Author: admin

“Your best men die in alleys under a sheet of paper while your worst men get statues in parks for pigeons to shit upon for centuries.” – Charles Bukowski

You know me. I’m a big ol’ poetry and prose nerd.

This quote from Betting on the muse (Page 70) hits pretty hard. Especially if you look at the shit show of the world right now with all the wars and terrible politicians hovering about…

Now chances are I’m going to upset someone because this isn’t written in a gender neutral tone and 2025 is just fucking wild about shit like that. I still can’t wrap my head around people who actively go out of their way to be offended.

(That’s at topic for another email)

So when you look at this quote. I’m just going to try and say what he must’ve meant…

The good ones? The real ones? (Men)

They die unknown, unpublished, unloved, maybe even unwashed. Buried under the weight of their own words

(paper as coffin, paper as shroud, paper as last will and testament written in cheap ink and cheaper blood)

The bad ones? (Politicians and shot callers, also them men BUT they are arseholes)

They get statues. Bronze. Marble. Pigeon loafed and sun bleached. Celebrated for generations. Their mediocrity immortalised in bird crap and civic pride.

Now. Why does this matter for writers?

It’s all algorithms and A.I. lately.

It feels like any form of creativity is being chewed up like there’s some sort of buffet at the end of the world…

The world has always celebrated the wrong people.

Ever walk past a statue and wondered, “Who the hell is that guy?”

Writers? The real ones? We’re the dirty faced, ink stained, word drunk weirdos scratching our life work on napkins and crumpled paper at 2AM while the world sleeps and the robots (who are slowly taking over the world) dream electric sheep…

What I’ve noticed is, A.I. doesn’t give you honesty. A.I. gives you consensus. Smooth, frictionless, algorithm approved slop.

Honesty? Honesty is gravel in your oatmeal. Honesty is ugly. Unmarketable. Human. Which also seems to be lacking in the marketing and advertising world since these theft machines have been slapped into our faces.

Brutal honesty is the only weapon we have left.

The job of the writer has always been to tell the truths nobody else will tell and that’s all gotten lost in the last few years.

Not the politicians.

Not the business bros. Thought leaders anyone? lol.

And definitely not the machines. At the moment they get everything and in a few years. They’ll probably get your soul.

We the writers out there are the ones left holding the torch.

We’re the ones who have to keep people on the straight and narrow.

We have to be honest, because nobody else will be. Honesty is a mess and if you look at the world right now. The world doesn’t seem to like honesty.

You gotta bleed on the page. Then everyone can stay clean.

We see the rot. We name the rot.

We don’t get statues, but we get the last word.

We’re the last line of defence against the comfort food that is A.I. slop.

I mean if you want a statue. Cool cool. Go be a politician.

You want the truth?

Follow the trail of blood, ink, and half finished stories into the alleys. Where the best people die, but the best words live.

We’re the last of a dying breed. We’re the bastards with a match lighting up the dark. Hoping and praying we don’t drop it…

Stephen Walker.

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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom

So the last few days I’ve been watching some classic late 90s / early 2000s films.

It’s like getting hit by a freight train of nostalgia when you think that we did things like wait to record a song on cassette tape.

Or like when you had to choose which VHS tape you were going to tape over to catch something new.

What about when you went into a coffee shop and grabbed a drink and sat with your friends and there was nothing but a good time, giggles and catch up after school was let out for whatever.

I miss the days where you’d go to a cinema while you’d happily pay for the over priced snacks too…

But when went to grab your seat. There weren’t endless amounts of glow-y sadness rectangles lit up.

Maybe a little chitter chatter before the film started but as soon as the lights darkened. You were absorbed and present. Your ass was glued to that seat. Waiting.

We never rushed. We just embraced that period of time where we were sucked into the story.

What happened to that?

We’re always on but never present. We’re reactive to everything but never romantic about anything else.

Stop to smell the roses? Na. I’d rather scroll Instagram for a few minutes.

Do you ever slow down and turn yourself off from this always on world. Or are you addicted to chasing the next notification of dopamine?

Genuinely interested in finding out because there more I observe. The more I realise we’re all slowly going insane because of everything around us.

I haven’t read this book since 2016 but I think I need to go and stick my face inside of its pages again.

Stephen Walker.

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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom

Peter picked a pack of perfect professional prompts…

(Or so he thought)

A mega pack containing 5000+ prompts to take your online business to the next level!

To save all of your entrepreneurial woes with a simple copy and paste!

It’s going to 10x his income when he gets to using it all…

…and it only cost him $69

“It’s a deal. It’s a steal. It’s a sale of the fuckin’ ” century as Tom from Lock stock and two smoking barrels would say.

Except it wasn’t.

Peter is now stuck with a pdf document filled with silly little phrases that do absolutely nothing when he throws it into his theft machine of choice.

I mean it spits something out that sounds and looks smart.

But honestly he doesn’t really know. It’s cause he has forever looked for shortcuts instead of doing what the kids would suggest.

Which is “git gud!”

So he snuck online and bought something that will just sit on his desktop and die a slow and painful death.

He got a little hit of dopamine as they all do when they get something that MIGHT make the difference.

But we all know…

He’ll rinse and repeat that cycle because everyone online are forever hyping the A.I. trash.

He’ll be looking for the next best pack.

He’ll become what I like to call;

Promptstitute

Aimlessly wandering the online spaces where the loudest guru’s shout about A.I. and how it’s an absolute game changer for all things business.

But we all know it’s not.

Now Peter can do the sensible thing and either hire someone like me to do all of what he needs doing for a hefty fee…

Or he could do the next best thing and pick up On Writing by Ernest Hemingway

I’ve said this for years that writing is thinking and good thinking becomes good writing.

We might not hit it out of the park all of the time, but when we do. The words wake people up and move them to action.

Anyone can learn to think like a writer but the ones who put their ass into the chair and bleed.

Those are the writers you need to look out for. They are the ones who will change the world.

Stephen Walker.

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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom

“Every day, bite off a little more than you can chew… And chew it.” – Michael Singer

Howdy 🙂

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It’s been a minute.

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Forgive me if these emails are a little inconsistent at the moment.

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I’m in the dead center of the busiest summer I can remember…

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Running FounderLab
Prepping a full week of fresh material for our August retreat
Coaching a group of one on one clients

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…Plus all the usual stuff on top of it.

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A few months ago, I was speaking to a friend about how crazy this stretch of time will be.

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She listened calmly, patiently. Smiled. Looked me in the eye.

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And replied, very simply:

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“Get bigger.”

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In other words…

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When you have no choice but to grow, something amazing happens:

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You do.

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Forcing yourself to chew what you’ve bitten off isn’t always comfortable, but damn it works.

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There’s a trick to making it work, though, that most people skip because it’s the hard, scary part:

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You can’t give yourself a way out.

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I have no choice but to produce ~2-3 hours of fresh FounderLab course material every week…

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(which takes ~10-15 hours to create)

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…Because every Saturday morning, 15 hungry entrepreneurs will show up for our next session ready to work.

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Meanwhile, I have no choice but to produce a full week of new material for our August retreat…

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…Because, ready or not, the crew arrives in 3 weeks — and they expect me to deliver.

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And you can be damn sure I will.

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Same goes for one on one coaching:

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There are people — people I deeply care about — who depend on me to do whatever it takes to guide them through the maze of growing their business.

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And being “busy” is no excuse not to deliver.

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In other words, I’ve given myself no way out.

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I bit off more than I could chew, and now I’m chewing it.

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And each day, I realize:

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I can chew more than I thought.

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But if I didn’t have strict deadlines, and people who depend on me meeting them?

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I’d almost definitely take the easy route and spit some of it out.

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Which is the whole trick:

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There can be no easy route.

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No way around the mountain but to climb it.

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So that’s what I’m doing this summer.

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If you want to do the same, here are a few ideas…

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Organize a launch before you’ve built the product — with a date, a sales page, and people expecting delivery — and you will find a way to build it in time. 

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Sign up for a Vipassana retreat where you have no choice but to meditate 10 hours a day, and you will meditate 10 hours a day.

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Sign a lease in a new city before you’ve found a job there — and you will find a way to make rent.

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Take on a client project beyond your current capabilities, and you will find a way to develop those capabilities. 

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If this sounds risky, that’s because it is.

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But that’s also the point.

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Take the leap, and you’ll have no choice but to grow wings on the way down.

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Apologies in advance. And, you’re welcome.

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Godspeed.

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T

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P.S. Next week, we’re remixing one of our most popular series’ from last summer.

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Stay tuned 🙂

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In the meantime, here are…
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3 things to make your weekend better

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​That Will Never Work​

Founder of Netflix tells his story. A little less dramatic than Shoe Dog (also highly recommended), but entertaining and very useful. I’m enjoying it.

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​Her​

The first time I saw this trailer I thought: “That looks stupid.” But I’m doing a deep dive on AI right now, so I watched it — and turns out, I’m the stupid one. Completely understand why it won an Oscar and was nominated for four more. So, so good.

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​The AI scientist shaping the world​

Speaking of AI… This short mini-doc on OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever was excellent. (don’t watch if you’re easily disturbed by AI-talk).

“Being lost in thought while you’re awake is like dreaming without knowing that you’re dreaming.” – Sam Harris

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Date: 11 July 2025

(Wait. Scratch that, citizen. It’s 2047 in the Reckoning of the Rain Lords. Time slips like a soggy teabag in this heat choked hellscape…)

You. Yes, you, hunkered in your fog shrouded flat, peering out at the sky like it’s personally betrayed you.

You sip your tepid tea, that bitter brew of empire’s ghosts and oversteeped regret, and what do you do?

Complain. Always complaining.

Too hot?

“Blimey, it’s a bleedin’ furnace out there. Feels like the sun’s gone rogue, innit?”

Too cold?

“Cor, this chill’s gnawing at me bones like a rabid fox in a snowdrift.”

Back and forth, a pendulum of piss and vinegar, swinging eternal in the gray void of British endurance…

If you’re reading this and thinking, “Oi, this email’s a bit much,” congrats…

You’re complaining again. Feed the machine, why don’t you?

We’ve all died a million times since the great heatwave of 2025…

Now we’re trapped in a future where we’re the fuel.

You think those complaints vanish into the ether? Nah. They’re harvested, you see. Sucked up by the Whinge Engines. Those hulking beasts squatting in the ruins of Big Ben, grinding your gripes into energy for the elite.

Your “too hot” moans power their air conditioned bunkers; your “too cold” curses stoke the furnaces that keep their champagne chilled. You’re the battery, luv.

A human Duracell dipped in perpetual dissatisfaction…

And then you snap away from this wild dream and realise hey. We can’t have it all.

Enjoy the weather while it lasts.

It’s the most typical British thing to moan about.

Stephen “The Overseer of Optimal Outrage” Walker

P.S. Recovery tip: Try smiling at the sky. It might not eat you. Today.

P.P.S. You can tell the heat has fried my brain and so you’re getting the whimsy of my writer-ly brain which was inspired by our old boy George Orwell.

And if you’ve learnt something from these emails. It’s all about having fun while writing them.

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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom

My buddy Brandon runs a TikTok account which posts some incredibly unhinged satirical/parody/rage-bait posts.

You might’ve seen his videos do the rounds on all of the platforms because it shows you how easy it is to trigger people in general.

And triggering people seems to be the number one way to go viral.

And as much as I have a flaming hatred for TikTok.

He manages to show you the levels of insanity that people have hit.

Whether it’s gotten worse since 2020. I dunno…

I’ll leave that up to you to decide.

But I’d highly recommend you go watch some of his stuff though.

It’s been one of those weeks. So if you need a good chuckle go give his stuff a watch. Just don’t get sucked into the comments cause it’s a damn warzone.

(I’ve never given a bad recommendation too, right?)

He loves to poke which is exactly what I like to do too.

Lastly as much as I love his humour.

The saying here in England is;

It’s like marmite. You either hate it or you love it.

I’m confident you’ll at least snicker or chortle at how outrageously serious he comes across in his videos. You might love it too…

Check him out here

Stephen Walker.

P.S. I’m still wrestling with this forum software. I swear I’ve nearly aged another 10 years lol.

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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom

I was going to write an email about how entrepreneurship is just cleverly disguised personal development.

But when I sat down to write it. My brain decided nope. I don’t want you writing smart stuff right now.

I want you to talk about the cat that nearly followed you home this morning.

So this is the email…

I needed coffee. I ran out of milk. I had to engage in Mortal Kombat with Martha to get the best AND freshest of milk for my coffee.

Unfortunately. Martha won.

However. I was the true winner of the morning, cause as I was walking home…

This absolute menace of a cat decide it wanted attention and well. I just had to oblige. Pets and scritches were on the menu and as much as I would’ve happily stolen the kitty away. I chose not to obviously.

Then I also realised that no matter how caught up we get in our lives. Our animal counterparts are there to remind us to just take a little time to stop and enjoy whatever it is that you’re doing.

We’re too damn busy rushing around and honestly, who wants rush themselves into an early grave?

I also get that we use our constant busy-ness-ness as a coping mechanism. I mean I do it too.. (You’re not alone)

But every now and then. Just stop. Take a deep breath. Have a good coffee and if the opportunity is there to pet kitties… Well. Do that too.

Now it’s time to soak myself in a bath filled with epsom salts and think about that smart email for tomorrow.

Stephen Walker.

P.S. LOOK AT THAT KITTY

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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom

You wake up one Monday. Which is today…

Because time is a flat circle and you’re trapped in it.

You feel like Sisyphus with a French press.

There’s a meme making the rounds again. Something about how if you just stop buying coffee out, you’ll retire by thirty five. Maybe thirty six if you’re a slow learner.

The math is suspect.

The hope is infectious.

You stare into the existential abyss of your kitchen sink, which is to say: a chipped mug, a lone spoon, the ghost of last night’s dreams.

No barista in sight. No artfully poured milk foam.

A sad, blank canvas.

You went out to buy a bag of coffee. Not the artisanal stuff, but the kind that comes in a brick, vacuum sealed like a sci fi body bag. You open it and inhale. Regret and hope.

It’s just you and the beans (store brand, because “single origin” is for people who don’t have spreadsheets tracking their emotional debt)

But you’re gonna get fancy now. You’re gonna mash an avocado. No, not with a rustic pestle, but with the back of a fork you found under the couch. Extra crunch comes from mystery crumbs.

Next up. Toast. Ignore the fact that it’s two days past the sell by. Mould is penicillin for the soul, right?

A yuppie snack from home.

But what’s next?

So you calculate your savings…

And at this current period in time you’re practically Warren Buffett.

The final step…

Cackle. Loudly. The neighbours will worry, but that’s fine. You’re retired now. You have time for that.

You imagine a future.

One where you’re lounging on a beach, sipping home brewed joe from a mason jar, the sun bouncing off your SPF 70 slathered nose. You’ve hacked the code. You’ve won.

Except.

The money you save? It’s less “nest egg” and more “slightly larger pile of lint in your bank app.”

The avocado toast? It’s a metaphor for the what the world would call “The American Dream”

Which is green, slippery, likely to turn brown before you’re done…

Your soul? Slowly transforming into a brunch ghost, haunting your own kitchen, muttering about “mouthfeel” and “umami” like a Food Network reject.

And just for fun. Let’s throw in a little horror, shall we? Last night, you dreamt your hand turned to toast. Crusty, brittle, oozing green. You tried to scream, but only crumbs came out. (Don’t worry, Freud would’ve had a field day)

But this wouldn’t be one of my regular ol’ emails without slapping in some advice of the writers variety now wouldn’t it?

Retirement is a mirage.

DIY coffee is a coping mechanism.

Avocado, like hope, browns quickly.

The only thing you’re retiring from is the illusion of control.

You eat your toast. You sip your coffee. You stare at the spreadsheet.

You keep writing. You keep making art. You try your best to make people smile, laugh, cry or at least get off the couch with a bit of motivation. Cause as the years pass. You realise that the things you enjoy will keep you sane.

Memes floating around telling you to quit eating avocado on toast and drinking expensive coffees out can get bent…

I had my fancy coffee.

I had my avocado on toast AND I also got all the words done for the day.

Why? Cause I needed it.

Stephen Walker

P.S. It’s taking a lot longer than I thought to get this old school forum and community built. There are so many little buttons and tweaks and permissions to hammer down. Just so that people can’t come in and ruin shit from the get go.

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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom