ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Dave Holmes has spent a lifetime being easy to recognize and nearly impossible to categorize.
He is a writer, humorist, host, cultural observer, Editor-at-Large at Esquire - and someone with the rare ability to make you laugh very hard while casually saying something devastatingly true about being human.
But this conversation isn't really about the things Dave has done.
It's about how he became Dave Holmes.
He grew up feeling different before he necessarily had the language for why. He loved music, television, writing and pop culture in a world that gave boys a fairly limited menu of ways to be. He tried being practical. He tried fitting in. He tried becoming the person he thought he was supposed to become.
Thankfully, none of it entirely took.
And somewhere along the way, he learned something bigger: your life rarely arrives in the form you expected it to.
Success doesn't have to mean becoming the person everybody knows. It can mean becoming the person you finally recognize.
And often, the choice that makes the least sense on paper is the one that opens up your life.
Dave talks about the power of boldness and putting your work - and yourself - into the world, even when it makes you cringe. About the freedom that comes with no longer trying to fit into somebody else's idea of who you should be. About being gay, being visible, being fully seen and eventually taking control of your own narrative.
He talks about writing, reinvention, creativity, masculinity, belonging, success, failure and why there is more than one way to make a life in a creative industry.
Most of all, Dave makes a compelling case for doing your thing - whatever that may be. Because if you don't, we - aka the world - don't get to experience it.
And when I ask what he would tell the younger Dave - the boy who was looking around wondering where exactly he fit - his answer says almost everything:
You will not believe it.
Because the life ahead of him would be stranger, funnier, freer and far more interesting than anything he could have planned.
This is a conversation about what happens when you stop trying to color inside someone else's lines.
And begin writing a life that actually feels like your own.
The incomparable Dave Holmes on The Ambition Code.
IN THIS EPISODE-
Why not fitting in can eventually become your greatest advantage
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The difference between being visible and being fully seen
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Putting yourself out there before confidence arrives
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Why boldness can take you places good sense never will
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Learning to stop editing yourself for other people
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Coming out, identity and taking control of your own narrative
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Finding your voice as a writer
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Why creating something that embarrasses you a little might be a very good sign
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Redefining success when life doesn't follow the original plan
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Why there is more than one way to build a creative career
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The freedom of becoming more completely yourself
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What Dave would tell the younger version of himself about the life waiting for him
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daveholmes/
Dave at Esquire: https://www.esquire.com/author/9774/dave-holmes/
Cocksure on Substack: https://cocksure.substack.com/
Dave is an Editor-at-Large at Esquire, hosts on SiriusXM's The Spectrum, and hosts the podcast International Waters with Maximum Fun.
THE AMBITION CODECreator, Host + Executive Producer: Julie Kellman Reading Produced by: Love + Daydreams Music by: @Moby.Gratis
Connect with Julie + The Ambition CodeLove + Daydreams on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/loveanddaydreams/
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The Ambition Code on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ambition-code/id6790585618
The Ambition Code on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033P0xatKPFsBNimqb32rb
Love + Daydreams: https://www.LoveAndDaydreams.com
Julie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliekellmanreading/
Your life is waiting for you.
