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GO FIRST!

“If you ain’t first, you’re last.”
— Ricky Bobby, unofficial philosopher of my childhood home.It’s a ridiculous line.Untrue in racing.But weirdly accurate in life. Not because you have to win, but because most of us are stuck waiting to start.Waiting to be invited.
Waiting for the apology.
Waiting to feel ready.
Waiting for someone else to go first.And while we’re all politely waiting…
nothing moves.⸻Every Christmas Eve at 6am, I drag my family to the Sydney fish markets along with 100,000 other largely uncaffeinated humans.My rule is we all say “Merry Christmas” to every single person we pass.My kids hate it.Deeply offended by joy.(Let’s be honest, the bacon and egg rolls are the only reason they show up.)⸻At first we get:awkward silences,
muted responses
confusion...then someone lights up,
smiles,
says it back loudly.And the whole energy shifts.Even my kids start laughing and get louder.⸻Turns out most people are just waiting for someone else to break the seal.⸻So why do we wait?My friend Ben Kiker calls it the ITG:
The Insane Thought GeneratorThe voice that says:“People will think I’m crazy.”“Someone’s already doing this better.”“I’m not ready.”⸻There are no rules...we don't have to be a certain agewe don't have to be original, be the only ones doing something,we don't have to look or dress a certain way to add value to the world.⸻I’ve spent years learning to call BS on that voice.All we have to do is keep trying to show up as the best version of ourselves.⸻My boss does it.First day on the job, my barista told me my boss had already paid for my coffee before I even got there.Such a small thing.But it changed the tone of my entire morning.Which made me kinder to my team.Which rippled out further.Energy doesn’t disappear.It just transforms.And in an ideal world, it transforms from negative to positive.That’s all it takes.Someone goes first.⸻(I should mention we’ve now entered a low-key war where we each try to pay for the other’s coffee first.I am letting him win.The benefits keep rolling in.)⸻My son taught me this too.I pushed him (okay, forced him) to work behind the bar at our local pub when he was shy and uncertain.Five shifts in, he was holding eye contact and making strangers feel at home.Two years later he was behind my café coffee machine calling the regulars “dahling” in his Aussie accent and teaching me things about hospitality I genuinely needed to know.⸻His confidence didn’t arrive like a divine download.It was built through:* repetition
* exposure
* and a healthy dose of discomfort⸻I used to think belief came first.That I had to feel confident before I could act confident.That I had to feel ready before I could start.⸻Wrong.More often than not, it’s the other way around.You act.Then you become.⸻A lot of us are waiting.Waiting for others to smile first, apologise first, create the energy we want back.Waiting for ourselves to:* get ready
* get through the holidays
* make more money
* lose the ten pounds
* find the timeMeanwhile,nothing shifts.⸻So maybe Ricky Bobby was onto something.Not about winning.But about not sitting around waiting for life to make the first move.⸻The shift doesn’t happen when everything lines up perfectly.It happens the moment you decide to act.⸻The life you want isn’t waiting for you to be ready.It’s waiting for you to go first.⸻P.S.I don’t have this all figured out.I’m just someone tired of waiting to start, so I decided to write about it and see what happens.And if you spot a slightly unhinged woman at the Sydney fish markets shouting Merry Christmas at strangers…come say hi.Go on.You go first.
xx Heather