This is the most dangerous game to play. It’s called the Speculation Sound Byte Game.

In my career, I’ve done many television segments.

They range anywhere from two and a half minutes to five minutes.

The segment producers’ instructions to me always were:

Make sure you say something that’s controversial.

Make sure you say something about how they impact and create a feeling.

Make sure you say something in this Sound Byte that will allow people to talk about it after.

I’ve done over 3,000 radio shows in my career.

I was the king of two and a half to four minute guest appearances on radio then followed by a song or a commercial and then another four-minute segment.

I had to deliver powerful sound bytes so people could speculate in their brains between segments what I was going to say next.

The news literally does the same thing. Take a look at what they give you. They give you a few minutes of a topic, if that. They put the bullet points in there, and they allow you to speculate on what really is going on.

ESPN does it in their highlights.

You watch the Red Zone on the NFL Network, and you see only the scoring part.

You get to speculate what happened between the 20s.

They do it because they know that this is what drives people, the curiosity that it does to lots of people.

It creates a curiosity, and it makes people speculate.

How many times have I written about you sitting down with your friends and you speculate what a woman’s text means? It’s the way our brains are wired, and it is exactly how the news has played us for a long time.

We speculate, speculate, and speculate.

We speculate in jobs. We speculate in dates. We speculate in football games. We speculate in presidential elections.

How many times have people told me over the last few days what if Bernie ran against Donald? Would he have won? Then, I will listen to people have full-on hour conversations on how Bernie would have kicked Donald’s ass.

After a while, I get involved in it because it’s fun. It’s human nature, and I say to myself maybe they’re right. I think Bernie would have because Bernie would have ignited people in this passionate, incredible way.

We’re all guilty of playing the speculation game.

The speculation sound byte game is how the news, reality TV, and just about everything else gets your blood going.

Have you been to the movies?

What do they do at the beginning of a movie? They show you four speculation-filled trailers to get you to come to the movies.

I have a friend who has a business who literally is in the trailer business.

It’s all based on speculation. And y’all constantly playing into it. Constantly playing into the speculation sound byte game of life.

To me, I choose out.

If I want to know the answer to something, I’m not going speculate it at all. I’m going to read up about it as much as I possibly can in depth, so I can form a real opinion and not one based on height or speculation.

If I’m in a relationship with somebody and I’m confused by a text or confused by what they say, I will sit down with an adult and have a face-to-face conversation with them.

I’m not going to take the speculation sound byte in the text and then destroy an evening with my friends, trying to figure out what that person means because we never know what somebody means until we get to a face-to-face meeting with them.

I choose not to play the speculation sound byte game anymore. Would you like to join me on this crusade?