What is Your 'Just Do it?'

Walt Stack, 80 years old, is running across the Golden Gate Bridge shirtless, waving at a driver.

It’s a seemingly ordinary morning in Stack’s anything-but-ordinary life — one in which he’d log more than 62,000 miles.

“People ask me how I keep my teeth from chattering in the wintertime,” he says, before pausing.

“I leave them in my locker.”

The ad was simplistic but unconventional, humble but inspirational. Now, 32 years later, the three-word mantra Nike so brilliantly introduced us to in that commercial is one we as leaders could all use a reminder of sometimes: “Just Do It.”

Our self-discovery path this year has not been flat, and the view hasn’t quite resembled the San Francisco skyline. Barriers have been constructed that have forced us to alter our route.

We can’t let mental fatigue set in now, no matter if we’re on the first mile or in the middle of our race. We need to keep our feet moving despite our exhaustion, keep stepping even though we know there’s no finish.

What is your “it?” What do you just need to do and stop second-guessing yourself over?

Our society will try to quell our dreams, try to put labels on us and box us in and tell us to quit this race.

Too old. Too risky. Too brash. Too unrealistic. Too strenuous. Too ambitious.

But has the critic ever run a mile?

We may make a wrong turn on our run. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have laced up our sneakers. It doesn’t mean we’re lost. And it certainly doesn’t mean it’s time to bow out now.

Through detours come lessons. Through critics come motivation. Through adversity comes meaning.

The most important stride wasn’t the first we took, and it won’t be the last. It’s what comes next.

And we cannot let the fear of misstepping paralyze us.

Be bold. Be brave. Be uncommon. Be willing to fail.

It’s time we Just Do It.

Please forward and share this email with your friends and family.