. And they were weren't telling me anything uh except that I was scared. And for two years I watched the idea sit there. I would formulate my own opinions and think about titles and things that I wanted to call the podcast and dreams of having guests on, you know, my Mount Rushmore of guests. And the window for starting a podcast continued to tick by. And it cost me a lot of growth, honestly. And not just like audience-wise, didn't cost me a lot of audience growth, but these past four years of doing the podcast have been some of the most beneficial for me in terms of my own self-growth. Because if there's something that I want to do, something like a podcast on, a topic I want to discuss, I will go out and I will study it. I will try to understand what I believe about it, and then come back and relay those things to you through this format. Since starting the podcast, I really have learned a lot about myself, about communication, about what I actually believe. And I couldn't have gotten it any other way. It's been so beneficial for me. Like I've had conversations that have changed how I see certain things. And I've made real friends through this. It's been such a blessing. I've heard from people who said an episode got them through a hard time, and that's worth the four years in its own. Like, that is exactly why I do this, is because I want people to understand that, you know, if they feel like they're trapped or they feel like they're stuck in life and aren't accomplishing their goals, that that's normal, that they can get through it. All of that was on the other side of starting. All those wonderful things I just talked about was just on the other side of starting. And none of it was available while I was waiting to feel ready. It wasn't gonna come that way. Zig Ziggler, he's kind of a like a business self-help guy. But he has this quote, and so like I don't know, I don't really like those kinds of people, but he does have a really good quote that sums this up perfectly. He says, You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great. You don't have to be great to start. In fact, I would argue you're not going to be. When I showed up on race day, I wasn't great. I was very average back in 2023. But the more I did it, the more I I dug deep and trained and tried pushing myself, the better I got. Same with this podcast. The early episodes were hard for me to listen to. They're hard for me to listen to now. Um but like I made a post on social media this week about how everyone starts somewhere. And I took a clip from my most recent episode, and then it turned black, and text flashed on the screen that said everyone starts somewhere, and then it went back to the second episode I ever recorded about the benefits of health and fitness, and it's quite the change, it's drastic. I am not that same person anymore. And I think that this quote is one of the most practically true sentences that I've encountered because it is that's exactly how greatness works. You won't be great when you start, but you will have to start in order to be great. I was unpolished when I started this podcast. I wasn't a great runner, my opinions weren't fully formed. But and this is a huge one, but I launched anyway, and doing it made me better and not preparing for it, not preparing for it in my head, with you know coming up with all the different things that fear was holding me back on, that wasn't doing me any good. I had to actually start. And the podcast you're listening to right now exists because one day I decided feeling unready wasn't good enough. It wasn't a good re good enough reason to stay quiet. I wasn't gonna be fully ready. Just like whatever that goals you have in your life that you want to go and accomplish, you might not feel fully ready for. And this is important for you for me to have you understand is it just takes one step. No matter how small that step is, you just have to take one step. For me, my first step with the podcast was I'm gonna order a microphone. For the run, my first step of becoming a a above-average runner was what are my goals? How can I work towards that? And it just helps paint the picture a little easier for you to understand what you're capable of and the things that you want. I would say this is this might be a hot take, but I believe that standards are now, some of them, standards can be misused as the as excuses. I'll go into what I'm what I mean here, but most high achievers I've I've come to meet and have talked to, they give in, like I would say maybe guys in this audience specifically or or girls, but they don't say that I'm too scared to start. That's not something that they typically, you know, they go after because they're high achievers. I I believe we're past that. But we do dress it up instead. We tell ourselves that we have high standards, that we won't ship something that's half baked, that we want to do it right from the start. And sometimes that's true. Sometimes is strategic, and the preparation phase genuinely does require time. Don't get that mixed up here. But can you name the exact thing you're waiting for? Can you put a date on when you feel or when you move regardless of how you feel? Are you building while you wait or are you frozen? Strategic patience does have criteria and it has a deadline. You can say I'm waiting for X and by Y date, I I move no matter what. That's a helpful thing to do. But infinite delay, infinite, I'm going to make sure that whatever I do is going to be the best, that I will be ready for it. Infinite delay has none of that. The criteria always will shift. You'll find something that you realize you're not great at yet, that you need to go back and polish before you do whatever you're gonna do. You want to go after a sub-3 marathon, and you're researching all these types of shoes, none of that matters. What does your training look like? What does your fueling look like? What does your recovery look like? Those are the things that you need to be focusing on. Not, oh, I need to get carbon-plated shoes to help me get two seconds off my time. Doesn't matter. But every time you you get near the threshold, a new requirement gets added. I've run into this many times. Like that's why I delayed the podcast for two years because I was just in a loop where I'd be, I'd start feeling good, I'd feel ready, and then I was like, oh, wait, no, I gotta work on this first, and then I'd be like, okay, now that I got that good, we're we're good. And then you know, fear would come in and be like, oh, you're right. I actually need to, you know, take a moment to focus on that a little bit more and spend some time developing those skills. It's never-ending. I believe that that's just fear with a better vocabulary. Let's talk about something that's very real. Very real in the sense that I believe that many people might go through this at some point in their life. But I I quit my last job without any backup plan. The next thing was not lined up. That alone is scary. But you know, I I have a little bit of a financial cushion to stay comfortable to be able to take care of my wife, and that's why I made the decision. But I knew that if I stayed where I was at, I was choosing a slow erosion in my life where I am someone who likes to build. And it felt like it was going against everything that I I talk about because I was I hated it. It was hard. And I'm an optimist in the sense that I I believe that things work out when you commit fully to them. And I could not commit fully while I was one foot in the door at the job I worked, and then one foot out. Like I I knew I needed to leave. And since quitting, I've I've had multiple job interviews that I'm really excited about, and they're progressing, and I'm unbelievably grateful. Those conversations could not have happened if I was still working where I'm where I was previously. If I was still at that desk. Too safe to be avoidable. Marie Farleo, I believe that's how you say her name. Marie Farleo has a line which I believe sums this up perfectly. And it's one of the most simple ways I've heard this idea be talked about. And it is action breeds clarity. You don't think your way into clarity and then act. You act and then clarity follows. That's been true every single time in my life, and it was true there too. I committed before I had a plan. And then the plan started to show up after I was committed to it. After I made it my full-time job to find whatever was next for me. And I couldn't have done that if I was still where I was. I know not a lot of people can do that, and I feel very fortunate to be in the situation that I'm in where I can. But just trying to get the idea across that you have to commit, you have to take action, and that clarity will follow. Now, there are some things I believe that you can't fully prepare for that you just have to jump into. And in five months, I'm gonna be a dad. I'm gonna be a dad. If you guys know that reference, you truly are my audience. Um, but Allie's due September 17th. And I've read books, I've listened to podcasts, I've watched a bunch of videos, had conversations with people who are dads before, and And I don't think that I'm ready, really. Not from a place of fear, but just a place from honesty. I don't think that I'm fully ready. Nothing I've read will prepare me for what my baby is going to actually actually need from me. And what it's actually going to feel like. Because yeah, like I can read these books, I can do all these things, but then you know, it's just my wife and I going to bed. I don't have to wake up in the middle of the night and go take care of the kid. I don't know what that's going to be like. Like, okay, maybe I could prepare for that by setting an alarm for midnight and then 2 a.m. and then 4 a.m. and then get up and go do stuff. I don't know. I could do that, I guess, but it's going to require me to actually jump into it to be fully prepared. And no research is going to get me ready for that first night home. I can learn some things, I can get some tips and tricks, but the first time something scares me, or the first time something has scared me about this kid, is just knowing that I will be unprepared. I know I'll be able to do it. That I'm not worried about that. But it's just it's hard to prepare for something where it's such a unique experience. There's any first-time dads out there, maybe you understand what I'm talking about, but and maybe you prepared better than I do. Or I am. But you know, I I don't know what else I can be doing. And I'm at peace with that. I really am. Fatherhood is one of those things where the only preparation is showing up with everything you have and learning in real time. It's funny because like some of the podcasts I've listened to have said that. There's something similar to that. And I remember thinking while I was listening to him, I was like, yeah, right. I'm gonna be so prepared as a dad. I'm gonna be ready. I'm like, of course, I'll do something is like get the bag that you bring to the hospital ready, I'll make sure my wife's comfortable as much as she can be. I'll do all those things. But that child is coming whether I feel ready or not. And the question is whether I arrive closed off and overwhelmed at the beginning or open and committed. And I can prepare myself, my character, my marriage, my presence, and my health. But the experience of it only happens by doing it. Most things we keep waiting to begin work the same way. I think. To walk through the door unready and let the experience shape you into what you need to become on the other side, I think is that's good. It's good to not feel fully prepared sometimes. Because for me, I overanalyze a lot of the times. I actually have OCD, and my brain is really good at overanalyzing and putting myself in cycles where I just loop through things and I think about everything that could go wrong. And what if I don't do this, or what if I do this? Like it's horrible. My brain is mean to me sometimes, but I'm working on it. I uh I have a doctor I work with, and you know, it's just important. Sometimes you're not gonna feel fully ready to commit to something like that. And I would argue that this is going to be the most important task I have in my entire life is becoming a dad. I want to be fully present in that child's life. I want to teach them the things that I know. My audience, you guys, very important to me. I want to teach you things that I know, but I want that kid to know fully from me the things that are important to me, how to get through things, like, and that's only going to come by doing it. It's not really a comfortable thought, but I've stopped needing it to be comfortable. Just going with it. Now let's go back to the race, the Team Tim race. Because every year, that field of 40 to 50 people includes runners who've trained and people who absolutely did not. It's funny because my brother-in-law Blake, he uh he's gotten into running, I would say, the past like three months. But historically, ever since I've done I've been part of Team Tim and I've done races with them, he just shows up. Like he won't train at all for the year, and he just shows up and does it, which I admired. Like, that's grit and loved seeing it. But now he's he's a he's a real runner now. He's a beast. But a lot of people showed up for Tim. You know, the non-runners who were there, they showed up because they love Tim and they love the Murphy family. Or they know someone who they love who's fighting cancer, and and they want to support that person as well. And what's interesting is almost before every race, before the start, I always hear people say, like, oh, I'm scared. I'm pretty terrified of what's going to happen. I don't know if I can finish this race. And then the race starts and they go off. And watching someone cross the finish line where they didn't believe that they could do that distance, that look is one of the most real things I've ever seen. Those people were not the most prepared runners on the course. There's people who ran that race in unbelievable times. Times that I wish I could do. But then there's the people who show up and they refuse to not they refuse to let not being ready be a reason that they stayed home. And I love that. It's so important. Let's get practical, guys. My favorite part of the episode, giving you something actionable that you can chew on. Five things that I want you to focus on specifically for this week. First, I want you to name one thing that you've been circling around. Not vague, but get very specific about it. Write it down. I've been waiting to start blank. It could be a business, a conversation, a fitness goal, a creative project, and your or your own podcast. But you can't confront what you haven't named. Number two is write down exactly what ready looks like. Get specific with this one too. What would you what would have to be true for you to finally feel ready? Write it out and then read it back to yourself. Is this a genuine prerequisite? Or have you been adding to this list for months? If the goalposts have been moving, well, that's your answer. Number three is set a regardless date. Pick a date, it could be in seven days, 14, a month, but write it down. I start by blank, regardless of how I feel. I start by September 17th for my baby, regardless of how I feel. Then tell someone, send a text, like have someone else hold you accountable. Because the moment that you externalize a commitment, it stops being a private wish and becomes a promise that you now have to keep. And that's what helped me get into the podcast a lot. I would tell people all the time, hey, I'm gonna start a podcast, I'm gonna do a podcast. And then when I would see them, they'd follow up and be like, Are you how's the podcast going? And I'd be like, Oh, actually, I haven't started yet, I better do it. But it just when you externalize it, when you share it with other people, you now have people in your corner who are redoing for you. Number four is do one thing today. One move that you can't take back. Make the call, send the email, register for the race, register for the domain. The first move does not have to be elegant, it just needs to be real. So do something today. And then number five is run the math that you've been avoiding. We spend all our time calculating the risk of starting. Spend 10 minutes calculating the risk of not starting. That's what I want you to do. Another year of delay. What does that cost you in growth, in relationships, in health, in compound value you could have been building? Most people never run those numbers. So I want you to run them. There's a Chinese proverb that says, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. The best time for me to start start the podcast was the two years that I two years before I actually did. In 2020 when I had the idea. That time is gone. So the second best time was the day I finally started. That uh every episode since then is the compound interest of that decision. This is 189, and I'm very proud of that number. You have something you've been waiting to plant. You have to have something that you've been waiting to plant, and you know it. The 20 years ago version is gone, but right now is available to you. So the challenge for the week is pick one thing that you've been circling and make one move you cannot take back. Confidence is not a prerequisite for starting. It's a byproduct of starting. The runners I respect aren't the most confident because they felt ready at the start line. They're confident because they kept showing up when they didn't want to. You are more ready when you you are more ready than you think. Not perfectly ready, but more ready than you think. And that's enough to start. If this one hit home, I'd really appreciate you guys sharing it with someone else. Um, but really, I I just want you to take this and apply it to your life. Like, what are you avoiding? What are you not fully ready for that you want to start? And just take a few steps toward it. Because guys, I'm telling you, yes, it's hard. Yes, there's fear, there's uncertainty, there's the fear of embarrassment, there's the fear of judgment, all those things that I felt when I started this podcast. They're real. But it's worth it so much more for the things that you learn, for the person that you become, for the growth that you are able to achieve through starting. Remember, you don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great. If you guys are listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please leave a nice little rating. Uh, it helps the show grow a lot. Um, thank you to Jace and Braden and my mom for always leaving comments on Spotify. It's fun to see you guys and what you pull from the episode. So if you want to do that too, that's awesome. But thank you guys so much for listening. And until next episode, everybody. Start. Start whatever the thing you've been delaying is, and keep getting after it, my friends.