Realizing you don’t fit into the system is a scary thing.

Career books for instance are not funny.

They are serious tomes of serious thinking. They must be boring, dry and dull to have any impact.

Laughter is the best medicine, but not when it comes to your job. Work is no place for laughter, joy or happiness.

And so I wrote a serious first draft of my latest book Do Over. My wife read it and said, “Where are you in this?”

I told her, “I’m fitting in the system now. I wear belts and use big, difficult to pronounce words. I’m a serious guy who does serious things.”

“But you’re funny. That’s who you are. That’s what’s natural to you. That’s what in an unbridled, nobody is watching moment you care about the most. You don’t fit in the system.” Jenny said to me.

Hearing that for the first time was overwhelming. The system felt safe. When you step outside the system, you get worried that people will say, “That’s not how it’s done. Nobody does it that way.”

College students can’t change majors so late in college.

Stay at home moms can’t start businesses.

People in their 40s don’t get to chase completely different careers.

The system has so many rules.

Realizing you don’t fit into the system is a scary thing. At first.

Until you realize the system is not THE way, it’s just A way.

It’s one of a million ways.

And guess what, you have the permission to choose the way you take.

We don’t need you to fit into the system. The system is full. We need people brave enough to escape the system and show all of us it can be done.

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I didn’t write a funny first draft of my new book because I was afraid to fight the system.

But then people like my wife wouldn’t let me write a safe book.

Did the final draft of Do Over end up being funny? Well, here’s what comedian Jim Gaffigan said about it:

Do Over is funny, insightful and well-written. Three reasons I resent Jon Acuff.” – Jim Gaffigan

Should you buy it today?

You should if you’re tired of trying to fit into the system.