I am running alone this morning.

It is up to me to look out for dolphins and whales and, to document their frolicking on my camera phone.   And all this at 5:30 am.

When I tell people about this, it is not the animals that seizes their imaginations.  It is that I am up at 5:30 am.

I do things.  I run on the beach at this hour because it is that magical time when you are suspended between a morning moon and a rising sun.  Simple.

I read a post by Chris Brogan about doing things that sums up how I feel about my morning run.  Here’s the part I like:

“We are either doing, or we’re talking about it.

Three Phases of Doing

There are probably a gazillion ways to skin how one considers the steps of execution, but I’m going to give you a rather simplistic one that Julien Smith and I talked about the other day, in preparation for the new book we’re writing together. In our model, we think there are three stages to doing:

• Experimenting – which is often done in private.
• Executing – which is the doing part.
• Extending – building a community around the effort.

Companies do this. They have R&D departments. They then bring a product to market. If the product takes off, a community of sorts forms (if they’re lucky). That last step isn’t a guarantee, but it’s a lovely thing when it happens.

When you experiment, do it privately, if that helps. I’ve helped some companies get started with blogging, but suggesting they blog way off topic, without any name brands, so that they can get the feel for what blogging really is and isn’t. That’s experimenting for them, so that they can get comfortable. We all experiment around our kitchen tables, don’t we?

When you execute, that’s how you know it works or not. I’ve talked about this in the difference between recipe and restaurant. If you’re just collecting ideas but not testing them out, all you have are recipes.”

I like executing, doing stuff, running.  It makes me feel good.  And I want to extend and build a community around my efforts.  You may be a creative entrepreneur with a desire to launch a business, an emerging leader who wants to start a nonprofit to make the world a better place, a baker who wants to market a new line of pastries.  In this particular moment, my community is my friend Andrea who runs with me,  a school of dolphins and a whale, and all of you.

Why does the sight of these creatures inspire me?

In a way, I am in awe of the bigness of it all.  The ocean that is there every morning, eternal yet ever changing.  My toeprints in the sand that I leave running towards Breezy Point that greet me on my return remind me that what we do in a day is washed away with the tides.  That I should run with every sunrise towards the best day of my life which will be waiting for me on the beach under a fading moon.

Are you talking about something that you should be doing?  Just do it.

Here’s a sunrise for you.

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