I’m pacing my room fighting the urge to scrap everything I’ve worked on for the past two weeks. I hit a self-doubt wall with this project that no one is going to care about. I start up my STPT (Self-Talk Pep-Talk) engine. “This time is going to be different. This time I’ve created something great. Everyone will recognize my genius. You got this, bruh!”

I hurry over to my computer, force myself to sit back down, and close the 12 tabs I have open with Ryan Trahan’s newest video, a Dune cinema review, Dude Dad’s home addition, and whatever else I’ve been pretending to “research.”

I take a deep breath, publish my video, and wait. One hour passes… 0 views. Two hours pass… 0 views. One day passes… 0 views. I crawl under my covers and die.

Okay, so that didn’t happen… this time. But, it has definitely happened to me before. I put my heart and soul into something and nothing happens. Crickets....