You're worrying about the wrong part

On Friday I bowed a double in the Head of the Charles. If you don't know what that means, welcome to the club. It's rowing, and it's bananas.

A quick primer:

• The Head of the Charles is one of the largest regattas in the world.
• Rowing happens backwards (see picture below).
• The course is three miles through bridges and heavy traffic.
• In bow seat, I steer — backwards! — with a rudder connected to a wire from my right shoe.
• We'd practiced five times.
• It was pelting 50°F rain.
• Oh, and the start line is five miles from the launch.

If you're keeping score at home, that's ten miles of rowing for a three-mile race, two lightweights against 24 open-weight crews. Gah.

We came in 23rd out of 24. Well, technically 25 — one boat never started.

That afternoon, texting with my husband, I said, "We came in second to last." He corrected me: "Third to last." When I pointed out that the other boat didn't even start, his answer was short and wise: "Starting is a skill."

(My family swears they can see the newsletter coming in moments like this. They're not wrong.)

Here's what I know to be true this week, thanks to my lovely husband: starting is a skill.

Going in, my goal was to not DNF (Did Not Finish), and I was hoping we wouldn't DFL (Dead F*cking Last). So really, we exceeded expectations.

Two days later, my rowing buddy and I lined up again — this time for a three-mile road race. Not fast. Finished. That's the thing about a skill: it gets easier with reps.

The true stars of the weekend, though: the Marin Rowing Association's women's eight, average age 80 — the first octogenarian women's boat to race the Head of the Charles. EIGHTY. One of the rowers, Lindy Edward, on expectations: "We're not going to set any records, we're just going to do our best."

They didn't worry about finishing. They were just excited to start.

Starting at Work

Here's the trap for high achievers: the better you get, the more you have to lose by starting badly. So you wait. For the plan, the training, the guaranteed podium. And your team watches you wait.

I wrote a whole book about this trap. In Wonderhell, it hits right after we're paid, praised, and promoted for being good at something: "We become so afraid that if we try something else, we might fail. We think our ego can't survive that—and maybe our career can't, either."

Even Whitney Johnson, who wrote the book on the personal S Curve, once dodged her own next leap. "Maybe if I don't look at the mountain," she told herself, "I won't have to face the climb."

To your team, your waiting looks like a rule: around here, we don't start until we're sure.

The fix is one shift in emphasis. As I spoke about in my talk that is nearing 3M views on TED.com, the trick is to change the voice in your head from "You haven't done this before!" to "You haven't done this before!" The first one tells you to run. The second tells you where to run.

So this week, ask:

• What isn't your team starting because the outcome isn't guaranteed?
• When did you last start something you knew you'd finish third to last in?

Because, that other boat that never started didn't lose. It just never found out.

CTA: If you've been staring away from your own mountain, Wonderhell is the map through — especially the Loop-de-Loop, the chapter on going back to a beginner's mindset once you have something to lose. ACT NOW: Wonderhell is half off right now on Amazon.com.