Plato, Lao Tzu and Zig Ziglar walk into a bar

We all know they're going to start some s#!t

It took me five years to write Start More Than You Can Finish, A Permission Slip to Unleash Your Best Ideas. It took this long, not because I couldn’t get started, but because I had too much to say.

I had stories, I had ideas, I had research. But really, all I wanted to get across was this: we should all start more stuff!

I interviewed hundreds of very alive stARTists to find out their views on beginning. I got inspiring stories and powerful philosophies. I met living stARTists who had fresh takes on old mindsets. And I met some dead people who I wish I could have gotten in a room together.

It turns out, the startup mindset is not new; stARTists have been trying to get other people to join the fun FOR CENTURIES. And they left receipts.

Here are some of my favorite old quotes about starting:

You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great. – Zig Ziglar

Well begun is half done. – Aristotle

I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. – Robert Frost

The secret to getting ahead is getting started. – Mark Twain

You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending. – C.S. Lewis

The scariest moment is always just before you start. – Stephen King

Don't wait for the perfect moment, take the moment and make it perfect. – Unknown

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. – Lao Tzu

The beginning is the most important part of the work." – Plato

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. – Amelia Earhart

The beginning is half of every action. – Greek Proverb

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. – Chinese Proverb

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. – Arthur Ashe

(My favorite of these quotes is the last one, from Arthur Ashe, best known as a tennis champion. But please remember him as an inspiring stARTist – a writer, civil rights activist and author of the three-volume book A Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African-American Athlete, which he worked on for six years.)

In one early version of Start More Than You Can Finish, I put a quote in each chapter. But it somehow seemed trite…and quotes like these are difficult to confidently verify. As much as I love all these quotes, I didn’t use any of them in my book. I tried to convey them in examples.

Instead of quoting dead people, my publisher told me to quote myself.

.

In the end, I put only one dead person quote in the book, at the very end. It’s the father of all stARTistry quotes, and it will forever give me goosebumps.

“Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”

– Scottish Mountaineer and writer, W. H. Murray

So pick a quote that moves you and pretend the person who said it has your back.

If you want to a start a story, name a character or set the scene.

If you want to start a movement, start a letter, or a conversation, or a meeting.

If you start your ideas, your future self will get to know who you truly are…and maybe someday you’ll be happy quoting yourself instead of dead guys.