Go first

Going first - whether that means being the first to support a crazy idea or the first to say hi to a stranger - is scary. But we should do it anyway. It builds bravery and bolsters others.

Go first.

Those who know me will probably think that I got the title of this piece wrong.

’Have fun!’ is what my mum would say to me as a 10 year old heading off to a competition.

‘Winning IS fun,’ I’d always say.

My friends know that I’m a little competitive and it is not usually ‘going first’ that matters to me, it is ‘being first’.

What does it mean to go first?

Be the first to smile at a stranger across the room. They may turn into your significant other, or a significant friend.

Be the first to volunteer for the hard projects. The hard projects create value, so you will be seen to be valuable.

Be the first the step up and lead. Someone will make their vision a reality – why not you? Why not your vision?

And be the first to fall behind a new leader and follow. The support of the first follower is more meaningful than that of the next hundred.

Be the first to say ‘no’ to injustice, and to act on what is right. Often people are standing around and waiting for someone to set a precedent so that they can do the right thing too.

Be the first to start a company. You’re probably not the only one with the idea, but you might be the only one with the courage to start.

Be the first one to reach out in friendship. You never know what a difference you might make to each other’s lives.

Be the first to believe in others. We never forget the first person who backed us when we were brave enough to go after an audacious goal.

If something scares you, if something is uncomfortable - that’s the sign that this is your moment to go first.

Going first unlocks so many things - for ourselves, and for others. And sometimes, it even unlocks being first.

Go first to build bravery

Going first is hard. We worry about what other people think about us. We worry that we will fail. When we step forward before others we know we will be watched. It always feels high stakes.

But each time you go first you practise the skill of bravery.

We think that courage is a feeling. We think, ‘I’ll wait until I feel confident and then I’ll act’. We think that if we have more time we will build up our nerve.

We have this wrong.

Bravery isn’t an emotion, it’s an skill.

Courage isn’t a feeling, it’s an action.

Confidence isn’t a positive attitude, it’s conviction in your ability to figure it out.

As a CrossFit athlete, people often tell me I’m part of a cult. There is something a little psycho about people who love suffering so much we throw ourselves into workouts that include doing pull-ups until our hands bleed, squats until our legs are an agony of lactic acid, rope climbs until our ankles are a mess of rope burn, and running (which is bad enough on it’s own) with weight vests on.

The difference between a regular gym go-er and a CrossFit athlete can be found in the moment the workout starts to become uncomfortable.

When your breathing is ragged, when your legs are burning, when you are only 1/10th of the way through a workout and it already feels difficult - do you take a break? Or go harder? The best athletes have conditioned their mind to the point where this is no longer a decision they make. They feel the suffering, and they accelerate.

Bravery is the same.

Each time you go first you build the muscle of courage: Feel the stimulus of being uncomfortable. Take the action of going first.

Bravery is a skill. Going first is how you practice.

Go first to bolster others

Any founder that has every raised money will know the frustration of investors saying:

• Which fund is leading the round?

• Who else is investing?

• I’d commit to following

There are plenty of people willing to back you once someone else does. There are only a handful who are willing to go first.

We never forget our first believer. We never betray our first backer.

I remember the first coach who took me seriously when I said ‘I want to go to the Olympics’. I was 10.

I remember the first manager to hire me straight out of university. Not only did they choose me out of hundreds of candidates, they adjusted the graduate program to fit around my athletic schedule.

I remember the first person who understood the difficulty of career change I wanted to make from consulting to investing, and who shared their belief (and their Rolodex) rather than their doubts.

I remember the first beach volleyball partner who asked me to play because she saw my potential, even though I could barely connect my hand with the ball at that point (I’ve done more air swings than I care to admit!)

Be someone’s first believer. You might just:

• Be the spark that gets them started

• Give others permission to follow

• Inspire them to go first to support someone else

Go first to bolster others.

Go first to be first

Going first is an act of courage. It’s good for our personal growth, and good for others, when we take the first step.

But ‘being first’ still feels pretty great 😉.

At first these two phrases seem, perhaps not opposites, but certainly not related.

But by stepping up and going first, you are more likely to be first – whether your victory is in sport, business, or even getting the phone number of the cutie across the room.

Here are 5 reasons why:

The primacy effect

Our memories work in unusual ways, we naturally remember what comes first whilst forgetting (or perhaps not even bothering to learn) most of what comes after.

Who was the first person on the moon? Easy, Neil Armstrong.

Who was second? If you’ve done enough trivia nights you might know it’s Buzz Aldrin (famously they drew straws to see who would go first).

Who was third?

Similarly, you might remember what the first speaker at the conference said, but by the fifth speaker you can barely remember their name. You remember the first item your wife asked you to get at the store, but what else did she want?

This is the primacy effect. Psychologists discovered it over a hundred years ago when they asked individuals to remember items from a list and found that people have the greatest ability to recall the first couple of items.

Researchers have also found that we give more weight to the things we hear first, known as the anchoring bias. If I describe someone as ‘overweight, fun and a hard-worker’ versus ‘hard-worker, fun, and overweight’, do you notice the difference in weighting you give each word?

We will always remember more clearly the first person we are introduced to, the first argument made in a debate, the first person to stand up and volunteer, the first person to support you. So go first.

By going first, you ensure that you will be remembered.

The courage effect

People admire those with the courage to go first when they lacked the conviction to do so themselves. Historically, the first person into battle was honoured as the most courageous. (Unfortunately, they were also one of the first to die so most of that honour was posthumous.)

The people I admire most are the first to:

• Ask a question in a silent room

• Share a vulnerability

• Speak out with an ethical objection

• Volunteer for a difficult project

• Point out bias

• Apologise

Martin Luther King was one of the first people to join the bus boycott in his community after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus. He was the first to plead for calm and non-violence after his home got bombed. He was the first to stand up and speak with a clear vision for blacks in southern America. Many, many other people followed Martin Luther King and endured far more significant consequences for doing so, but the person who is remembered is the man who went first.

By going first in a difficult task, you will be admired for your courage.

The path of least resistance effect

It is perhaps not the most flattering trait of humanity, but we tend to have a natural inertia or laziness. Evolutionary it makes sense:

• Innovation was energy intensive - the brain burns up to 20% of your energy and when food was a lot harder to come by on the tundra you had to conserve energy

• Innovation was dangerous - if that bow and arrow contraption you dreamed up doesn’t kill the stampeding animal you might wind up dead, or at the very least hungry

• Innovation could make you a social outcast when belonging to the tribe was your only means of survival.

The authors of Blue Ocean Strategy studied business launches in 108

companies. 86% of launches were merely line extensions of existing products. And while true innovation - going first - only accounted for 14% of launches, it resulted in 61% of profits. Doing something new might be a risk, but if it pays off, it pays off big.

This effect can be seen everywhere. By going first you control the direction the others will follow. It might be deciding where you and your friends are going to lunch today, being the first athlete to compete a difficult new skill at the Olympics, being the first to get up and dance at a party, or being the first to read a book and recommend it to others.

By going first, others will naturally follow you (or copy you) rather than spend the energy carving their own path.

The expert effect

Simply by going first, you are seen as more of an expert than those who come after. Society values experience, and in the absence of actually knowing how much work and study someone has put into something, we use duration as a proxy for experience.

Your winery has been in business for over 100 years – you must know how to make excellent wine. Your store was the first in a series of franchises – it must be the best. You wrote the first book on the subject – you’re obviously the most knowledgeable. You did the first study on a topic – that makes you the foremost expert. Regardless of who comes after, and inevitably there will be people who come after that are better and more knowledgeable than you, you will always be seen as a leader.

By going first, you are automatically seen as a leader and an expert in the field.

The head start effect

This is simple but powerful: going first gives you a head start. Depending on your field, that head start might be incredibly difficult for others to bridge.

Tiger Woods started hitting golf balls at age 2.

Apple was the first to market with the iPod, iPhone, and app store.

Coca Cola was launched in 1886. Pepsi was only 7 years later, and yet the power of that head start is reflected in the company mission that Pepsi held for many years: ‘Beat Coke’.

Amazon was the first to do specialise in eCommerce. Google the first to pair ads with search.

Sure you can be a ‘fast follower’ with a mimicked product. Sure, sometimes the first person is overtaken by someone else who learnt from their mistakes.

But often, going first gives you a significant head start.

Summary

If something is scary, that is your signal to step up and lead. If you feel fear, that is your moment to go first.

Going first isn’t easy, but we should do it because:

• It builds bravery

• It bolsters others

• It leads to being first

Go first.