The Long Beginning

The other morning on the way to school, my daughter taught me something about beginnings.

We were talking about how there are only five months left of the school year, and she was stunned. “But it feels like school just started,” she said. After a moment, she added: “When something is really big, the beginning lasts longer. When something is really short, the beginning goes quickly.”

Her words stuck with me all day because they hit on something I’ve felt so often when starting anything “really big.” There’s this pull to rush the beginning—the rush of a new idea fills you with this urgency to see it thriving out in the world. You want to skip ahead, to fast-forward through the slow build and get to the part where it’s already alive and flourishing.

But what if the long beginning is where all the good stuff happens?

Robert Greene touches on this idea in his book, Mastery. He describes the apprenticeship phase as a time of deliberate slowness, where we absorb, observe, and gather the tools we’ll need to succeed later. It’s not glamorous work, and it rarely feels productive, but Greene reminds us that this phase isn’t optional. It’s where the foundation is built. Skipping it doesn’t just cut corners; it cuts out the depth and expertise that make mastery possible.

My daughter’s observation is a reminder to honour this process. The long beginning isn’t a hurdle—it’s the work. It’s where seeds get planted and roots start growing, even if you can’t see them yet. It’s where we learn to stand before we start to run.

Greene argues that the deeper the foundation, the greater the eventual success. And that’s what my daughter understood so clearly: when something is big—when it truly matters—the beginning lasts longer. Because it needs to.

So maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to rush through the early stages. Maybe we should settle in, take our time, and allow seeds to root. After all, as Greene would say, mastery takes time. And the beginning is where it all starts.