Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
This quote, borrowed by Jim Valvano from Ralph Waldo Emerson is something that I remind myself on a near-daily basis. Enthusiasm is something that is palpable and contagious. It is something that I hope to bring to the table in everything I do, but most importantly, lack of enthusiasm is the reason I am writing today.
I have been waiting to write this article for the better part of a year. This is my first time dipping the pen in well over 3 years, and to be honest, I am surprised it is happening again. I stopped writing my sophomore year of college for reasons that I have struggled to grasp for a very long time. As I write this today, I am finally in a place of understanding where I can accept and share the simple reason that I stopped:
Failure.
Failure is a difficult concept to accept, and it is something I have been running from for a long time. That stops today. As some of you know, I was given the opportunity to run Barstool UMD with the great Sean Cottle (I would never say this to his face, but I am eternally grateful for that blessing and often wish I took more advantage of it). It was an opportunity that I never thought in a million years I would have, but it gave me a direct line to my dream job: making content and writing for Barstool Sports in New York.
My senior year, without an inkling of what I’d be doing after graduation, I was awarded the opportunity to interview at Barstool in NYC. I was supremely confident that I was the man for the job, so me and about 8 of the fellas packed up several cars and made a weekend trip to the big city. Word spread like wildfire, and soon everybody I knew was wishing me luck.
I didn’t get the job.
This failure was a hard pill to swallow, and I resented a lot of people because of this outcome. Circling back and telling everybody that I didn’t get the job was even harder. Acknowledging to the world that I had failed made me bitter, and because of this, I decided that any desires I had to write or entertain were a foolish dream of the past.
In that thinking, I was responsible for the ultimate failure: not believing in myself. Taking one bad experience, the opinion of one interviewer, and translating that value to my own sense of self-worth was the real failure. I let myself down by putting myself down and by letting external factors rob me of my self-confidence and enthusiasm for life .
That shit stops right now.
This long-winded story is to say that I have landed in a place of self-awareness and epiphany: I need to write. I need to do this.
Writing has always been therapeutic for me. It is a creative outlet that allows me to organize my jumbled brain, challenge myself to be great, and most importantly, connect with those around me. I am not doing this to get a job at Barstool. I am not doing this to be on ESPN. I am doing this because I will no longer rob myself of the enthusiasm that I so desperately crave. I will no longer allow self-doubt to cloud my confidence. I will no longer allow the anxiety of peer-acceptance stop me from sharing my gifts with the world.
I don’t care if my words reach 1 person or 1 million. I love to write, feel a sense of passion when I do so, and inspire myself through it. That is why I am sharing this with all of you.
So if anybody actually made it down this far: Thank you. I am not sure how often these words will come out, nor am I certain of how well they will be received. But fear of failure is no longer something that exists to me. I have failed many times. I will not fail myself again by living in a world of self-doubt and emptiness.
Finally, I leave you with a quote from the great senator Cam Brady: “Welcome to the fucking show.”
Talk to you soon.
Things That I Want To Say 