Archive of posts from May 2026

Life is too short to merely follow all the rules, do your job, pay your taxes, and pass away.

Much too short.

Forget the rules. Forget the status games. Forget the comparisons and trinkets and nonsense.

Make your thing, love your people, and forget those still caught up in the nonsense.

Life is simply way, way, way too short.

What makes a great tool?

A premium notebook that’s so pretty you daren’t write in it… or a cheap notebook so quick to scuff that you enjoy using it and throwing it around?

Software that’s slick and minimal, but does half the things you need with bugs to fix… or software that’s old and clunky-looking, but does everything you need with bugs long fixed?

An e-reader that holds thousands of books but needs replacing as the tech ages… or a handful of dog-eared physical books you’ve felt, re-read, and deeply internalized?

The latest smartphone with the latest distracting features… or an old basic phone that never pulls you away from your focused, meaningful work?

No right or wrong answers. There’s something for everyone. But it’s worth asking yourself what makes a great tool, then shopping for that, instead of just buying what the marketing says.

What do we do when “new and improved” isn’t working?

When videogames get ridiculous prices and bloated with in-app purchases, enthusiasts produce gems like “Goldeneye X” to add their favorite improvements to their favorite old games.

When car manufacturers pepper their new offerings with subscription extras and annoying beeping features, enthusiasts turn to renovating their old rides and sharing an appreciation for vintage.

When big tech offerings become ad-laden, ai-stuffed and pricier without any improvements actual customers want, enthusiasts turn to linux distros and build on-ramps to open alternatives.

“New and improved” isn’t a given.

If you stop listening to customers, some will shift to “old and improved” instead.

I was fortunate enough to be laughed at by some of the kids, back in highschool, around 2002.

It meant I learned to do my thing (back then it was making comics, videogames, animations, and card games) and putting some of them on my website for free, and others in my backpack to sell on the schoolyard.

Some laughed, said they were lame, thought it was silly, and questioned why they’d buy things from me when they could go and buy “real” ones from the store.

Others thought it was cool. They bought my games on floppy disk. They bought my card games and the expansion packs I’d have printed and cut out the night before. They’d go to my site and read — and play — my work. We even had a tournament set up in school for the card game.

Thank goodness some laughed. It gave me the strength to learn how to do novel things anyway, despite what others thought.

It’s worked out well for me so far. I have no plan on stopping. I hope you’ll join me.

If you make your price cheap because you think it’ll win more customers, beware.

The moment someone else is cheaper, they’re gone. Because they bought you on price.

Do you want to be bought for price?

Or do you want to be bought for value, novelty, relational equity, contribution, status, or any number of other reasons?

Most of them are a race upwards, to provide more value, more novelty, more contribution, etc.

Only price is a race downwards, to zero.

Are we really going to choose that one?

One of the gifts AI has given real artists, is the ability to see our art more clearly.

Before generative tools existed, we just thought of art as the whole thing - the process, the product, the person, all kind of mixed together. We never questions the component parts, or their relation to one another. Why would we?

But now generative tools exist, widely rejected as artists in favor of “making our own art”, we get to question what exactly it is that we’re rejecting.

When generative tools can produce finished pieces, flawed as they are, we say “that’s not art”. And we don’t say that because it puts six fingers on a hand. That’s not why it’s not art. I’ve drawn most of my characters with four fingers for decades, as a style choice. That doesn’t make my art “not art”.

So it’s not “not art” on technicalities. It’s “not art” for deeper reasons that, prior to generative tools, we may have missed entirely.

Why do we connect with “real” art, and feel so empty when looking at generated images?

Lots of reasons. The knowing that someone toiled at it. The knowing that someone had a lived experience that brought them to a moment where that art needed to be made, by them, at that time. The knowing that someone’s process is developing, and this is part of their journey that we got to share with them. The knowing we can go and look up that artist and learn more about their journey.

Art is a conversation without words, a bonding, a relationship. Generated images is an output, a decoy, with no relationship possible.

Even when brands deploy art in their marketing materials, the same is true there. Real art lets us converse with the brand — and the artist who represented it — without words, letting us bond and relate with both identities. It’s communal. When brands generate images instead, all that disappears.

We used to try to grow as artists by merely improving our output. Thanks to AI, we can now see that growth as artists is about having better conversations through our work.

I’m thankful for that realization.

We should write more. Draw more. Make more.

Not because it’s for a project. Just “because”. For the hell of it.

Because when we’re gone, it’s all that remains.

And those who love us might really thank us for leaving more of ourselves behind for them to cherish.

One of the things my mum taught me, was how to enjoy today while fighting for tomorrow.

Live today like it’s the last one, don’t sweat the things others sweat. This is all thats guaranteed, so enjoy it and be happy.

And

Fight today like you’re going to fight and fight and fight for many many years to come. As more problems come, fight those too. You’ll know when it’s time to stop.

I don’t know if she knows she’s teaching me that lesson.

But she’s still teaching me that lesson.

And she’ll keep teaching me that lesson when she’s gone.

And I’ll continue trying to be a good student, and let the lesson live on through me, to teach to my son, too.

Life’s long until it isn’t.

For every craft you pursue, remember to enjoy it for what it is today.

For every project you work on, remember to enjoy what it looks like today.

For every client you work with, remember to enjoy the work as it is today.

For every recruit you hire, remember to enjoy them as they are today.

If you can’t do that, maybe they’re not for you.

Because life’s long until it isn’t.

Mascots are back on the rise.

Duolingo’s participatory, contextual expressions that transcend the app to the icon itself.

Pepsi bringing back Coke’s polar bear to anthropomorphise rivalry.

Apple’s ‘Little Finder’ to promote the Neo to Gen Z.

They’re back. Because they’re full of personality, let people direct relational equity to that personality, form bonds and feel like they’re entering a world, not just buying a product.

I’ve been advocating for mascots since forever.

This isn’t an “I told you so”, but it’s absolutely a “don’t be afraid to bring your work to life with personality because you think it might make you look silly”.

Multi-trillion dollar companies seem to get on just fine with it.

“I can develop sites without a developer!” says the designer.

“I can design sites without a designer!” says the developer.

“I can write site copy without a copywriter!” says both of them.

“I can generate the whole thing without any of you!” says the site owner.

All of them are both right and wrong.

They’re right, in that it’s possible to marginalize every area they lack in taste or mastery, with slop.

They’re wrong, in that it’s impossible to know every mastery like the masters do, so they’ve no idea what magic they’re passing up by dismissing the masters.

It’s never been easier to be amateur… and, apparently, never been harder to be a master.

If you need the perfect idea, you’ll never start creating.

If you need the perfect notebook, you’ll never start sketching.

If you need the perfect writing app, you’ll never start writing.

If you need the perfect script, you’ll never start acting.

If you need the perfect anything, you might be focused on the wrong thing.

Maybe “slightly better than today” is actually the better path.

Maybe “slightly better than today” compounds over time.

Maybe that compounding effect is the closest thing to perfect we’ve got.

People think the tools keep changing yet the skills you use with them stay the same.

But I love when the opposite is true.

When the tools grow old, and the skills stay new.

In art, you get used to a certain pencil from a certain store… a certain notebook in a certain size, certain paper, certain cover… yet the act of creating art is forever new. There’s always more to learn, more to practice, more to master.

In writing, you get used to a certain keyboard from a certain manufacturer… a certain writing application, certain ritual, certain process… yet the act of writing is forever new. There are always more styles, topics, and mediums to explore and master.

Messing with your tools is a distraction, unless its to benefit the skill. Watercolor needing thicker gsm paper, for instance. But new apps for the sake of new apps, new tools just because they’re trendy, that’s all a distraction from what matters: letting the skills stay new.

That is, if your goal is to continue to grow in the things that matter most in your craft.

I wear a wristwatch I was given for Father’s Day.

It was my dream watch when I was in my early twenties.

You can pick them up for about £25 on eBay (depending on condition). It’s priceless to me.
Not just because it was my dream watch. But specifically because of who got it for me.

Other people have different dream watches. Most of them won’t share my dream.

They’ll all tell the time “the right way” for them. Yet “the right way” is completely different to them all.

When you try to create something for ‘everyone’, and they all have differing ideas of what they want…

How can you create for ‘everyone’, really?

Maybe there is no ‘everyone’.

Maybe there’s a much larger number of people in the niche of “someone” you choose, than in the pool of “everyone”.

Better just choose your “someone”, then.

There are two stories being told, when you build something.

The first is the story you tell others. Every product, service and project is a story. The way we express it and connect with it is a story. If something isn’t working, consider looking at the story, and see what might want to change there.

The second is the story you tell yourself. Every creator tells themselves a story. The way we relate to the work we put into the world is a story. If something isn’t working, consider looking at your story, and see if you’re being too hard on yourself, expecting results too early, or any number of other inner-dialog issues that could be holding you back.

When in doubt, look at the stories.

Why do you take photos?

Sony’s Xperia 1VIII launched with an “AI Camera Assistant” that suggests entirely new, generated compositions of your pictures.

That way, you don’t take photos. You take prompts. Prompts that generate images that may be a bit like what you saw, but not really. A library of images similar to the memories you could have captured, if you where to have taken photos instead.

That feeling of “wait, that misses the point of taking photos” is indicative of so much art today.

Sony did a wonderful job of helping us understand what we don’t really like about AI generated images.

We rarely create with a blank canvas.

Normally, the canvas has certain expectations before the first brush stroke is made. And those expectations can be wonderful for creativity.

I thought of this while perusing a gardening magazine this morning.

The rising temperatures in the UK, mixed with pricing challenges and wild weather, is causing huge disruption across gardens across the country. Some are electing not to bother with their gardens anymore, astroturfing the problems away.

Others are seeing opportunity for creativity. Swapping annuals for perrenials. Growing shorter more resilient plants that need less water and soil disturbance. Little changes to their rituals that can produce a slightly different type of garden, but one no less beautiful.

And so it is with economic crises, turbulent markets, rising competition, or any other constraint that may come one’s way.

Better to see constraints as a playful companion, nudging you toward a creative solution, than an enemy trying to ruin your day.

Our work is so much better for it when we befriend constraints.

Wired headphones are back.

Breaking into fashion amidst increasing distrust of tech companies and the cost of living crisis.

Let’s keep in mind:

Wired EarPods cost $19. Wireless AirPods (the wire killer) is closer to $250, but we don’t have headphone jacks anymore.

A DVD costs $5 one-time. Netflix (the DVD collection killer) is closer to $20/month, but we don’t have DVD players anymore.

A CD costs $10 one-time. Spotify (the music collection killer) is closer to $13/month, but we don’t have CD players anymore.

But some people are going back to wires, buying adapters to get their headphone jacks back.

And they’re ripping physical media again, so they can use DVDs and CDs with the tech they have.

Perhaps the old pattern of “create new technology, strangle the old way, creep up the price” isn’t working out so well anymore for the Silicon Valley elite.

Perhaps there’s a limit to how far the public can be pushed, before they push back.

Perhaps listening to what customers want, and making that for them, could be a better model than playing games with them until they revolt.

Perhaps thats what companies should have been doing all along.

Perhaps thats what consumers should have voted for with their dollars all along.

Perhaps there’s still time.

Meta declined for the first time since ever, reportedly down 20 million daily active users last quarter.

It could be because people didn’t want to be legless avatars in a metaverse.

It could be because people didn’t want an AI model nobody asked for pushed on them.

It could be because people didn’t want to see back-to-back ads instead of organic posts.

It could be because people didn’t want creepy smart glasses nobody asked for pushed on them.

It could be because listening to customers, and making things they want, is a lost art among the tech elite.

Yeah, it’s probably that.

How do you know if your marketing is working?

If your marketing team increases MQLs, but close rates decline because lead quality is down… is your marketing working?

If your post-sale team’s new referral system creates new MQLs, but SDRs take the credit despite flat reception… is your marketing working?

When things are so complex that everyone focuses on their own little piece of the puzzle just to make sense of what they do… is your marketing working?

It’s tough to answer. Everyone defines success differently, and none of the definitions can truly answer whether or not marketing — all of it — is working.

It’s easier when everyone defines success the same way. For things to be simple enough that everyone can easily remember the entire plan regardless of their role, and how their actions contribute to the common goal.

No more places to hide. Everyone measured on their ability to execute the same plan. No blame games, no “that’s not my job” just one team, with one plan, and one goal.

Simplicity removes hiding places.

Old, musty car. No air conditioning. No music. The driver is socially-awkward, but knows the specific route you want to take like the back of his hand, and has taken that sole route every day for almost a decade.

Compare that to a brand new, year-model car. Freshly gassed AC. Chilled waterbottles in seatback nets. Your favorite jazz band on the radio. Friendly driver, who makes his way around with his smartphone’s maps app, joining the same congested route as everyone else because he doesn’t know the local secrets.

Which ride do you choose?

The answer tells us a lot about how much we understand about focusing on what matters.

Is a $200,000 Birkin bag expensive?

After all, it only costs $800-1,400 to produce. It’s a $1k bag with a $199k story attached to it.

What’s the story? For its target market, it’s the feeling of being a better, more important, higher status individual than everybody else around them.

A Rolls-Royce Phantom sells the same story for $500,000. A whopping $301k more expensive story than the Birkin, yet designed to achieve the same feeling.

For the target market, the Birkin bag is a steal.

But facts about the bag don’t make it a steal.
Nor do “offer stacks” or “limited time offers”.
The story makes it a steal.

The desk is brown. The coffee is going cold. The notebook is open. The magazine is creased. The monitor is dusty.

If we held onto every piece of information, our minds would explode. Our brains are excellent at “thoughtfully forgetting” information, holding on to only that which is most obviously pertinent to our wellbeing.

Good stories are the exception.

We remember our spouse’s birthday because it has a story associated with it. It could be, “I love buying them a gift, I love the way they light up when they open it” because its part of our own story of “being a good spouse”. Alternatively, it could be “I must not forget to get them a card or they’ll rip me a new one” because its part of our own story of “preferring not to sleep on the couch”.

Two different stories. One outcome: remembering a date.

Facts may help people intellectually understand, but brains treat stories just like lived experiences. There is movement, tension, consequence, meaning, emotion, and self-preservation all at play when a story shows up.

That makes our brains deem them far more likely to be worth remembering.

We humans don’t think in facts. We feel in stories.

People edit their photographs because the story they tell themselves about their lives matters more than an accurate representation of what happened.

People universally hate movies where “the dog dies” because the feeling spoils the rest of the movie. They can’t get into the movie anymore, therefore it was bad.

People gladly pay $9.99 + free shipping, but almost never pay $5 + $5 shipping.

People can’t remember a series of random numbers they heard ten seconds ago, yet can recite the lyrics to their favorite childhood cartoon theme song that they’ve not heard in thirty years.

Discretionary effort counts double because, while functionally redundant, it makes people feel vastly more cared for.

Stories don’t just pass through the language centers of the brain. They activate emotional and sensory regions too. The brain treats stories more like lived experiences than abstract information.

We don’t feel facts.

We feel stories.

Perhaps part of our continued education should focus less on gathering more facts… and a little more on feeling stories.

People are messy and contradictory. They think they’re logical, while being emotional. They think they’re buying utility when actually buying status, or the other way around. Carefully evaluate whether a $6 book is worth the money while sipping a $6 coffee they didn’t think twice about.

This is news to brands. While they articulate features, stats, charts and frameworks, “but wait, there’s more”-ing themselves into marginalized obscurity, people don’t give them a second look.

Not because the brand didn’t have a good offer.

But because the brand didn’t have a good story.

When I started using the Internet, people didn’t come here for riches.

They didn’t “create content” to lure you into a “funnel” to pitch products at you.

They didn’t chat with you purely to evaluate whether or not you’re a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL).

They didn’t contribute to things only because there’s an invoice at the end.

We used to create together for the joy of making a “web” worth visiting. We all made it better, together.

We used to chat together for the joy of sharing common interests, and mobilising around ideas because of it.

We used to contribute to projects we liked because thats how things got made. A bit of all our time, together.

I miss that Internet.

How we see ourselves changes how we see our work.

For instance. I think of myself as an artist.

So when I’m leading my team, I see it as an artist, leading a team. I show up differently because of it. I draw my ideas, treat conversations like a canvas everyone can make a mark on, and look for opportunities for art to lead in the work we make.

Or when I’m writing code, I write code as an artist, too. Even when I’m in Vim — a keyboard-only text editor with no mouse input — I use it on a Cintiq with a Wacom pen between my fingers — all artist tools specifically optimized for non-keyboard inputs. Partly because it’s a twenty-year habit of nearly always having a pen in my hand… and partly because it reminds me to think through code challenges visually on a canvas. I don’t need AI to show me how to solve a problem, I just need a white page to sketch on.

Or when I’m leading a Zoom call, I use Zoom as an artist — a screenshare of a blank white canvas comes up immediately, and what we discuss becomes a sketch of notes and thoughts connected with bubbles and lines. I don’t need a summarization tool to write transcriptions nobody will ever read, we have a sketch instead.

How you see yourself will affect your work, too. Worth think about.

I was chatting with my neighbor in the lane today.

We’re both fairly tech-savvy, using technology extensively in our projects.

And it reminded me that there are always more than one way to go about things, even when you think the path is obvious.

His tech-savvy led him to automating his entire home. Everything, controllable from his phone. It’s very cool.

My tech-savvy led me to minimizing tech as much as possible. From having being so exposed to it, I love the low-tech, tactile alternatives to tech-everything. Physical notebooks and calendars. Drawing on paper. Light switches that are on or off, no UI. A local, owned music collection. Card games over TV. Gardening by hand rather than with those little robot things that tootle around yards.

Both are responses to tech-savvy.

It’s a reminder, to me anyway, that opposite of a good idea may also be another good idea.

I’ve long been an advocate for daily rituals.

Such as this daily journal, for instance. It doesn’t take long, but it gives myself — and others — a glimpse into what goes on in my mind.

Here’s another daily ritual worth thinking about:

A daily thank-you note.

To colleagues, employees, customers, relatives… and if you’ve exhausted all those, strangers.

It’ll make us more thankful people, while making someone else’s day.

Like any daily ritual, I like to commit to doing it once. Then to doing it again the next day. And the next day. Then to a week. Then a month. Then 100 days. Then see how long it goes for.

This daily journal is a 3,058 day streak so far. The ritual works, and the benefit is win-win.

Worth considering.

Making growth fun is a passion as well as a business, for me.

In case you enjoy free comics and insightful takeaways from great books, you might enjoy taking a peek at the latest changes to m newsletter: https://mredutainment.com/growthcandy

Each issue includes a comic skit to remember the lesson, coupled with an illustrated breakdown of a topic, complete with illustrations of the book author being covered.

Take a peek. It’s enjoyed by thousands, and I’d love for you to join them if you haven’t already.

List the projects you have on right now.

If you had to kill one of them, which would it be? Why did you choose that one?

Okay. Now do it again, out of those that remain. Which would it be? Why did you choose it?

Do it again.

Hmm. Three projects — important projects — just got axed. With justification.

Why are you doing those projects, again?

Would it be better to focus on those that remain, instead?