It’s Never Too Late

I’ve had some weird conversations in my life, but one conversation on a flight eight years ago was the strangest.

On this particular flight, I sat next to a guy who told me that he always wanted to be an author.

When I asked him if he was pursuing his dream now, he looked down at his feet and sheepishly said, “it’s too late for me to become an author.”

When I asked why he thought it was “too late” for him, he responded by saying that he was too old.

Huh? Too old? This guy looked much younger than me. So I had to ask:

“If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?” (I hope that you’re sitting down when I tell you his response…):

33!

Wait…what?!

Personally speaking, at 33 years old, I was a few years removed from a suicide attempt, from living in a dilapidated studio apartment in Los Angeles eating Ramen noodles 3x a day, and from having zero direction in my life.

On a more positive note though, I became a first-time author at 41 years old, a full-time professional speaker at 43 years old, and a first-time podcaster at 50 years old.

More importantly, I know multiple people who have done similar things in their 50’s and 60’s.

In other words, it’s never too late to do anything. So, why do we often think that it is?

Be real with me–have any of these thoughts have ever crossed your mind?:

It’s too late to fix my credit.
It’s too late to find true love.
It’s too late to change careers.
It’s too late to become an author.
It’s too late to move to a new city.
It’s too late to get a college degree.
It’s too late to become my own boss.
It’s too late to learn a foreign language.
It’s too late to be a better parent to my kids.

Sure, those dreams can be pushed aside, discouraged or ignored, but if you think that by saying “it’s too late” will succeed in killing those dreams, then I’ve got some really bad news for you.

Our dreams are persistent AF, and as long as you live, that relentless voice inside of your head that says, “Come on, you can do this. Please just take a step forward,” will never go away until one of two things happen:

1. When you actually take meaningful action toward your dream.

-OR-

2. When you die.

That’s it.

Your dreams didn’t come to you so that you could throw your weakest excuses at them. They came to you so that you could literally do the damn thing.

If nothing else, remember this: persistent dreams only visit the souls who have the ability to transform them from imagined reality to actual reality.

Stop waiting for a sign from the universe. If this post crossed your feed and you’re still reading these words, consider this your sign that it’s not too late for you.

Take the first step. The world needs you (and your dream) more than ever .