During my two-week stay at New Skete Monastery, I was chatting with Sister Cecilia about how the nuns built their home in 1971. They had taken a woodshop class in town and constructed it themselves, along with many of the desks and tables they still use today. When I asked how they accomplished all this without any experience, she simply said: "Necessity is the mother of invention."
That hit me like an Aaron Judge home run at Yankee Stadium.
The monks had a similar story. They entered the dog breeding business with zero experience - their only exposure to dogs was Kyr, their pet. Yet they grew into one of the most renowned German shepherd breeding programs in the United States, became world-famous trainers, and authored multiple New York Times bestselling books.
This got me thinking about other success stories: Richard Branson, Thomas Edison, Colonel Sanders, Rachael Ray, and my wife Sara. What do they all have in common? They became incredibly successful in fields where they had no experience.
How? They didn't waste time thinking they couldn't succeed. The monks never said, "I don't know anything about breeding dogs." Instead, they said, "Breeding dogs would be a good way to make money," and then gave it their all.
Maybe the best part of having no experience is it's quicker than getting experience! If Sara had gone to business school, studied garment manufacturing, and taken courses in product labeling before creating Spanx, it would have taken her half a lifetime. Instead, she just jumped in.
When you immerse yourself in something you're passionate about, every cell of your body becomes a fully engaged receptor. The monks read every book on dog breeding they could find, then read them again. They called breeders across the country asking for help. When you're both teacher and student, you can't get away with cutting corners.
Experience is overrated. It takes too long. If you're moved to do something—DO IT. The last thing you need to worry about is that you've never done it before. Most of us want to wait until we have the right amount of experience or feel it's the right time. That right time rarely comes.
So yeah, when Sister Cecilia said, "Necessity is the mother of invention," I totally got it. Sometimes the best qualification is simply believing you can do it.
