“Change always begins with the inner voice that says: ‘You are capable of more.’ Fear only slows the journey, but only you decide how far you’re willing to go.”
— Graham Weaver
Graham Weaver is a lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business and the founder of Alpine Investors, a private equity firm. He focuses on leadership, business growth, and personal development.
At first, it will be uncomfortable because change is always change. So if you’re leaving a job, ending a relationship, or trying to break a bad habit, things will likely get worse before they get better. But the path to reaching the next level depends solely on you.
One of the biggest traps we fall into is over-hedging. People think burnout comes from working long hours, but that’s not true. Burnout comes from friction, stress, tension, and the inability to meet expectations. If I had stayed in that first job for another three years, I would have burned out. I was 22 then. Now I’m doing what my heart desires, and I have more energy. It’s an inexhaustible resource, like willpower, endurance, or fossil fuels.
I graduated from college and took a safe, corporate job. I wasn’t doing very well, but I was trying. About a year into the job, we had an off-site seminar in Napa. We spent three days sitting in conference rooms listening to presentations. It was the old PowerPoint format, with 87 words on a slide and a person reading each word at an excruciatingly slow pace.
After about a day and a half, I came up with an escape plan. At the 10:45 break, I slipped out, made sure I was the last one to enter the bathroom, and hid in a stall. I waited for everyone to leave, then climbed up the back stairs to my room, changed into running gear, and headed out to the Silverado Trail. I forgot my shirt, but didn’t think much of it. I ran for two hours, felt great, and had a fantastic playlist.
During that run, I heard an inner voice say, “This isn’t you, you don’t have to do this.” That voice was stronger than ever before. I realized it was my truth. Calm and serenity washed over me, and I understood that I needed to listen to that voice.
It was an epiphany moment. Since then, I’ve promised myself to always follow my inner voice.
The Power of Now: Stop Waiting and Start Acting
I’ve heard people say things like, “That’s when I’ll start…” or “That’s when one of these events will happen…” And you know what? It’s never going to happen. All these phrases of “later” or “not now” turn into “never.” Let’s get back to the essence.
Let me clarify. Inspiration, energy, readiness to work as long as it takes. And I then asked, “So what’s the decision? I don’t understand what the problem is.” About a month later, she sent me a note saying she had decided to start a company and had secured initial funding. How did this happen? Time and again, during my teaching, I found that the advice I gave to students was actually advice I was giving to myself. Then I decided to work on this as long as it took and put all my energy into it.
The next time it came to Graham Weaver at Stanford, there’s a five-minute segment at the end of the class where the professor asks the guest, “Do you have any advice for the students?” I was planning to write an article about overcoming the fear of failure. Without exaggeration, I spent 60 hours on that little five-minute segment at the end of the presentation. I was fully immersed in the work, and, of course, many students began to approach me. I started coaching them to help them overcome their fear of failure. Later, that lecture was taught once a year, then three times, then five, and so on. I started giving lectures, presenting talks, and attracting more students. Ultimately, that very course I had failed when I first started became the one I teach today.
So you don’t need other ingredients. This is all you. Everything you need for the things that matter to you is already within you, and it happens when you’re fully immersed in the task. When I was fully immersed in the work, my personality suddenly changed. I wasn’t sitting on the fence wondering if I should teach. At this point, I am a teacher, and that conflict between my two voices simply dissipates because the voice of fear lost that battle. When you’re fully in the game, conflicts diminish significantly. It doesn’t mean you won’t hear doubts from your first voice, but now it fades away, and you don’t waste energy battling yourself.
If you’ve taken my classes or attended my lectures, I now have more energy for teaching than I did 22 years ago. People confuse concepts. Burnout doesn’t come from working long hours but from friction, stress, and tension. It comes from not being able to meet expectations. If I had stayed in that first job for another three years, I would have burned out. Now I’m doing what my heart wants, and I have more energy. It’s an inexhaustible resource. Like willpower, endurance, or fossil fuels, energy is abundant, and the more you give, the more you get back.
So, there’s an abundance of energy. Coming back to you, I’d say that you are that person. This is the formula for starting any journey you want to embark on. You are the person who deserves the place you’re in. Your drive, your motivation, your persistence, your willpower, and your character are such that you can bring these into the next journey you embark upon. If it’s a new journey, but if it’s you in it, and you’re passionate about something, going full throttle for as long as it takes, then that will be more than enough. It’s the most powerful force there is.
I started my firm at 25, and I had no other skills except for this. When I began teaching at 29, I had no other skills except for this. And it’s not just enough. It’s the most powerful force there is. It’s all you need to embark on the journey you’re about to take.
If you want to live life to the fullest, three promises:
- Promise that you will remove the nail from your head along the journey, especially when you get stuck. Move toward the energy, and it will come to you.
- When you start feeling that energy, move toward it, especially toward what you would do if you knew you wouldn’t fail.
- Don’t wait. Don’t say “not now.” Go all in, wherever you are in your life right now.
I used to think we had to make millions of decisions and that life was very complex. But now, having lived on this earth for 52 years, I understand: if you want to live life to the fullest and experience the full extent of what you can do in this one life you have, there is really only one decision—whose voice you will listen to.
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