In December 2020, CREW Boston hosted a special holiday luncheon featuring Cara Brookins, author of Rise: How a House Built a Family. In 2007, Cara was at a personal crossroads. Having survived two, abusive relationships, Cara wanted to give meaning and purpose to her own life and the life of her four children. To do that, she landed on a big idea: she and her four children would build their own, forever home where they could put down new roots and start a new chapter for their family. Cara and her children had no construction experience. However, relying on YouTube tutorials and their own grit and scrappy determination, they successfully built the home of their collective dreams in a mere nine months. More importantly, Cara’s children had learned that they could figure out how to do incredible things.
Cara challenged CREW Boston members to start reaching for that big goal and shared some of her key takeaways, all of which resonated at the end of a difficult year.
- Good ideas alone are not going to change your life. Instead, you have to get up and start moving. Showing up – even on the days that you do not want to – is the most important element to success.
- Waiting limits choices. Procrastination about decisions necessary to implement your big idea runs the risk of worse outcomes. Even if being decisive means that you end up doing things the hard way, that resolve fosters creativity and learning.
- Don’t go it alone. A team now only helps share the load but can also push and challenge you.
