You love being someone who is going to write a book. You love the way it sounds when you say it, the notebook you bought, the way people’s faces change when you tell them what you are working on.
What you do not love is sitting down and writing badly for two hours on a Tuesday when nobody is watching and nothing you produce is any good yet.
You have been collecting identities like accessories and doing none of the work required to earn them. And the idea feels so good, so close to the real thing, that you have not noticed you have been living on the idea instead of the life for years.
I go all the way in on this today. Why the work threatens your ego while the idea protects it, and how you have been keeping a fantasy version of yourself undefeated by never letting it compete. The neuroscience of mental simulation, which shows the brain releases a small dose of the same reward for vividly imagining or describing a goal that it would release for actual progress, meaning you have been paying yourself in advance for work you never did. Research showing that publicly announcing your goals can actually reduce follow through, because the recognition partially satisfies the need the accomplishment was supposed to fill. The gym membership analogy that will sting. And the two men who heard the exact same words, one who built on rock and one on sand, where the only variable in the entire story was whether the hearing turned into practice.
Your potential is not precious. It is useless until it is spent.
Go listen. Then go make one real thing today.
Branden LaNette
Podcast Coach
BrandenLaNette.com