Every new skill starts with watching someone and thinking, “Wait, I could do that.”

Almost every skill begins with a flicker of recognition while watching somebody else. Something in you says that is not out of reach, and the feeling is more reliable than it sounds, because you would not spot the possibility unless part of you could already see the steps. What follows is unglamorous: badly, for a while, in private.

When you next get that flicker, act on it inside the week while it is still warm. Find out the first step and take it. Most of those thoughts die from delay rather than from being wrong.