I’m Not a Writer
I may not be a writer, but I did write a book. And I am quite pleased with how it turned out and with the reception it has been receiving. I guess I am also “not” a welder, woodworker, or mechanic, among other things, but that hasn’t stopped me yet.
I wrote Go BIG Or Go F*CK Yourself after a couple of decades of contemplation. I would have written it sooner if not for the overall commitment, and not just of time and effort, of which it required plenty. There was also the aspect of literally (and literarily 🙂) opening up about my life and sharing it with virtually anyone who wants to read it. It’s something I had never really given a lot of thought to up until that moment in March of 2025.
It’s All About Me
Having come from a small town in Maine, an unremarkable boy who grew up without a ton of opportunity, education or inspiration, I had to try to look back on my life objectively and decide whether my story was, in fact, remarkable… whether it was “book worthy”.
While I considered whether to proceed based on that initial criterion, I decided that there was really no way to know. I wouldn’t know if my book was any good until I sat down and wrote it. Hell, I may not even know then, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I wanted to write my story and share it based on a basic principle that those who read GBOGFY will recognize and hopefully understand; I didn’t want to just observe and admire. I wanted to experience the process and put in the work and to “do the thing” once more. So many have done it and so can I, damn it. So can you.
As a kid growing up in Waterville in the 70’s and 80’s, I rode a bicycle which I pretended was a motorcycle and I rode my skateboard and dreamed of surfing. I watched TV and dreamed of doing so many things that the characters in my favorite shows did. Those things all seemed out of reach- I wanted to travel and experience things like riding motorcycles, SCUBA diving, hang gliding and sky diving.
Sweet Fruition
Fast forward to 2026 and I am now a 57 year-old licensed SCUBA diver who has hang-glided and skydived and rides a motorcycle as a means of commuting as well as adventure. I have been to a number of countries in Europe as well as the Caribbean. I have learned how to weld and have built a number of things using that skill.
My hope is that the takeaway from my book is “If he can do all of those things, so can I.” Like so many people who have done all of the things I have done, I am not particularly gifted or “talented”. I am just a reasonably intelligent person who decided to seize the opportunity to do a bunch of things and ultimately learning and doing those things has enriched my life and resulted in a number of friendships along the way.
Sanding and Waxing Philosophical
This morning I was sanding a piece of walnut on my patio with the sun on my back as I enjoyed the mild and pleasant spring temps. I got this beautiful two and a quarter inch thick live edge slab from a wonderful craftsman out in the suburbs of Chicago. He had a few acres and a LOT of hardwood and tools. Just acquiring the raw materials for this project was a fun experience. The piece of walnut I selected was pretty rough overall. I had him plane just the one side I thought I was going to use as the top side for the table I am building with it. I selected that side to be the top because the other side had a pretty sizable knot with a significant amount of wood missing from the center.
However, upon looking at this piece of walnut again, it occurred to me how beautiful that “flawed” part of the wood really was. How did I not see that before? The color and grain swirling around it, the thin cracks shaped like lightning…
One Man’s Flaw…
I decided to turn the flaw into a feature. I spent literally hours sanding that wonderfully flawed piece of walnut and it was boring, to be honest. It would have been SO much easier to just use the other side, but once I recognized the beauty in that knot, I was all in. Sanding is inherently boring, to put it bluntly. It’s work and it’s nothing more, really. Even with a power tool like the random orbital sander I used for the task. Your hand cramps up and your back gets sore and the process just seems interminable at times. But sanding is necessary.
Sanding is a very important part of achieving the surface that you desire, so you put in the time and the work and keep sanding and sanding and saaannnding until you have the result that you desire. That’s life, really. That’s growing up and learning and practicing and repeating the same process over and over. Life is just a beautiful, raw, rough piece of hardwood and the rest is up to us.
Final Words
That is what my book is about. GBOGFY is about the small and seemingly meaningless moments and it’s about the huge revelatory moments and the things that seem unreachable but aren’t. It’s about all the work, trials, challenges, lessons, failures and victories that comprise life and it’s about the many options many of us may not even realize we have. And perhaps more than anything else, it’s about the flaws that we discover are actually so beautiful that we ultimately decide to turn them into features.
Kevin Ladd is the author of Go BIG Or Go FCK Yourself: The Earnest Pursuit of Personal Growth*. Raised in Maine and now based in Chicago, he has spent decades embracing new challenges, from entrepreneurship and leadership to motorcycle adventures and craftsmanship. He believes life is best lived through curiosity, action, and continuous personal growth.
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