There Are No Gatekeepers | #238

September 2, 2023: Greetings from Taipei! Let’s get into it.

There are no gatekeepers anymore.

You can just do things.

But we pretend like this is not true.

Lots of people have said that they want to write a book. You can write a book in Microsoft Word, format it on Reedsy, and then print and ship it on Amazon for less than $5. This is incredible.

But people still want permission.

Many of us were raised to think that the point of life is to be chosen. This is reinforced over and over again. You try out for sports teams, apply for scholarships, and apply to schools and jobs. You try to impress people well enough to be chosen.

One can wake up in adulthood having spent their entire life oriented around doing things such that they are in a position to be chosen by others.

This is fine and obviously, some of this is unavoidable.

But this mode of being disconnects us from many of the opportunities that exist right in front of us.

You can just write that book. You can just produce your own documentary. You can start a podcast. You can write short stories. You can start a book club online or in your town. You can start a non-profit. You can organize a fundraiser for your community. There are so many things that you can just do now and most of these are practically free using the internet.

You have my permission.

Which brings me to my friend Raza.

He’s someone I met in Austin last year. He left his cozy tech job to commit to doing comedy full-time.

If you know anything about comedy, this might seem reckless. Comedy is notoriously hard, takes a tremendous amount of time, and is nearly impossible to make money in the beginning.

But this is what makes Raza impressive. He rejected this default story and knew that he needed a better approach. He didn’t automatically embrace the idea that he needed to grind for years and then eventually hope to be chosen.

A lot of comedy used to be centered around being chosen for things like the late show with David Letterman or Jay Leno or something like a special on Comedy Central or HBO.

Raza decided to skip the years of struggle and record his own special.

He chose himself. He hired a videographer, created a weekend-long event for himself, flew his parents in to cook some amazing food, and edited and posted it himself on YouTube.

I attended live and it was hilarious

Stuff like this fires me up.

Look at that thumbnail - you can tell he cares. It’s awesome. This matters to him. The production quality is even better.

He took himself seriously.

I am betting on people like Raza.

You can too (by watching and sharing).

That’s it for this week.

Go create something that matters to you.

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This post is sponsored by Write of Passage

By the way, I was inspired to write about this anyway this week but it’s no surprise I met Raza through the Write of Passage, which seems to be the launchpad of some of the most interesting creators on the internet. They’re hosting a few free workshops which I highly recommend even if you don’t end up signing up:

• Wednesday, September 6th at 12 pm ET - Grow Your Audience On Social Media with the Cultural Tutor (Writer who grew a 1.5M audience on Twitter sharing only on nerdy topics he cares about)

• Tuesday, September 12th at 7 pm ET - How to Start Writing Online

• Thursday, September 21st at 2 pm ET - Test Drive Write of Passage

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Thanks For Reading!

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