I can be crazy. In fact, I’ll prove it.

On a trip to Florida a few years back, my wife and I stayed in a condo with my parents, grandmothers, and brother. We were surprising my other brother for his birthday and had flown down from Michigan.

When I sleep there cannot be any rhythmic noises or my mind will catch the beat and I’ll subsequently stay awake.

Thus when some crazy animal started mewing or barking (it sounded like both) at three in the morning it was annoying. By three fifteen I was growing angry and by three thirty I was marching across the parking lot, rock in hand to put an end to the creature. I tossed rocks into a forest until the bird/animal/little devil flew off to annoy someone else.

Yeah, that crazy. But I slept like a babe from four until seven.

As in the example above, we also carry these bird squawks or something similar in our minds. They are deadly to our creativity, living in the vary place our art comes from. And they offer a constant nagging of how unrealistic our dreams are.

Ever try to write or start to write a business plan and begin to get defeated right away? How many times even before we begin we start to think of why we shouldn’t attempt to try ___ in the first place – money, time, family obligations, work, and anything else march across our mind like a mariachi band.

There is something to learn from my manic story above. The next time your inner voice starts to sound the alarm, grab some rocks, snip the chord, pull out the batteries, and stuff proverbial cotton balls in your ears. Tell your inner critique to shut their mouth.

It might be impossible right now to be a New York Times Bestseller. But if we stop ourselves before we begin we may never know where the journey may take us.