I had a 0.00 GPA the first semester of my senior year in college. You read that right, I got F’s in every single one of my classes. I didn’t bother going to class at all. I drank 7 nights a week. During the days I would smoke weed and cigarettes in rotation until it […]

Most personal development and success stories are b.s., but they aren’t intended to be. When you succeed, it’s easy to romanticize the process looking backward. You tend to smooth out the rough edges of your story. I write personal development books. I’m in the business of giving advice through my experience, but I can only […]

Hi, my name is Ayo and I have impostor syndrome. A funny thing happens to me each time I “succeed.” When I land a new client, sell a book, get accepted to do a talk, get a new freelance gig, etc — I always feel worse. My stomach forms knots. For a moment, I feel […]

One of my earliest memories in life was me reading stories to my parents. You read that right, instead of my parents reading me bedtime stories, I read them. As early as I can remember, I loved being the narrator, the talker, the pontificator (is that even a word? who cares). In grade school, when […]

    A few weeks ago, a jaguar escaped its cage at a New Orleans zoo and killed six other animals. Rightly, no one blamed the jaguar for being a jaguar. For years, its trainers fed it chunks of meat — pre-cut and requiring no effort to procure. The jaguar accepted those meals day in […]

I’d snapped. After two years of working as a manager at a video store, I’d finally had it. The pay was bad. The customers were rude. I felt trapped and knew I wanted more. I vividly remembered a day where everything went wrong — a Murphy’s law kind of day. I’d gotten so upset I […]

I disagree with self-help gurus on a ton of topics. There’s one in particular that bothers me – the idea that fear isn’t real.  Yes, fear is a product of your imagination, but that doesn’t make it imaginary. Your reality is perception. The way you experience the world dictates what the world is in a literal […]

I’m not a big fan of habit porn. You know what I mean — the guides that say “you must wake up at 5 a.m. or else!” Habits are important, though. Build the right ones and they can change your life. If I had to pick one habit that can not only make a huge […]

“Tell me where I’m going to die so I never go there.” The sentence above describes a superpower few people have. It’s one I’ve only been able to exercise ten percent of the time, but that ten percent creates most of the positive results I get in my life. What’s the superpower? Restraint. Success, happiness, […]

I used to be a slave. I was a slave to what the world wanted me to be. I was a slave to my mind, my emotions, that little voice in my head telling me who I could and couldn’t be or what I was or wasn’t worthy of. I’ve been there — that rock […]