I’m sick of webinars. Every budding entrepreneur and digital startup has a webinar now to funnel you to buy their product.

They advertise it under the pretense of a ‘free’ masterclass where somehow, miraculously in only 60 to 90-minutes you will gain enough value to pivot your life and become as successful as them.

Auto-webinars in particular are the worst. I cleared space in my calendar for you. At least do me the courtesy of showing up live.

It needs to stop. And thank God audiences are starting to wisen up, creators are slowly stepping up their game, and the…

In the past year, I’ve scored highly in two pitch rounds in an entrepreneurship program and I don’t deserve it. Okay, my pitches are clear, concise, and direct. They address the most important criteria in an elevator pitch: the problem, the goal, and the audience. I also delivered them confidently, despite my stuttering speech impediment.

On paper, winning these pitch rounds could make sense but it’s not with faux-humility that I say I shouldn’t have won.

So, what’s the problem then?

They were safe.

Playing it safe as an entrepreneur is like mixing oil with water. It doesn’t work. Safe…

A few years ago, Coca-Cola.com saw an 870% spike in traffic. The brand welcomed 25 million new Facebook fans and the marketing team celebrated.

This was the result of a unique marketing campaign that highlighted an interesting fact about people: we love to see our names on things. Our name is our identity. We associate our name with a sense of ownership and belonging, which drives brand loyalty.

Some of the biggest brands in the world have caught onto this marketing ‘trick.’

Coca-Cola kicked-off their unforgettable #ShareACoke campaign in 2011. …

There was way too much conversation in the digital zeitgeist about Matthew Perry’s behavior in the Friends reunion special. You couldn’t avoid a press headline highlighting it. Everyone wanted to discuss it. I even received a message from a close friend who wanted to dissect how odd he apparently acted.

He was critiqued and bashed in the media. Of course, there were the usual suspects who contributed to the conversation: online trolls.

In case we’ve forgotten, trolling on the internet is as ground-breakingly lame as wearing florals in spring.

Then there were the well-intentioned, pro-mental health advocates who rose to…

If only I had a million followers.

It’d be so much easier if I had better equipment.

It’s so hard to build a loyal audience.

I just need (insert favorite influencer) to give me a shoutout.

At some point, at least one of these thoughts has crossed a creator’s mind as they struggle to create content. They fantasize how much easier it’d be to build their thing if they had dope connections and thousands of die-hard followers.

They don’t realize they don’t need all those things. Not yet anyway.

It sucks when no one watches, reads, and engages with our…

A few years ago I woke up one sunny Tuesday morning to a phone call from a private number.

— Hello, may I speak to Kele Mogotsi please?

— Speaking.

— This is Ms. Anonymous from Anonymous-R-Us casting office. We’d like to reschedule you for the film shoot. Are you available on Wednesday?

— Oh sure, no worries.

— Great. Unfortunately, Beyoncé isn’t feeling well so we need to reschedule.

— (long pause) Um…. (cough). No problem, I understand. I’ll be there on Wednesday.

She confirmed more details with me and then hung up. I lay in bed, completely still…

I don’t watch TV like normal people. Going to the movies isn’t an escape for me like it is for most people. I’m not a critic — and I’d never want to be — but I do watch content through an artist’s lens as opposed to an entertainment’s one.

A great performance, captivating writing, cinematography, or direction often gets me to stop and rewind a scene over and over again, watching it frame by frame. Even editing, lighting, and sound design can have that effect on me and I’ll have to stop everything and dissect it.

…

I’d just graduated from drama school. I was hitting every audition in town, sneaking into extra acting classes (because I was too broke to pay for them), going to industry seminars, workshops, talks, film festivals, networking events.

If it had anything to do with film, television, or theatre, I was there.

As a young, fresh grad, I wanted so badly to “make it”. Like every young, overly ambitious New Yorker, I thought I knew what that meant, but in hindsight, my definition was pretty warped.

My acting and film teachers encouraged us to produce stuff. Back then, the “in-thing” to…