Make yourself is the name of an album and song by Incubus, one of my all-time favourite bands. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what the meaning of the song is, but if it’s something like pick yourself, a riff by one of my favourite authors Seth Godin, then I’m all for it.

All the gatekeepers are dead. It used to be that you needed a record contract to record music. Not true anymore. It used to be that you needed a license to publish a book. Not true anymore. It used to be that you needed financial backing to do a whole lot of things, and that just isn’t true anymore.

Think about cameras. In the past ten years, lenses that were exclusively the domain of SLR cameras are now available in your pocket. I think we just aren’t really thinking about how amazing this revolution has been in the past ten or so years. Not just in terms of technological advances, but in our ability to make and pick ourselves.

We no longer need someone above us to give us permission to record our thoughts and feelings in music, video, spoken word, or in book or blog. We have all that we need to be a media powerhouse right there in our pocket. And yet some of us for whatever reason just don’t understand, and are not unlocking their potential.

I don’t know about you, but I get a high when I write something good. I get a high when I press publish on a blog post, or better yet a YouTube video. Who knows where it will go, no-one does. But by turning up and shipping day after day, that’s how you give yourself a chance. That’s how you pick yourself. That’s how you make yourself. That’s how you unlock your potential.