Start Where You Stand: The Power of Right Now

Finding Your Starting Point

For thirty years, I carried around an idea that refused to die. Make It A Better Day started as a vision in the early 1990s—a way to help people create positive change in their lives through a digital space focused on positive change. But there was always something missing: the right technology, enough funding, perfect timing, the ideal team.

Decade after decade, I’d dust off the concept, get excited about its potential, then carefully file it away again because the conditions weren’t quite right. Only after retiring did I finally confront my own hesitations and understand what Theodore Roosevelt meant when he said, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

All those years, I’d been waiting for a perfect storm of circumstances while the tools I needed were quietly evolving around me. Roosevelt knew that progress doesn’t require perfection—it requires presence and the willingness to begin exactly where we stand.

Embracing What’s Real

Roosevelt’s words carry the weight of experience, spoken by someone who understood both limitation and possibility. He faced personal tragedies, political setbacks, and physical challenges that could have easily become excuses for inaction. Instead, he chose to work within his reality rather than against it.

The quote isn’t about settling for less—it’s about recognizing that our current circumstances, however imperfect, contain everything we need to take the next meaningful step. There’s profound wisdom in accepting where we are without resignation, embracing what we have without complaint, and acknowledging what we can do without overwhelming ourselves with what we cannot.

This mindset transforms limitations from barriers into starting points.

Stories of Resourcefulness

Colonel Harland Sanders embodies this philosophy in ways that challenge our assumptions about timing and resources. When he was 65 years old, living on Social Security, and facing an uncertain future, Sanders didn’t wait for better circumstances to pursue his dream. Armed with his secret chicken recipe, a pressure cooker, and relentless determination, he drove from restaurant to restaurant, sleeping in his car and cooking chicken for skeptical owners.

He faced over 1,000 rejections before someone finally said yes to his Kentucky Fried Chicken concept. Sanders didn’t have youth, wealth, or business connections—he had a recipe, conviction, and the willingness to start exactly where he was in life.

More recently, Daymond John demonstrates this same resourcefulness in a modern context. In the early 1990s, frustrated with the lack of fashionable clothing for his community, John had just $40 and an idea. Instead of waiting for investors or a proper workspace, he started FUBU in his mother’s basement in Queens. He taught himself to sew, turned the house into a makeshift factory, and convinced his mother to mortgage their home to fund the business.

John hand-stitched hats and shirts, literally doing what he could with what he had, exactly where he was. When he couldn’t afford models for a trade show, he and his friends wore the clothes themselves. FUBU eventually became a $350 million global brand, all because John refused to wait for perfect conditions.

Both stories remind us that our current limitations often become the very constraints that force us to find creative solutions and discover inner reserves we didn’t know existed.

Small Steps Forward

Starting where you are means getting comfortable with imperfect action and embracing the beauty of incremental progress. Look around your current space and identify one small thing that’s been nagging at you—that cluttered drawer, the book you’ve been meaning to read, the skill you’ve wanted to develop.

The magic isn’t in having the perfect plan; it’s in using whatever time and energy you have right now, even if it’s just ten minutes. When my friend decided to learn Spanish, she didn’t wait for expensive classes or the perfect study schedule. She started with a free app during her lunch breaks, practicing vocabulary while eating sandwiches at her desk. Six months later, she was having basic conversations with Spanish-speaking coworkers.

Your resources might feel limited, but they’re probably more abundant than you realize. Time, energy, knowledge, connections, creativity—these assets exist in your life right now, waiting to be mobilized in service of your goals. The key is starting small enough that you can’t talk yourself out of beginning, yet meaningful enough to create momentum.

Today’s First Move

Choose one area of your life where you’ve been waiting for better circumstances—maybe it’s starting that creative project, improving your health, or strengthening a relationship. Identify the smallest possible action you can take today using only what’s currently available to you.

Set a timer for twenty minutes, gather whatever simple tools you need, and begin. Don’t worry about the end result; focus entirely on the act of starting where you stand right now.

Moving Beyond Waiting

Roosevelt’s wisdom transcends the limitations we place on ourselves through endless preparation and perfect timing. It doesn’t promise ideal conditions—just that what you have is enough to begin.

There’s something deeply reassuring about realizing that where you are right now, with everything you currently possess, is exactly enough to start creating the change you’ve been imagining. The perfect moment may never arrive, but this moment is here, real, and full of untapped possibility.

Your Next Action

Stop waiting for tomorrow’s better version of today. Look around, take inventory of your current reality, and choose to begin. You don’t need more. You just need to begin.