#34: No One Gives a F*ck… Until They Do
04/02/25 • 20 min
Yesterday, I fell prey to my own small-mindedness.
I had prepared a song over the last two weeks to perform live. And it didn’t go as planned. The response wasn’t what I was anticipating, and I had a brief foray with my inner bitch—Poopy Pants made an appearance.
That voice told me:
“No one cares.”
“You suck.”
“What’s the point?”
Today, I took a look at the whole thing and reminded myself: stop giving a fuck about how things are received. If you know what you’re doing is important to you, and it feels positive, and you’re in your usefulness—and you're not hurting anyone—then you have to trust that you're on the right path.
Here’s what actually happened:
I’d prepared this track for two weeks, and while I was building it, I was fantasizing—visualizing how it would land. Basically trying to control the universe.
I get to the venue. A French girl named Joe goes up before me—she’s leaving town in two weeks and brought her crew with her. Room full of hot babes. Which means room full of dudes orbiting the hot babes. Big crowd.
She crushes. Then they all go to the bar. Half the room clears.
I made the mistake of thinking the scenario was different. But most open mics aren't designed to create cohesion between artists. This crowd wasn’t there for the show—they were there for her. And when she was done, they dipped. That was the accurate read.
But instead of staying with the truth, I synched up with my victim. Went small. Instead of cultivating the positivity of the moment, I went negative. That sucked.
What’s crazy? I got a lot of love afterward. People who were there dug it. But I was irked that I even went there—to that “no one cares” mindset. I forgot the cardinal rule:
You're not entitled to anything.
Not to people's attention. Not to their adoration. Not to their money.
The only thing you can control is the quality of what you deliver.
If you’re writing a book, make sure every single paragraph is worth the money.
If you’re performing, give the people in front of you your full soul—no matter how many are left.
If you’re blessed to hit that moment where preparation meets opportunity and something takes off—great. But know this: all the complexity you feel at the small scale? It scales with you.
So don’t chase complexity. Scale simplicity.
Stay focused on making the thing actually good.
That’s the play.
Yesterday, I fell prey to my own small-mindedness.
I had prepared a song over the last two weeks to perform live. And it didn’t go as planned. The response wasn’t what I was anticipating, and I had a brief foray with my inner bitch—Poopy Pants made an appearance.
That voice told me:
“No one cares.”
“You suck.”
“What’s the point?”
Today, I took a look at the whole thing and reminded myself: stop giving a fuck about how things are received. If you know what you’re doing is important to you, and it feels positive, and you’re in your usefulness—and you're not hurting anyone—then you have to trust that you're on the right path.
Here’s what actually happened:
I’d prepared this track for two weeks, and while I was building it, I was fantasizing—visualizing how it would land. Basically trying to control the universe.
I get to the venue. A French girl named Joe goes up before me—she’s leaving town in two weeks and brought her crew with her. Room full of hot babes. Which means room full of dudes orbiting the hot babes. Big crowd.
She crushes. Then they all go to the bar. Half the room clears.
I made the mistake of thinking the scenario was different. But most open mics aren't designed to create cohesion between artists. This crowd wasn’t there for the show—they were there for her. And when she was done, they dipped. That was the accurate read.
But instead of staying with the truth, I synched up with my victim. Went small. Instead of cultivating the positivity of the moment, I went negative. That sucked.
What’s crazy? I got a lot of love afterward. People who were there dug it. But I was irked that I even went there—to that “no one cares” mindset. I forgot the cardinal rule:
You're not entitled to anything.
Not to people's attention. Not to their adoration. Not to their money.
The only thing you can control is the quality of what you deliver.
If you’re writing a book, make sure every single paragraph is worth the money.
If you’re performing, give the people in front of you your full soul—no matter how many are left.
If you’re blessed to hit that moment where preparation meets opportunity and something takes off—great. But know this: all the complexity you feel at the small scale? It scales with you.
So don’t chase complexity. Scale simplicity.
Stay focused on making the thing actually good.
That’s the play.
Previous Episode
#33: Getting Ideas Out of Your Head and Organizing Them
The Idea Canvas is a Google Doc I keep bookmarked on my browser.
Its sole purpose is to capture ideas in their raw, first form.
I have a few rules for how I use it—for example, by the end of each session, I make sure the page is blank again.
It’s not meant to store anything long-term; it’s just a tool to get ideas out of my head and onto the page.
Once an idea is captured, I move it to its proper place within the hierarchy of my business. That, or kill it completely. Some goblins are too ugly for the light of day.
If I do store it, each idea gets framed as its own document and filed accordingly.
For instance, I was in Jeff Faldalen’s coaching group on Wednesday, where we were using GPT prompts to produce a sales pitch for one of our services.
I developed all that material in the Idea Canvas first.
Then, I transferred the finalized version into the Marketing Playbook for the Books That Get Leads brand.
Specifically, I created a section called "Core Offers" and inserted the cleaned-up material there.
Even for this podcast, I started by sitting down with the Idea Canvas and flushing things out using voice-to-text. This part is really just me having a conversation with myself.
After that, I’ll refine the material with GPT for structure and clarity, bring it back into my Thoughts and Composition doc for typesetting, and finally file it where it belongs.
Hope that’s useful.
Hugs,
Colin
Next Episode
#35: AI, Authenticity & The Off-Ramp — A Ground-Level View with Steven Bowman
This is one of those conversations that takes you from the trenches to the stratosphere.
Steven Bowman is the kind of entrepreneur who’s lived a dozen lifetimes—kitchen-trained, whip-scarred, self-made, and now building AI agents while buying an apple orchard. In this episode, we talk about the real impact of AI—not in theory, but in terms of jobs, business models, and human relevance.
We cover:
- Why most middle-skill jobs are toast (and which 20% will thrive)
- The difference between disqualification marketing and qualified trust-building
- What’s actually happening under the hood with LLMs
- How to make your content searchable, interactive, and monetizable using AI agents
- Why storytelling, meatware, and authenticity are going to matter more than ever
This is also a wake-up call. If you’re a consultant, service business owner, or someone building IP—don’t just “learn AI.” Learn how to work with it. Build assets that compound. Create stories that can't be faked.
By the end of this episode, you’ll see exactly where the edge is—and how to stay on the right side of it.
If you like this episode you’ll love
Episode Comments
Generate a badge
Get a badge for your website that links back to this episode
<a href="https://goodpods.com/podcasts/books-that-get-leads-663402/34-no-one-gives-a-fck-until-they-do-88829022"> <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/badges/generic-badge-1.svg" alt="listen to #34: no one gives a f*ck… until they do on goodpods" style="width: 225px" /> </a>
Copy