I’ve been busy in my design lab, shaping the experience that will become The Awakening—the in-person retreat I’m hosting later this month in Portland. In the meantime, enjoy this fan favorite from the archives!
When a friend shared his dream of becoming a speaker with me, he was alive with possibilities.
He didn’t just want to speak—he wanted to move people. To shake up rooms that had flatlined from too many bullet points and bar charts.
I believed in him. So I introduced him to an industry insider—someone who could help take things to the next level.
Instead, the door got slammed before it even opened.
“You don’t have what it takes,” the insider told my friend.
And just like that, doubt crept in. He was ready to quit—until I stepped in.
I recognized that look on his face. I’d seen it in the mirror as a kid growing up in Istanbul. Back then, whenever I said I wanted to work on a space mission, people didn’t just laugh. They scoffed. “You? From here? Maybe in another life.”
But I wasn’t willing to postpone my dreams for another life.
Here’s the thing: When someone says you can’t do something, it usually has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with them—their abandoned dreams, their fear of falling short, their shrunken sense of what’s possible. Telling you “no” helps them feel better about all the doors they never walked through.
“They may know the odds,” I told my friend. “But they don’t know you.”
Yes, life comes with real limitations—where you’re born, who you know, what resources you start with. But acknowledging their existence doesn’t mean surrendering to them. They’re part of the story—but not the whole story. Where you start isn’t where you have to stay.
And that cold “no” you hear? It doesn’t mean you stop. It means you find a side door.
If a publisher rejects your book, that’s not the final word. Self-publishing isn’t a consolation prize; it’s seizing control of your narrative. (Just ask Andy Weir, whose self-published The Martian rocketed from obscurity to the Oscars.) If a company doesn’t see your potential, maybe it’s time to build your own. And if the music industry overlooks your work, join the artists who bypassed record labels to release music on their own terms.
My own journey to working on a Mars mission wasn’t paved with applause at every turn, but with a quiet determination that echoed louder than any doubt.
And somewhere along the way, I stumbled on a truth that changed everything:
The gate isn’t just open. It was never real.
The gate is often an illusion—dreamed up by those who’ve appointed themselves guardians of what’s possible.
These so-called gatekeepers draw their authority from a story they’ve crafted—one where dreams are fenced in, and only they hold the keys.
And the gates stick around not because they’re locked—but because we’ve been taught not to question if they’re real.
In the end, the path ahead isn’t guarded by gates.
There’s no lock, no key—just the mirage of “you can’t” waiting to be rewritten as “watch me.”
P.S. Only 1 spot remains for The Awakening, my in-person retreat in Portland later this month.
This retreat isn’t for those still waiting for the green light.
It’s for those ready to realize they are the green light.
If that’s you, your seat is waiting.
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