This is why almost all podcasters, audiobook narrators, and politicians fail. Because if you have to read it to me, I have absolutely no reason to listen to a word you say. I’m a human, I want to be spoken to! I want to hear your passion and connect to what you’re saying. How can I trust what you have to say if you’ve got to read it to me?

This is why it’s so much better when the author narrates their audiobook. Gary Vaynerchuck, you are a champ here. “Crush It!” was absolutely fantastic, not only to read, but also as an audiobook… because Gary read it himself. He veered off the script regularly, and that was fine with me. It was such an added bonus. You can’t help but get excited by Gary’s passion – He has Crushed It, and he just wants you to Crush It too.

You really can Crush It, but you should never have to read me your passion.

Whatever you’re expecting in life, you are most certainly bound to get. If you expect to be poor and lonely, you will be. I promise.

A lot of people get expectations drilled into their heads by their parents when they’re young. And by the time they hit puberty, they’ve forgotten how to dream. And now they expect to go to college, get a degree, get a cozy office job, get paid for showing up, retire and die. And most of them get that.

The train comes off the tracks when their boss says, I don’t want to pay you for showing up. I want to pay you for results. Or maybe they say, we need a younger presence, and you’re getting expensive to keep here. See ya!

What then? Are you a failure? Are you worthless? No, you’re just stuck in an old frame of mind. You feel like you’re a failure because you were told you would be if your life didn’t go this one way.

Maybe we all need to have higher expectations, because average just won’t cut it anymore.

Dear Gatekeepers,

I don’t need you. I don’t need your bureaucracy. I don’t need your agents. I don’t need your funding, and I don’t need your rules. I make the rules. I can spread my art to 20 million people by hitting the “publish” button. I can draw a crowd all by myself, thank you very much. I have fans, and they’re as sick of you as I am. You’re a thing of the past. We’re the future.

RIP Gatekeepers.

I have this awful habit of regurgitating. But not the kind you’re thinking of. My problem is that I regurgitate information. See, I’ll read a book, or listen to a podcast, or chew on a blog, and I’ll digest all that tasty info. But instead of applying it in a nourishing way, I only partly digest it.

After I’ve thought about it for 20 minutes or so, I go looking for the next bite of information – which usually ends up being just similar enough for me to swallow again.

I pretty much know it all at this point, but I’ve hardly done anything with it. Ever feel this way? Let’s all stop reading, stop listening, stop thinking, and just start doing. Action trumps knowledge any day.

You’re the best version of you when you’re firing on all cylinders… When you’re so passionate that you just can’t stop working. Because it’s not work anymore. It’s play. It makes money, but it’s still play. Because you love it.

Be that person, and you simply can’t fail.