I Sat Alone in a Room and Spoke to the Future

I recorded the audiobook for Punching Above Your Weight myself. There was no studio and no engineer, only me, a microphone, and a promise I made in the ICU.

The idea came after my dad flatlined and came back fifteen minutes later. A morning like that resets your sense of time. You stop waiting for the right moment, and you stop pretending you have as much time as you thought. You move.

So when the book came out, I knew I had to speak it as well as write it. I wanted people to hear the urgency in my voice, and the conviction underneath the words.

Recording an audiobook turns out to be strangely intimate. You sit in a quiet room with no audience, and your own voice keeps coming back to you through the headphones. There’s nowhere to hide. I caught myself questioning sentences as I read them:

Do I still believe this?

Did I write this to sound smart, or to be useful?

Would I say this to someone I love?

Some lines hit harder out loud. Some I cut on the spot. By the end it felt less like recording a book and more like signing my name to it a second time.

I kept a photo of my dad beside me the whole time. He’s still here and still fighting, and he still pushes me to do the same. Every take, every pause, every breath came back to one fact: we don’t get forever.

So I sat alone in a room and spoke to the future. I spoke to the underdog, and to whichever version of you needs a little clarity in your earbuds at six o’clock on a Tuesday morning.

The audiobook is submitted and should be out soon. When it is, I hope it moves you the way recording it moved me.

Thank you for being part of this.

Ryan

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Update: The audiobook is out now, read from the first edition. You can listen on Apple Books or Spotify, or hear a sample first.