Everything starts at the start.

There’s a story behind that.

This is your daily message from Chad number 1104 to upgrade your mental game today by telling yourself a better story, because the most important story you hear is the story you tell yourself. This message is dedicated to John Ruskin.

Here’s the upgrade:

You may be waiting for the right moment, but upgraded thinking understands the right moment is the one you’re already standing in.

Here’s the story:

Andrew Carnegie was thirteen years old when his family arrived in Pittsburgh with almost nothing. His father had been a weaver back in Scotland. The machines came, took the trade, and left the family broke. They crossed the Atlantic on borrowed money. Carnegie went to work as a bobbin boy in a cotton factory, twelve hours a day, $1.20 a week. He wasn’t waiting for something better. He was doing what was in front of him. Then came the opening.

A telegraph manager named James Reid was looking for a messenger boy. He asked Carnegie’s uncle if he knew anyone. Carnegie’s uncle knew a boy. Carnegie showed up for the interview and did something unusual. He didn’t oversell himself. He was honest. He didn’t know Pittsburgh. He wasn’t sure he was strong enough. He had real doubts about the job. But he had one answer that cut through all of it. When Reid asked him how soon he could start, Carnegie said: “I could stay now if you wanted.” He got the job.

He later wrote about that moment: “It is a great mistake not to seize the opportunity. Something might occur, some other boy might be sent for. Having got myself in, I proposed to stay there if I could.” Carnegie called it the moment he felt his foot was “upon the ladder.” He would go on to build the American steel industry and become the richest man in the America. But it started there. One answer. One moment. One foot on the first rung.

Plato said, “The beginning is the most important part of any work.” Here’s what I know about ladders. Everybody wants to be higher up. Everybody respects the view from the top. But nobody gets there without putting a foot on the first rung. And you can’t put your foot on the second rung until you’ve stood on the first. Zig Ziglar put it this way: “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” Err on the side of starting. You don’t have to start perfect. You don’t have to start big. Successive small starts can compound into something bigger, but nothing can’t compound into something.. But even a small start can compound into anything. The better story to tell yourself is, “I could start now if I wanted.”

Tell me a story of starting before you were ready to fromchadsmith@gmail.com. Send someone a text and ask them, “What are you waiting to start on?” You can get a free copy of my book, The Most Powerful Story in the World, by going to fromchad.gumroad.com. The transcript of this message and hundreds of others are always available at http://www.fromchad.com.