What are you waiting for?

This simple question has the power to change everything. Yet most of us spend our lives

postponing the very dreams that could define us. We collect regrets like souvenirs—not

from bold actions we took, but from the chances we never seized.

I know this intimately. At various crossroads in my life, fear and hesitation won out over

possibility. I quit Boy Scouts just short of earning my Eagle Scout badge. I walked away from

baseball in tenth grade. I never ran track in college, despite the pull I felt toward the sport.

Each abandoned pursuit became a small weight I carried, a reminder of what might have

been.

For years, I told my wife Hope that I wanted to run a marathon. She had already conquered

two. The dream lived safely in the realm of "someday"—that comfortable place where

ambitions go to hibernate. Then, in early 2005, Hope took action where I had only oƯered

words. She registered me for the New York Marathon. When my name was selected, she

presented me with a choice disguised as a challenge: "What are you going to do? What are

you waiting for?"

That spring and summer, I trained. In November, I ran 26.2 miles through the streets of New

York City. It was my first marathon, but not my last—I've completed twelve since then.

More importantly, that moment became a turning point. "What are you waiting for?"

transformed from Hope's challenge into my personal manifesto. I wear a rubber bracelet

bearing these words as a daily reminder. I pose this question to friends and clients,

watching as it works its quiet magic in their lives too.

After years of talking about writing a novel—another dream relegated to "someday"—I

finally asked myself the question that had become my North Star. The result lies in your

hands: Killing Ants.