Archive of posts from November 2025

‘Momentum’ is one of the best feelings.

‘Stuck’ is one of the worst.

Everyone wants momentum.

But momentum doesn’t start big.

It starts really, really small.

So smal it feels pointless.
So small that no one notices.
So small that you question if it matters.

But small is where momentum comes from.

Don’t wait for big.
It ain’t coming.

Team members: “I’m drowning, I hate all of this, I can’t go another day like this.”

Managers: “I believe in you and believe you’ll hit the deadline.”

Leaders have a lot to learn about EQ.

Brand positioning in a nutshell:

“It’s that, plus this.”

“It’s this, minus that.”

“It’s that, but for these.”

“It’s that, combined with this.”

Know which you are, and lean in.

Struggle to come up with content ideas?

Find someone you enjoy talking to…

And complain.

Complain about the things that wind you up.

Get a proper strop on about it and how you’d do it differently.

There’s a week of content ideas right there!

Fall in love with mastery: be anxious.

Fall in love with the pursuit of mastery: enjoy every day.

The first kind is seeking relief, or a byproduct.

The second kind realizes the more they know, the more they know they don’t know.

Endless enjoyment.

Marketers track the wrong things.

Clicks? Signups? Appointments? They’re metrics… But in isolation they don’t say much on their own.

E.g. tracking appointments set. Not how enthusiastic the booking was. Not whether or not they showed up, and in what mood or with what interest. Or whether they bought something, or whether they were biting your hand off or reluctant.

Just “appointments”.

The best thing to optimize for isn’t individual stats.

The best thin to optimize for is your ability to do things people love so much they come to you, asking for it, then love it so much they tell their friends.

“Procrastination” and “Research” look similar from the outside.

You can convince yourself you’re doing the latter vs the former.

The best way to really spot the difference?

Look yourself in the mirror.

You’ll know.

People have always feared blank pages.

It’s one of the reasons people love AI so much.

It protects them from blank pages, having no ideas, having to start from nothing.

Yet those blank pages are an essential part of being great at what you do.

I stare at blank pages every day. Including this daily blog practice.

If I stay with blank pages, ideas are infinite.

If I phone it into AI, the idea muscle will atrophy.

Everyone is letting their idea muscles atrophy.

Idea muscles are becoming rarer.

Maybe it’s worth sticking with the fear, and holding onto yours.

“Busy” is a trap.

The feeling of activity mixed with a false sense of importance.

Only to realize that, by the end of the week, you didn’t really get anything done.

Again.

Quit busy. You can create so much more when you do.

Where does confidence come from?

Not the “puff yourself up and act like it” kind. That’s bravado, not confidence.

The real kind.

In my experience, it isn’t a feeling.

It’s a consequence.

A consequence of keeping promises to yourself.

Of doing the work when no one is watching.

Of showing up long before you feel ready.

Confidence doesn’t precede action.

It’s earned from action.

So take action.

The project you’re thinking of putting off?

Because it’s not a good time, or you think you don’t have enough time, or because you’re not ready?

Remember that time is short, soon you’ll be gone, as will everything you create, and every memory of it.

It won’t matter forever, but it matters now.

Make the time.

Those who complain about not having enough time?

Are often the ones who don’t realize how time-rich they are.

The ones who actually don’t have enough time aren’t spending it complaining about how they don’t have enough time. They’re quietly getting on with what must be done.

Worth keeping in mind.

‘Simple’ can be scary.

‘Simple’ removes hiding places.
‘Simple’ reveals responsibility.
‘Simple’ exposes what you should do next…
…even if it’s not what you want to do next.

Complexity is safer. It lets you pretend the problem is the system, not the effort.

And so we overcomplicate things. For comfort.

It pays to make peace with cold, hard simplicity.

Most don’t quit when it’s hard.

They quite when it’s quiet.

That’s when the inner-voices come alive.

Telling you you’ve exercised enough today and it’s okay to stop.
Telling you you might be going the wrong way and should re-evaluate.
Telling you nobody wants what you’re making so maybe it’s time to quit.

The ones who keep going aren’t stronger.

They’re just better at being quiet.

“Choosing” is a skill.

People want the choice to be made for them:

Empirical data indicating you should go this way.
Market pressure steering you should go that way.
A stakeholder saying you shouldn’t go either way.
Doing research to determine if you should anyway.

“Something.”

Anything but choosing.

Choosing to create art in your work by making a decision based on what feels right to you and how you see the world.

Choosing to make something different, something unique, with a taste that select others might share.

Choosing to be known for that taste, building a tribe around that taste, those who look forward to what you’ll choose next.

Choose.

Do you need more ideas, or fewer excuses?

Most people are overflowing with both ideas and excuses not to explore them.

Perhaps secretly, you are, too.

So one more time:

Do you need more ideas, or fewer excuses?

Everyone wants to scale at any cost.

But consider these un-scalable merits:

Committing to being uniquely brilliant at your craft.

Being so indispensable you’d be missed if you were gone.

Producing rare, finite bodies of work people look forward to.

The irony of these merits?

They’re what people trying to scale at any cost, are usually looking for.

In some games, you can be sure of the rules.

Where winning and losing hinges upon knowing them, and abiding by them.

In other games, you can be sure of surprise.

Where each time you play, something unexpected and enjoyable happens.

The same is true of marketing experiences.

McDonalds is better suited to the former, and theatre the latter.

Know which one you’re better suited to.

Bad goal: “Be a good dad”
Good goal: “Behave like a great dad, every day”

One is your inputs, the other is decided by your kids.

Bad goal: “Build a business”
Good goal: “Work on your business, every day”

One is your inputs, the other is decided by the market.

Bad goal: “Get fit”
Good goal: “Get on the exercise bike for 30 minutes, every day”

One is your inputs, the other is decided by your biology.

Focus on the inputs.

Buying decisions are often made half-heartedly,
knowing the easy choice probably won’t work,
but no-one stepped up to help the decision.
To help them over their mental hurdles.
To really solve the problem.

So they buy a cheapo-depot course, watch the first two videos, then re-enter the market 12 months later still in need of a solution.

Sometimes people choose no-decision and live with the pain over a solution…

Sometimes people choose a lousy-decision and live with the pain over a solution…

What they needed was someone to be brave enough to really try and help them. To listen.

To figure out how to help them move past their insecurities. To risk being shot down for saying the right thing.

“I collect strategies to implement in my business.”

I heard an entrepreneur with a net worth of $600 million say that. And thought…

“…imagine what you could do if you focused on one.”

Sales reps are easy scapegoats for revenue shortcomings.

Just like Devs are easy scapegoats for design shortcomings.

If you want a scapegoat, look at those on the edge.

If you want to solve the problem, look upstream.

Pick up your instrument, and play it every day.

Don’t worry about obsession and success and failure.

Don’t worry about what others did or might do or not do.

Don’t worry about what it all means, where it’s all going.

Just pick up your instrument, and play it every day.