I have no idea what I’m doing…but its working

Jun 8, 2011 by

 A  new neighbor moved in across the street.  Nice couple with a young kid.  They asked me about my garden as its huge and takes over my entire front yard.  Since they have moved in she has started a garden of her own in their front yard and has come over to ask for advice.  My answers have been filled with  a lot of this.

I have no idea what I’m doing…but its working

I’m good at figuring things out.  Its probably one of my best skills.

Quick story: When I was really little I found a small piece of gray plastic on top of our piano.  It was a few days before Christmas and I stared at that piece of plastic for a few minutes and then I walked up to my mom and dad and proclaimed, “I know you got me the Millennium Falcon for Christmas”

They had indeed bought  and assembled the Millennium Falcon and had this extra tiny piece that they left out thinking nothing of it.  I had found it and was able to figure out that this was the piece that held on the radar onto the ship and thus discovered ruined my Christmas present early.  I was very happy with myself that day.  My parents, not so much.

I can jump into a project and not know what I’m doing, but figure it out and make it work.  It doesn’t always work out perfect, but those times are few and far between.  Most times it works out really well and I learn a lot in the process.

My garden is one of those adventures for me.  My grandpa had a garden that I barely remember from when I was little and thats about the extent of my gardening knowledge.  I know to grow anything you need dirt, sun, water and some luck.  I am lucky that I live in southern California where we have a lot of the sun part of the equation so its very easy to grow things.  But for the rest I’m learning and making it up as I go along. And its working

I pulled out a HUGE  zucchini yesterday I didn’t even know I had in my garden.  It was hidden below the big leaves of the zucchini plants, where it sat among a lot of other zucchinis growing.  This thing was giant so I chopped it up and made a big double batch of zucchini bread, my favorite, and gave it away to the neighbors.

I’m working on starting a few businesses right now and its been very frustrating lately at the pace in which they are moving.  I had hoped to launch one several months ago, but its been delayed by technical difficulties and working with outside vendors.  I am very tech savvy and that only leads to huge frustration when I can’t figure out a technical problem.  The flip side of that is when I do figure it out, and I always do, it feels amazing.  A huge sense of accomplishment comes when I figure it out, make it work, and learn something in the process.

A lot of people don’t start things because they think they don’t know what they are doing.  They don’t know how to grow a garden, so they won’t try.  They don’t know how to start a business so they won’t try.

My advice, is just try.  You don’t need to know everything about everything.  You will learn as you go.  You will figure it out. And you will come out on the other side with a huge sense of accomplishment, you will have learned something and you can use that knowledge and inspiration to help others do the same.

What are you afraid to try right now?  Go do it.


p.s.  I still have half of this huge zucchini left so if you know of any good recipes for zucchini, let me know.


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