How I Gained Something From Nothing

The Infinite Returns You Get From Just Doing

“You know, it’d be a pretty cool idea to write to Simon Sinek.”

I had just finished reading his book, “Start With Why” and was feeling very inspired by his philosophy and outlook on life. I’d watched his TED Talk as well, and understood that he was not only a sophisticated writer, but also an excellent speaker who understood his audience deeply. Their emotions, wants, needs — he’s able to carefully craft his words to inspire those who needed to hear a different message surrounding how we see work.

As I thought about how cool it would be to reach out to him, another voice in my head said: “Why not just do it?”

It was the wisdom of other successful individuals, ranging from business empire moguls to social impact change-makers. Everyone who’s anyone today knows this bit of advice: that to get what you want, you can’t wait to find out if you can, but you need to just go after it.

“But I’m not them”, I replied to my own thoughts. I was so convinced of my normalness, that I was stopping myself from even trying. It was out of character for me to do something as outlandish as hope that I could get a response from one of the most well-known public speakers in the world. I couldn’t even get my college professor to reply to my emails, how could I ever get Simon Sinek to pay attention to me?