On Being Early

Dear HRBN,

Fun fact: At fifteen years old, I had already written multiple business plans.

One of them, I now chuckle at, was called Lowe’s Secretarial Services. Others were born from everyday curiosity. During frequent visits to Blockbuster, I used to wonder why movies couldn’t be delivered to your home. Why did we have to drive, browse, rewind, return? So I wrote a plan.

VHS tapes. Home delivery. Logistics mapped out in my own teenage handwriting. Even at that young age, I was thinking about improving access and addressing unmet needs.

Fast-forward to when I am twenty-six. As a mother of two young daughters, I am sorting through the mail when I see it: a flyer from Netflix. I remember staring at the red lettering and the stark simplicity of the design. My first thought was immediate: Someone else has done it.

The disappointment came quickly. Not because the idea existed, but because no one had ever helped me believe mine could. At fifteen, I did not lack creativity or drive; I lacked support. No one had said, this is worth trying. No one had shown me how to take an idea off paper and give it legs.

For a moment, that Netflix flyer felt like proof that I had missed something, but what I understand now is different. Chronological milestones are often illusions; your arrival at a particular stage of life is never late, but perhaps premature for the world around you. Better yet is knowing that aspirations do not perish through the passage of time.

One's vision does not expire simply because someone else executes first. Vision evolves, matures, and often finds another door.

What I lacked at fifteen, I am learning to build now – community, courage, access, belief. And maybe that is the point. The ending is not separate from the journey. It is shaped by every version of you that dared to begin, even when no one clapped.

So here is what I know today:

Start again.

Start differently.

Start wiser.

Start as many times as you need to.

And I wonder, have you ever mistaken being early for being too late?

With care,

Eartha

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