Self-doubt can have a voice. It does not get a vote.

I open the book with a story I had not told many people. When I was in college, the show Jackass was on, and my friends and I carried a shopping cart to the top of a dirt hill near campus, thinking we could ride it down like a sled. It didn’t work, and we spent the night crashing into the dirt and climbing back up to try again, until police lights showed up at the bottom of the hill. What we thought was a harmless prank ended with me in handcuffs, charged with theft by unlawful taking. The charge appeared in the local newspaper, and I felt like people saw the arrest before they saw me. I worried about future job applications and interviews, and whether that one night would become something I would always have to explain.

That is how self-doubt often works. We let past mistakes become predictions about our future, and we take something that went wrong and turn it into a belief about who we are. It also sounds reasonable, telling us we need more experience, more time, or a better moment to begin. In a survey for my book, 92% of people said they were capable of more than they were currently doing, and 85% said they second-guess themselves because of their own internal voice. One of the ideas I share in the book is that self-doubt can have a voice without getting a vote. You can hear those concerns, consider what you need to learn, and still move forward.

Make the first step small enough that you can take it today. We tend to picture everything a change will require, and that can make us feel defeated before we begin. If you want to change careers, start by updating your résumé or reaching out to one person. If you want to improve a relationship, put your phone away and give that person your attention. Choose something specific that moves you toward what matters.

I’ve put things off because I thought I needed to feel more confident first. What I’ve learned is that confidence often comes from taking action and keeping promises to yourself. Make a commitment you can keep, then build on it. When you slip, be honest about what happened and start again. Missing one day does not have to become a reason to give up.

I wanted readers to have something they could keep coming back to. Each chapter offers practical steps, and the Playbook at the end brings the ideas together through reflection questions, decisions, and actions. My suggestion is to read one chapter at a time, answer the questions honestly, and choose one action to practice before adding more.

Then give that action a place in your daily life. “I want to be a better listener” is a good intention, but “I will ask a question and listen without interrupting during my next team meeting” gives you something to practice. At the end of the week, look at what worked, where you struggled, and what you need to adjust. You can use a journal or work through the book with your team. There are also free resources at YouAreCapableOfMore.com to support that work. A realistic plan should fit your life well enough that you can keep following it when motivation wears off.

My personal mission is to help people become the best version of themselves, and that mission came long before the book. The book was one way to put it into people’s hands, but I didn’t want the help to stop at the last page or depend on whether someone could buy a copy. That is why I built YouAreCapableOfMore.com, with free assessments that help people see what is holding them back, articles that go deeper into each principle, and worksheets and resources they can use on their own or with their teams. My long-term goal is to keep growing that into a place anyone can come back to whenever they feel stuck, no matter where they are starting from.

For organizations, I love coming in to present these concepts as keynotes and workshops, because so much of a person’s growth depends on the people they work with every day. Years ago, at a company holiday party, an employee’s wife pulled me aside to thank me, not for any number her husband had hit, but because she could see he was more confident and more engaged, at work and at home. I’ve received awards and reached professional milestones, but hearing that someone’s life was better because of the investment I had made in them meant something different. That conversation helped me understand the impact I wanted to have. It is why, in the book, I ask leaders, “Who is better because you led them?” I want to help more leaders and organizations answer that with real people whose lives they have helped change.