Turn on

Have you ever felt like you were accumulating experiences, talents, and training that don’t seem to enhance your ability to achieve your goals …

Yesterday I was sitting with my little girl, trying to explain that the sun was a star and how stars are created. Unfortunately the details of my high school science classes are a bit foggy, so we looked it up on the ol’ YouTube and watched videos of British scientists explaining it in a way that was totally enthralling. (Watch it here)

In case you’re like me and specifics of astronomy are blurry, I’ll give you a simplified explanation of how stars are created. They start with a mass of dust and gas in space. As the mass gets larger and larger it starts to create its own gravity and all the particles draw together forming a more and more solid object. The hydrogen particles inside start to fuse together, creating helium. As these particles fuse, heat is created and then the star “turns on” and starts to shine.

I’m not telling you this just because it’s fascinating (though isn’t it?), but because it struck me how much we’re like stars. Our brilliance and our big goals start out as a cloudy collection of life lessons, skills, and random interactions, and as they accumulate they start to pull together to form something greater.

While they’re amassing it can feel irrelevant to the pursuit of your goals or not useful, but later you’ll be able to see how important some of these experiences are to your outcome. Without that job as a grocery teller, you may never have learned how to make quick and easy connections to people who will later serve you while you’re networking at Jay Z’s album release party. Without the utter embarrassment of not being able to catch a football in practice, you may not have quit and dedicated your time to learning how to play guitar, which impressed the girls in college and got the attention of your future wife.

As our life experiences fuse together, there is a moment when our star turns on, and we start to shine.

So whether you’re in the collecting phase, the fusing phase, or the shining phase, it’s important to remember that it’s all perfect. You are perfect. You are right on track and even your hard times are fuel for your light.

You were born to shine, don’t be fooled by a temporary mass of dust.

I have so much faith in you.