My new book, INTREPID: Dare to Make a Difference, is here to help you stop refusing to heed what life is calling you to do.
Not by shaming. Not by motivating. Not by giving you another system to hide behind.
By asking better questions.
INTREPID is now available. Purchase the paperback and receive free downloads of the ebook, audiobook, and companion reader guide!
Here’s the full Introduction to INTREPID—unedited and exactly as it will appear in the book.
Introduction
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”—Mary Oliver, The Summer Day
Your life is speaking to you because it wants to speak through you.
And, you’ve been dodging the call.
You don’t have a motivation problem. You have a commitment problem.
Before you get defensive, here’s what I mean. You care. You care enough to notice what’s off, imagine something better, and feel frustrated that you’re not doing more about it.
That caring is real. It’s also not enough.
Caring without commitment is how good people end up stuck—consuming more advice, polishing their readiness, quietly bleeding out their best energy on other people’s “shoulds.”
You know the situation. You’re living it.
You know you’re called to make a difference, but you’re weighed down by options. You’re carrying a quiet fear that you’re not qualified. You keep preparing instead of practicing.
So you research. You plan. You try to get it right before you risk getting it wrong.
It looks like progress. It isn’t. It’s the seductive form of refusal.
This is that moment in your hero’s journey—the call arrives, and you try to make it go away. You bargain, delay, and distract. You tell yourself a safer story—one with more certainty and zero risk.
Caring without commitment is how good work stays invisible. Please hit share and help spread the goodness!
This book is here to help you stop refusing to heed what life is calling you to do.
Not by shaming. Not by motivating. Not by giving you another system to hide behind.
By asking better questions.
What’s on Offer in Intrepid
The change: from a frustrated, well-intentioned difference-maker to a committed practitioner who ships meaningful work.
The people: those who feel the tension of untapped potential—called to impact, allergic to performative hustle, tired of borrowed formulas.
The promise: sharper self-trust, clearer commitment, and a practical path by picking a meaningful, specific goal, building a purposeful practice, and keeping the promise even when it’s hard.
No magic. No hacks. Just a return to what has always worked—commitment, practice, and keeping promises.
Why You’re Stuck
You’re stuck because you’re trying to do something that costs something—your comfort, your certainty, your carefully constructed excuses.
Making a difference sounds noble in the abstract. In practice, it demands tradeoffs, the humility to start before you’re ready, and the willingness to stop auditioning for gatekeepers who were never going to choose you anyway.
It also demands that you stop treating confidence like a prerequisite.
Confidence is not the entry fee. Commitment is.
Your fear doesn’t mean you’re unqualified. It means that what matters is right in front of you.
And here’s why burnout looms. The most exhausting thing in the world is caring deeply and living shallowly. You can only ignore that tension for so long before you go numb, go cynical, or simply get going.
This book is for the third option.
I know because I’ve been there. I spent years preparing to make a difference while carefully avoiding the risk of actually making one. This book is what I wish someone had handed me then.
The Posture Here
This is not a book of answers. Answers are cheap.
This is a book of provocations—questions designed to help you see yourself, your work, and your responsibility more clearly.
Each chapter asks one question followed by a short insight. Simple, not soothing.
If you’re looking for permission to stay comfortable, you picked the wrong book.
If you’re looking for a loving shove that respects you and your potential, you picked the right book.
That’s the posture: empathetic antagonism. I’m not here to coddle you or belittle you. I’m here to help you see and act on what’s true.
Why “Intrepid”
Intrepid means resolute in the face of fear. Not fearless—fear is reasonable and useful. Intrepid people acknowledge the fear and choose to act anyway.
But intrepidness isn’t just about private courage. The intrepid live out loud and in public. They embrace the vulnerability of being seen and the generosity of letting others bear witness. They know that meaningful work done in isolation rarely stays meaningful. It requires the friction and fellowship of a community of fellow travelers to matter.
The word itself implies relationship. A venture isn’t intrepid in isolation—it becomes intrepid in the telling. When someone witnesses your struggle, your persistence, your commitment to the work, even when the outcome isn’t assured, that’s when the word earns its weight.
This book is for the people who doubt and do it anyway. Who begin and begin again, even when the path is unclear. Those who are willing to step into the arena where others can see them struggle, fail, and persist.
If you’re willing to dare to make a difference—keep reading.
The Call
You can keep looking out the window, waiting for a better time, a cleaner plan, and a clearer signal.
Or you can step into the arena and start acting like someone who cares enough to commit.
This is your call to adventure. Part of you wants to refuse it.
This book is designed to make that refusal harder to live with.
The book poses 27 questions that most people avoid throughout their lives.
This is the first one: Do you care enough?
Let’s find out together.
INTREPID is now available. Purchase the paperback and receive free downloads of the ebook, audiobook, and companion reader guide!
If you are a change-maker, entrepreneur, do-er or simply a human with a heart, you cannot ignore the call of this captain.
@Scott Perry’s call to be intrepid, in this intro, is a call not for bravado, but rather humility. It’s a call to be vulnerable, to try out loud, maybe to fail, but to end up in the company of others who are learning, leaning in, and showing up again and again, no matter what.
Why? Because as Scott said, it’s your life working through you- how much longer can you simply not say, ‘yes’.
This one hits me right in the constraint (myself). I love all of this but this piece especially resonates: "I spent years preparing to make a difference while carefully avoiding the risk of actually making one."
I build all the systems and the pages and the posts, while carefully avoiding followups because I know they will move the needle but I'm afraid of making a mistake or letting someone down.
But of course I'll make mistakes and that's okay. I think Intrepid is going to help me 'do it afraid' but with the commitment piece which helps me admit I'm afraid, and then to face what happens next which is taking the right next step for me.
I stop overbuilding, I stop avoiding and I actually invite people to participate in my offers.