The Nudge Forward

Last week I went home to Santa Barbara, to the neighborhood gym that my family joined when we moved to town as a kid. I was starting 7th grade and in that gym, discovered the only major squash court facility within about 75 miles of our home. It was right down the street from our house and shortly after we moved there, I spent just about every waking moment on those courts, with those players

I think that’s where my own jump started - to try a sport that was different. As much as I adored squash, I found it hard to push on as I tried to catch up to other players my age. What kept me going was a group of squash die-hards, starting with my dad, who met down at the courts each night. The British ex-pat, the clockmaker, the office manager, the teacher. I knew that if I didn’t have them, I would give up. And I also knew that if I gave up, I would always regret not knowing where the sport would take me.

Fast forward to last week. The same group of regulars were seated at the back of the bleachers. My dad stood silently at the edge of the crowd as I shared thanks for this village to support the earliest parts of my jump, and also for giving me the satisfaction from seeing something through.

That feeling came back to me today in a conversation on the podcast with Brian and Meghan Fitzgerald, talking about their life as a married couple, parents of young children, considering a jump to turn a passion project, Tinkergarten, into a full-fledged pursuit. Yes, it is possible to jump with a mortgage and a family, and yes, they jumped because ultimately, they didn’t want to regret what they didn’t try to do. 

Many of the folks who joined our first online learning program last month, Jump Fundamentals, shared a similar sentiment: they signed up for the course because they wanted that nudge forward on an idea, so that a certain dream doesn’t get dry and turn stale, leaving a question to linger onwards: what if?

With the response from the first application round, we’ve set up a second session to start April 29th, and opened applications for another 6 days for a new crew. Going into this session, we’ve added more guest lectures, accountability methods and personal mentoring resources to push even harder against inertia - of getting stuck wondering, “what if”. 

Because know one wants to wonder, “what if".

Mike