It wasn’t going to work out well. They had it completely wrong. We could see it as plain as day.

The narrow runnel of ice they’d chosen went nowhere. A blind alley. A dead end.

But they were in it; and couldn’t see.

Through the Nikon spotting scope, we watched. Scott Backes and Mark Twight, climbers on the cutting edge, pushing a steep new route up the sheer northwest face of Mt. Hunter. They’d swung their climbing axes in that runnel for nearly the entire day in the arctic cold, finally to discover their error; an error all of us had seen in the light of dawn from miles away.

They re-traced their steps to their tiny bivouac ledge 2000′ above the glacier. It hadn’t been their first dead end. Or their last.

But with a new dawn, they started out again.

They persisted; and they succeeded.

You see, it’s by starting out that you finally discover what works well; and what doesn’t.

You can study books and maps and photographs. You can look through spotting scopes. You can talk to the gurus; and take lots of courses. You can plot and plan and think.

(And, of course, all of this is helpful.)

But there comes a time when you must start.

The book, the speech, the product launch, the career, the relationship, the business.

You must start.

And sometimes it works; and sometimes it will be a dead end.

But you’ll never know. Unless you start.

Ultimately, you find your voice by speaking.  You discover your message by sharing. You discover your purpose by working. You find your tribe by serving.

“Many people die with their music still in them,” wrote Oliver Wendall Holmes, Sr. “Why is this so? Too often it’s because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out.”

Too many entrepreneurs and professionals spend their time getting ready. They wait to have their logos right, their copy flawless, their websites optimized, their PowerPoints elegant, their pitches perfect.

They wait… and they wait… until the time is ‘right.’

Except that it’s never right.

And the work never gets done.

Remember this: There are no failures. Only lessons.

Be relentless. Accumulate lessons.

It is out in the mess of it all that you’ll get clear; that you’ll come upon the answers; that you’ll find the success that is your own.

So start. There is magic in the starting.