Post in Progress:

(DRAFT)

http://twitter.com/gapingvoid/statuses/5370711865

http://twitter.com/chrisbrogan/statuses/5370744617

http://twitter.com/julien/status/5370765777

Eh. I think that's 'nuff said.

Loading mentions Retweet

@journik me on twitter with this URL. I add most tweets as comments to each blog.

Loading mentions Retweet

When I was 6, I thought, "I can do that too."

When I was 15, I thought, "I can do that too."

When I was 27, I thought, "I can do that too!"

And the whole time I could write better, paint better, sing better, and make better ramen, I never understood why I was never "discovered."

If you are working your ass off, you are sacrificing sleep for your dreams, if you are eating ramen and sleeping on a couch trying to get yourself discovered, You can stop now. Just get a job and get married and pop out 2.3 kids and buy pants that are three sizes bigger then you wear now. Because you are just not going to get discovered.

I was told this once from a wise old man. I wanted to kill him. Too bad he was a kung fu master. The only thing he ever told me about success and talent and luck and opportunity was, "Just keep placticing!"

I'm not telling you can't realize your dreams. What I'm telling you is what my old kung fu master didn't have to. Since I'm not as pithy as he was, I'll elaborate.

You can indeed realize all of your dreams. And the funny thing is that people less talented, less beautiful, less smart, although maybe not less hard working are currently living your dream.

There is a simple reason they are living the dream you are not. It's the invisible stuff you don't see.

There is a simple reason they are living the dream you are not. It's the invisible stuff you don't see. They have what you don't have.

What you don't see is that publishers don't make the author. Producers don't make the actor. The labels don't make the musician.

It's actually the opposite. If you think for a moment that Amazon.com made Hugh McLeod a best selling author of "Ignore Everybody", "Just keep placticing!"

Notice how many loyal followers and friends he had before he publised his book.

Now, notice why... notice the date. He's been at this for five years now.

So if you still hate the world for not recognizing your genius and talent, realize that the publisher does not make the author. The producer does not make the actor, the label does not make the rock star. You do not either. Nor does your work. What makes it all happen are the people who have been supporting you all along.

So now, "Just keep placticing."

Loading mentions Retweet

If you count even one failure, you count the grains of sand while you seek your pearl

Loading mentions Retweet

"In cashish!" could be your first reaction. That is not how I want to get paid. You then might say, "well it's sure the hell the way I wanna get paid!" And if you do, you are dealing at the lowest level of currency value. You are getting paid in the least valuable way, cash. If all you are after is the cash, residual or not, you will always get the bottom of the barrel - without the side walls.

You may get rich with cash, but you will only be wealthy if you get repayment in a higher form of value exchange or currency.

Personally, I have produced over 800 Youtube videos. I have over 16,000,000 views. If I were paid, as the expression goes, a dime for every [person who's seen my videos]" I'd only have $800,000 (taxes). As I stand now, I have made friends who have made me spare keys to their spare homes and Porsches in New York, Los Angeles, Madrid, San Diego. The least valuable of these homes is an apartment in Madrid that is worth over a million dollars.

Bear with me, I am going to make my point regarding the valuelessness of cash exchange in the next three paragraphs.

You may have noticed that I do charge money for certain mp3's, pdf, and videos on my various sites. Critics have ranted that my materials that can help improve a life SHOULD be free. My response is always the same, "I 100% agree. Now, as soon as someone gives me 20 private schools and 30 orphanages with dojos, and meditation rooms in each, I'll make everything on my websites freely downloadable."

I once had a young Youtube commenter ask, "money causes so many problems, do we really need money? can't we live without it?" My answer, "Absolutely. Money is worthless. I can come over to your house and tell you that I'm taking your new bike. In exchange, whenever you need new clothes or music, I'll give it to you for free. But then, you realize you don't trust my word. So you ask me to put it in writing. So I do. But then you realize that you don't trust my note. So you take it to your neighbors and town elders asking if this note is trust worthy. They review it and the issuer, me, and say, 'yes! it is honorable. In fact, we will sign it ourselves.' Now, take a look at how many signatures are on every dollar bill."

So, I really don't want your money. What I want is for you to help me teach children around the world. I'll take your word for it and I'll give you my support in pushing your own passions so long as they parallel my path.

see comments below for directions

Loading mentions Retweet