🌱 Here are my hopes & dreams (whiteboard photo)

Here’s your 3 insights in 3 minutes.

🤔 My Hopes & Dreams

If you're waiting to feel "ready" before making a move, you might be waiting forever. 

Most of us aren’t afraid of effort.
We’re afraid of choosing the wrong direction.

So we wait for clarity. 
More certainty. More confidence. 

And nothing changes.

That’s why the line “Leap and the net will appear” always stuck with me (from 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵'𝘴 𝘞𝘢𝘺).

But I’ve learned something important since then.

It’s not really a leap. 
And there’s no net.

It’s just a series of small steps. 
One tiny step at a time.

𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗻𝗲𝘄𝘀: anyone can do it. There's no secrets. 
𝗡𝗼𝘁-𝘀𝗼-𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗻𝗲𝘄𝘀: you have to move WITH fear, not without it.

Here’s what that’s looked like in my life over the last 6 months.

Over the summer, I caught up with my friend Courtney. I told her I’d been trying to connect more with what I actually want. Thinking bigger. That kind of stuff. 

She lit up.

She told me about a “dreamstorming” exercise she does with friends. I had no idea what that meant, but I said yes. 

The next day I was on her couch. Eyes closed.
Answering questions. No clue what was happening.

45 minutes later, I opened my eyes.

And saw this whiteboard.

All my hopes, curiosities, and long-term pulls. Right there. (Woah!)
I didn’t even know she’d been writing anything.

That was June 2025.

Looking back now, a few things on that board became real: 

“Psychologist”

I started working with a psychologist on a 360 roadmap. 

(It’s a $15k deep-dive assessment interviewing me + 6 others around me. More on this soon)

“Follow my curiosity” + “Connectedness” + “Athletes” + “Experts”

Through curiosity + content I've grown my consulting business and connected with founders, operators, and even an NBA player.

“Workshops” + “Masterminds”

I joined a few. Including one that may or may not be a cult (lol, more on this soon too. It's called ALA and it starts this weekend.)

To be clear:
I don’t believe in vision-boarding affirmations into existence.

What I 𝘥𝘰 believe in is selective attention. The idea that we can’t focus on everything, and what we choose to focus on starts to come into clearer view.

Not because opportunities magically appear.
But because we’re paying attention to them.

That’s where trust comes in.

Jim Collins once shared his biggest lesson from his mentor Bill Lazier:
Start with an opening bid of trust.

Not blind trust.
But a default of openness instead of suspicion.

I’ve found that when I lead with trust in people, in conversations, in opportunities... more tends to open up than when I wait for certainty.

And that’s the courage part.

Courage isn’t clarity or the absence of fear.
It’s movement through it.

If there were no fear, it wouldn’t require courage.

The unlock is taking the next uncomfortable step anyway.

🧠 Why Starting Feels So Hard

Scott Adams once said something that stuck with me:

What if “laziness” isn’t laziness at all, but a habit of focusing on the COST of action instead of the PAYOFF?

Think about anything you want. 

If you fixate on the effort, discomfort, time, or financial cost, it starts to feel heavy.

But if you focus on the outcome, relief, progress, or version of you on the other side, it feels much lighter.

This is why so many entrepreneurs say some version of:
“If I knew how hard it was going to be, I probably never would’ve started.”

The human brain isn’t great at holding long-term payoff and short-term cost at the same time.

So it defaults to cost.

Here’s a simple example.

Before hiring a trainer, you might focus on:

• the financial cost 

• having to wake up earlier

• the discomfort of being on the hook

OR you might focus on:

• feeling confident in your body

• having more energy

• being proud of yourself for prioritizing your health 

Both are true. There’s real cost and real benefit. 

But only seeing one keeps you stuck.
The other gets you going. 

That’s why progress often requires a small amount of “strategic delusion.”

Not lying to yourself.
Just choosing which side of the equation gets your attention.

🧠 A Better Lens

Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman spent decades studying how humans actually make decisions. 

He put it simply: 

Which explains why starting feels so hard. 

When you’re stuck, ask yourself one question: 
Am I focused on the pain this will cost me today, or the gain it will give me over time? 

Progress begins when your attention shifts.

Salud,
Mitchell