Here’s what you do:
You take every chance to make it
Never say no to anything
If you want it
Take the minute to take that every effort
‘cause chances not only come
But they go
Here’s where you go
You go that extra mile wherever it takes you
You go where you must
Where only fools tread
You go that extra mile
Especially when no one’s watching
You take that very first chance
To admit each and every one of your mistakes
Then still dive right off that next cliff
As if there’s a water cup waiting just the way you planned
Especially when you do not believe
That that’s true
Here is what I’ll do
Look before leaping then leap anyway
Run till I drop but land when I fall
Then rise from my weeping till I glow like the sun.
About the poet Mikel Weisser
Mikel Weisser was the son of a nightclub singer, a contestant on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire", the founder of the So-Hi Peace Sign Themepark, a middle school history teacher, a touring poet, an accomplished guitar player and songwriter, an elected official of the Arizona State Legislature, and a marijuana activist that saw a cultural shift during his tenure. Learn more about the late, great renaissance man and poet HERE.
Summary
The speaker delivers a compact set of instructions for living boldly: take opportunities, work when nobody is watching, acknowledge mistakes, risk failure, recover from falling and continue forward.
Analysis
The poem initially sounds like advice directed outward—“Here’s what you do” and “Here’s where you go”—but eventually becomes a promise the speaker makes to himself: “Here is what I’ll do.” That grammatical shift is important. Advice becomes accountability. Weisser repeatedly pairs caution with deliberate risk: admit mistakes but jump again; look before leaping but leap anyway; run until falling but rise afterward. Success is therefore not imagined as avoiding failure. The poem instead defines forward motion as a repeated willingness to act despite knowing that plans may collapse.