Offermann.us

Starting a big project can be tough. Especially, if we’re talking about me starting that big project.

Since I’m naturally predisposed to the paralysis that comes from over-thinking, I’m always on the lookout for stories that inspire me to Just Start. Don’t worry so much about making a mistake. Don’t try to figure out optimal path. Just Do Something.

The life story of Greg Mortenson, as told in Three Cups of Tea, contains a great example.

Greg is a mountain climber who comes back from his failed summit attempt on K2 determined to build a school for a remote village in Pakistan. He has no money, next to no possessions, and no idea how to begin. For his first step, he decides to type a letter to anyone he can think of who might be willing to donate money.

He doesn’t use a computer, because he doesn’t know how. Working away on an old typewriter, he takes all day to complete his first 6 letters. All in all, he writes 580 letters.

He sends the letters to Senators, to rich people, and to various celebrities. Oprah might help, he thinks.

For all that effort, he gets only a single response (from Tom Brokaw), netting him a total of $100. A hugely unsuccessful fundraising effort.

You could argue that sending the letters was a complete waste of time, but it got him started. He took that first step towards his goal. And now, fifteen years later, his organization, Central Asia Institute has built over 60 schools that provide education to over 25,000 students throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan

Got a big project and you don’t know where to start? Type a letter to Oprah.

Another favorite phrase of ours is “The Crux Move”. This comes from rock climbing, where, in a given climb, the crux move is the one rated hardest to complete. Master that move and you can reach the top. Otherwise, you fall.

I’m not exactly a climber (among other reasons, I’m getting increasingly more and more afraid of heights as I get older), so how we use it in our house is a little less life-and-death:

“To get the kids to bed on time, we’ve got to eat dinner early. That’s the crux move!”

We’ve used this phrase for so long and so often, I forget it’s a bit obscure. But, recently reading about a phrase with a similar meaning made me think about it again.

The new phrase came from a profile of Lenny Dykstra in the New Yorker:

“The one-one count is another of Dykstra’s baseball metaphors for life, meant to illustrate that some moments, and the choices they bring, are more fateful than others (i.e., the next pitch makes all the difference), or, in this case, that circumstances set in motion during the early stages of development are difficult to overcome later on. If a batter falls behind, one ball and two strikes, he’s in a hole from which, the statistics augur, he will not recover, even if he is Barry Bonds; and if he gets ahead, to two balls and one strike, he wrests control from the pitcher and takes charge of his own destiny.”

Have we been using our beloved “Crux Move” for too long? Perhaps it’s time to phase it out. Should “One-One Count” be the one to replace it? Can my wife stand to hear me quote the wisdom of Lenny Dykstra on a regular basis? Time will tell…

Losing momentum is a dangerous thing for me. Once I set something aside for more than a few days, there’s a good chance I’ll never get back to it.

Which means that my short-lived blog is already at a critical stage. My last post promised updates “in the next few days”, and now here it is, almost two months later, and I haven’t posted a thing.

Clearly, I’ve lost my blogging momentum.

Let’s try to pick up where I last left off and pretend like none of this happened. And, I’ll try not to lose the “Big Mo” again.