Sometimes when you walk into a construction or manufacturing site, you will see a sign indicating how many days the crew has gone without an accident. The signs are there as a reminder that what these folks are doing has some danger associated with it and that if you are not paying attention and being careful, someone could be hurt or killed.

This may sound foreign to anyone who hasn’t worked in or visited a site like this, especially if your line of work has little or no possibility of landing you in the hospital. Yet, some of us will still apply a similar approach to our work. We double and triple check everything, we hold off on doing things because we aren’t 100% sure they are “safe”. But, if you want to build something amazing, you simply can’t adopt this approach. If you want to create work that truly inspires/makes a difference/changes the world, you might need (figuratively speaking) to walk on a steel beam 15 stories up without a harness. Great work requires great vulnerability.

So, just to review: while operating heavy machinery, working with flammable materials and using woodworking equipment, please be careful and follow all the safety protocols. But, if your work can’t harm you physically or otherwise (other than a little ding to your pride), you may have to lose the safety harness and jump right in if you really want to make a go of it.