Matt Hearnden

A person who’s arrogant doesn’t work hard; they think they know it all already.

Don’t overthink this. It’s not complicated. It’s very simple.

“Presence is the ability to be attuned to and comfortably express the best parts of yourself.”

Everybody has beliefs they’ve never questioned. I respect someone who realises they’re wrong and then changes. What I have no time for is someone who won’t even question their ignorance.

But why don’t I take this stuff personally? Why doesn’t it affect me? Why doesn’t it stop me from writing?

LeBron James might or might not be the greatest basketball player of all time. It’s a pointless discussion, for now, because his career isn’t even close to being over.

Let me ask you this: when it comes to you – what you want, where you want to be, who you are – how often do you really, genuinely, truly not know?

What you want matters. It matters just as much as what other people want. And what you want for yourself matters more than what other people want for you.

Let’s say you don’t believe you’re the common denominator in your life. How is that helping you? Does that make you feel in control? Does that make you free?

I think that I have no control over other people anyway. I’ll never be able to make everyone be ok with other people being who they are.

I’d decided the pain of indecision would be less than the pain of rejection, and I never dared to put that belief to the test.

What would happen if you turned that obstacle into your way? What would happen if you accepted that you’re worried about failing, and started understanding it rather than judging it, and decided that it was more important to let go of it than to hold onto it?

What would my career have been like had I not been self-aware? If I’d not accepted that I was unhappy? If I’d refused to stop pretending I wasn’t self-aware?

I make myself a priority because it’s ok to make myself a priority. Because it’s ok to make myself the most important person in my life.

I knew in my gut and I knew in my heart. This was the decision I had to make. Well, this was the decision I had to make if being happy was important to me.

How many times have you made the same mistakes? How many times will you have to make them before you learn from them? How much more pain do you think you deserve?

I couldn’t be honest. I had to be perfect. And that made me unhappy. It made me curl up into the foetal position and wonder how I’d ever get what I wanted so much.

I have no right to get paid to do what I love. It’s taken me so long to realise that but I’m glad I have.