Steve Jobs was one of the bright lights in my cosmos–a pioneer who loved beauty, someone who wanted the quantum leaps in technology to nourish our intuition and aesthetic sense.  (If you think he was a horrible elitist snob, that’s okay, you can keep reading anyway.)

It’s easy to look at our heroes and think that we could never possibly shine like they do.  And it is certainly true that I will never, ever, no never push the technology of the world forward like Steve did.

Close your eyes and duck if you hate cliches, because this is the part where I tell you that I think you should shine anyway.

Me, my favorite way to shine is to run up on a hillside and wave my flashlight in a spontaneous twirly dance.  Or light candles any day of the week.

In my class The Flying Leap, we’re working on projects that take a little more sustained commitment.  I’ll be honest, this isn’t my strong suit.  I’ve had to struggle so hard to learn to follow through on things that I feel really confident teaching other people to do it.

One of the women* in The Flying Leap was working with her 6-year-old son on a huge Lego project, and she realized that it was a perfect metaphor for the website that she’s also working to create.

She posted to the forum about how overwhelming it seemed, and how her son was so discouraged at the enormous pile of 518 Legos on the floor when they began.

This is how it can feel when you have a big idea that feels impossibly complicated–like a bunch of jumbled colors that will bruise your feet with their sharp edges if you’re not careful.

She told us that she and her son took a deep breath, looked at the instructions, and began to pick through the pieces one by one.  ONE BY ONE, people–this is the part where I get itchy and start to hyperventilate.

But bit by bit, piece by piece, their enormous project began to take shape.

And then one day, there it was–their very own lighthouse.

Now, I can do a pretty nifty dance with my flashlight and matches.  But the truth is, if I want to shine out into the dark fog in a way that will lead people safely home even on stormy nights and dangerous journeys, I’m going to need more power than a flashlight.

This is why we start with bricks, even though bricks are kind of boring.  This is why we make plans, even though I love the planning process exactly this much: (insert photo of me making hideous face)

This is also why we make sure we’re really sure we’re in the right place before we start to build, because it’s a tad tricky to move a lighthouse a couple of feet to the left.

This has become a powerful guiding metaphor for the women in The Flying Leap, because in one way or another, these women are shining their light out in the world.  The beams of a lighthouse can seem so magical– they’re so regular and consistent, they pierce the night, they save peoples’ lives, they’re way up in the sky.

And that’s what our dreams are like–these big bright beautiful things in our imagination, these magical possibilities hovering out in the ether.  It seems like they should be happening away up high somewhere.  But the fact is, somebody clears the underbrush, digs into the dirt, and lays pipes and ductwork and a foundation, and that’s how we have lighthouses.

Maybe like me you just want to just leap up into the air and shine out into the sky.  But to have the kind of impact I’m guessing you want to have, we need to start down on the ground.  You have to clear away the underbrush and the trash so that you can start with a clear space.  Even if what you’re building will morph and evolve, it helps to start with a clear picture of what you’re creating.  And then you pick up one single brick and get started.

So let’s honor the brick-laying you are doing right now.  Maybe it’s the five minutes you’re putting into your journal every morning.  Maybe it’s the endless succession of meals and messes that make up motherhood.  Maybe it’s the tentative google searches you’re doing on the new business that only exists in your head right now.

Brick by brick, darling.  That’s how it’s done.

I’ll see you in the ether.

*client story and photos shared with permission.