As I sit here trying to recap Wednesday at #CMWorld, everything I try to write to sum up the day comes back to some version of this: “If your instinct tells you to do something that is against the rules or the way it has been done, listen to that voice because it will almost always lead you to the good stuff. Don’t follow the rules, don’t listen to anyone who gives you a formula and don’t do what everyone else is doing.”

Here are my highlights from yesterday as they played out on Twitter:

In his opening keynote speech, Jay Acunzo (creator and host of Unthinkable.fm) declared, “It’s never been easier to be average.”

Hileman Group posted the quote with a great shot of Acunzo’s presentation:

My second favorite quote of the day was also from Acunzo, and captured by Mike Meyers:

I loved this quote. And it’s so tempting to listen to other people and their ideas. But the most interesting ideas are the ones that start as the nagging thoughts in your head. Usually that inner voice is telling me I’m doing something wrong and boring. I have to listen really hard to hear the ideas of what to do instead. But the times that I do listen, it’s totally worth the risk.

Jay’s session last year was my favorite session (check out his quote in one of my CMWorld roundups from 2016) and his keynote this year was even better. As I sat through his keynote, I kept thinking of all the content campaigns I had created in the past year that were just average and how only a few would fall into the different and unique category.

Ann Handley tweeted my next pick: this slide from Linda Boff, CMO at GE, reminding us that “stories are right under your nose.”

There really isn’t much else to add. But yes, a million percent yes.

My final fave of the day comes from film director and YouTuber Casey Neistat, but I cheated. It’s not a tweet. During his keynote, Neistat shared a video he created for Nike called “Make It Count.”

Neistat took Nike’s film budget and did something unexpected. The video was so off the books and such a risk, but it worked. I walked out of the keynote really taking the message of make it count, both in content marketing and in my life. I can’t wait to see what messages I take away from the next day of #CMWorld.