The first draft of the first chapter of my new book Quitter was horrible. It was technically correct. It was written with precision. It had all the right pieces in all the right places. But something was terribly wrong about it. What?

It was safe.

When I first sat down to write it, I was afraid no one would take my dream seriously. I was worried that people would say, “Isn’t he just the funny guy who writes that satire blog?” So I started to dress up the first chapter in safe paragraphs and safe sentences. I got serious and wrote a serious book that a serious leader would seriously write. And a friend who likes me enough to tell me when I’m lost read the first chapter and said, “Where are you in this chapter?”

He was right. By playing it safe, I had lost my voice. By playing it serious I had lost my edge. By writing the book I thought a “good author would write,” I lost the book this author felt called to write.

In the midst of that season, I saw a musical performance that challenged my approach to dreaming. In the midst of an often boring awards show, I saw a band play with abandon. They seemed to let go of expectations. They appeared to shed the worry about what people thought about the performance and instead just performed the song, the dream, the adventure they were on.

They played with gusto.

That became one of my driving thoughts as I rewrote the first chapter and launched myself into the rest of Quitter. I decided to write with gusto. I decided to dream with gusto and so should you.

Life is already jam packed with ordinary. We’re full up on boring. We’re over our heads in normal.

We don’t need a dream you “kind of sort of” pursue. We need a dream you pursue with gusto!

Whatever that looks like for you, don’t give into safe. Don’t give into expected. Don’t give into conventional.

We’ve got enough of that already.

We need your gusto.

(Below is the video I watched that changed things for me. The gusto is present the whole time but really kicks in at 1:45)