Author: admin

Sometimes we need to sit down and have a proper moan.

Life is frustrating a lot of the times. Especially when things go wrong.

And as much as it’s good to think positively and be optimistic about things. We can’t ignore the negative and dark side of the emotions we feel. After all…

We’re governed by how we feel. Now usually the pendulum should swing in equal measures but always end up more on the positive side.

Lately though it’s getting stuck on the negative side a little more. I mean if you jump onto social media or turn on the T.V. or even pick up that old paper thing called a newspaper. It feels like every form of negativity gets shoved right into our eyeballs.

I mean we all know that negativity is a quick way to garner attention and that’s not the good kind.

So today I’m just going to slip in a little reminder that everything we do. Whether good or bad, positive or negative is a form of energy exchange.

Whether we want to land a new job. Pitch and win a new client. Sell our warez, make more money, Inspire someone or even become a leader to the ones who might want to do what you do. Energy has to be exchanged in equal measures.

And so like I said. Sometimes we need to moan and have a rant and set things on fire. Let that rage fuelled negative fuel us, but when the fire burns out and the ash settles. We need to start changing the type of energy we put out into the world.

The quickest and easiest way to do it (While sounding a little woo woo) is to write down what you’re grateful for and to write down your goals, wants and desires as if you already have them. Present tense baby.

It works like magic. When you start to feel the pull of negativity. Doing this can help flip you out of that mode.

But importantly, you need to balance it all. Feel the feelings even when they’re negative. Acknowledge them and then flip the switch. Exchange that energy and you’ll be good to rock and roll.

With that all said. I’m going into Mortal Kombat with the old school forum software I was talking about.

Gotta put some positive energy into that for the rest of the day.

Stephen Walker.

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

That’s the email…

Okay okay. Not quite…

So. You want to know about the Silly Goose Philosophy?

Keep reading.

Now before we get started you need to know something about Geese. They’re assholes.

Pure, unfiltered, honking chaos machines that’ll chase you across a parking lot for looking at them sideways.

But they’re also brilliant at what they do. They fly in perfect V formations across continents. They mate for life. They protect their own with the fury of a thousand suns.

That’s you, artist. That’s your path.

The Silly Goose Philosophy goes a little something like this:

You know what you love?

That weird ass thing that makes your brain light up like a Christmas tree soaked in gasoline? Make that. Make it with your whole chest. Don’t whisper your art into existence.

HONK it.

Scream it.

Let it rip across the creative landscape like a goose protecting its nest.

Authenticity is magnetic. People smell fake from miles away. But when you’re genuinely, unapologetically yourself? When you’re making the art that sets your soul on fire? That’s when your flock finds you.

Geese are also absolute menaces.

Geese don’t apologise for taking up space and neither should you.

Your art should be a little dangerous. A little uncomfortable. It should make people stop scrolling and go “what the fuck?”

It should lodge itself in their brain like a splinter they can’t stop touching.

It should also be beautiful. Not pretty. Beautiful. There’s a difference. Pretty is safe. Beautiful has teeth.

(Have you see goose teeth???)

You want a cult following? (Not the Kool Aid kind. The good kind) Then you need to understand something…

Communities form around shared obsessions. Around people brave enough to love something so hard it becomes contagious. But the thing with this is. Your job isn’t to please everyone. Your job is to be so passionate about your specific brand of weirdness that other weirdos can’t help but gather around you like moths to a flame.

It’s as serious as a heart attack (When it counts)

Here’s where the philosophy gets its teeth.

Silly doesn’t mean stupid. Fun doesn’t mean frivolous.

A goose will honk and waddle and be a general pain in the ass 99% of the time. But threaten its goslings? That bird becomes a feathered missile of pure protective rage.

Your art needs that same duality. Have fun. Be weird. Make people laugh. But when it’s time to say something real when the work demands depth and truth and raw fucking honesty. You better bring it. You better mean it with every fibre of your being.

The most beautiful thing about the Silly Goose Philosophy? The flock that forms around you might be passed off as just another audience, when it’s truly a community of fellow geese. People who get it. Who understand that life is too short for boring art and safe choices.

They’ll honk along with you. They’ll defend your work when the critics come calling. They’ll spread your weird gospel to other potential geese who just haven’t found their flock yet.

But you have to earn it. You earn it by showing up consistently.

Being vulnerable in your work.

Engaging authentically (no bot bullshit)

Supporting other artists in your flock.

Never, ever compromising your core weirdness for mainstream appeal.

The Silly Goose Philosophy is about understanding that you can be both a lovable chaos agent AND a serious artist. You can make people laugh and make them think. You can build a community around joy and depth, silliness and substance.

Most importantly? You can be yourself. Your full, unfiltered, honking, flapping, magnificent self and find your people along the way.

So whether you’re a visual artist, writer, make music, sell a product or a service or even a voyeur still trying to figure shit out. This will be for you.

But it’s going to be weird. Good weird.

I’m not going to get you to download yet another app like Circle or Skool or squish yourself into the many abandoned Facebook Groups. We’re going real old school.

We’re going back to 2000s era forums. Super not so sexy silliness.

But why you might ask?

People still want some sort of anonymity. Forums let you have that. You can create a wild username and participate in your own way. You can stalk and watch and be that voyeur if you want. Or you can join in and become a chaos agent too. On top of that. 100s of groups on FB have vanished the last few days.

They seem to be cracking down and forcing people to do what they want which is not cool.

I’ve also chosen to do it this way because those were the early days of true community. Where online discussions mattered and friends for life stuck around.

We’re so damn distracted by every app going. I can’t remember the last time I sat down at the computer and logged into a forum and got lost for hours having genuine chats or interactions on topics that interested me and the others there too.

There’s way too much noise out there and not enough signal and as we’re getting bombarded with A.I. bullshit and fakery. Being able to talk freely about what matters is important without some stupid algorithm limiting your reach.

Who knows though. Maybe I’m having some grandiose idea and people will look at me as if I’m crazy.

But between email and forums. Structured long form content will win any day of the week. I don’t care much for the copy paste prompt world we’re slowly being forced into.

Now if you excuse me. I have to slip into something a little more comfy and get cracking on this forum.

Stephen Walker

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

If you know anything about England.

You’ll know that we don’t have the luxury of walk in showers.

That being said. The bath that doubles as a shower is always good fun until it’s not.

Now most adults (definitely not me lol) would have one of those grippy mat things to stop you from slipping, followed by demolishing your skull against whatever hard object might get in the way.

I don’t like those grippy mat things because they’re fucking gross. I won’t go into details but all you need to know is they are disgusting. They’re horrifying petri dishes of doom that collect enough DNA samples to clone a small village. No thanks.

The again. Some of us (definitely NOT me again…) live life on the edge. I’ll surf that porcelain wave like a death defying idiot, one foot placement away from becoming a tale at the next family gathering or whatever…

(Luckily the majority of my family either hate me and/or don’t speak to each other so that’s not a big worry)

But with this near death slip hitting me.

It got me thinking.

Just like showing up to that soul crushing job or facing that google doc that’s mocking you from your desktop.

You’ve got to get clean. Every. Damn. Day.

Now I’ve made a promise not to talk about the stuff that girls who follow astrology talk about but… (Cause they’ve gotten me into trouble before)

The universe doesn’t care if your bathroom is trying to murder you.

The day doesn’t stop because you’re performing a one person circus act between the shower curtain and certain doom.

You show up, you do the dance, you try not to die. Sometimes that’s all life is. Just showing up and trying not to crack your skull open on the toilet and die.

Pretty morbid for a Friday night right?

Maybe life is just one big slippery bathtub?

Who knows? I certainly don’t.

Between me watching horror movies and watching people get murdered by a mother fuelled by revenge (cause her son drowned)

To me nearly existing this mortal plain because of my lack of grippy mat in the shower…

I really honestly don’t know what to make of the world sometimes.

Yeah life can be a bitch, but we just need to show up before we exit stage left.

It’s fun. It’s worth living and if we can tell silly tales (like this one) I’m sure people will at least remember you being entertaining and memorable.

We have to shower every day. We have to show up every day. Might as well stay consistent about it eh?

Stephen Walker

P.S. I’m cooking up something which is old school for all of us nerds to hang out in. Facebook just sucks a bag of dicks and I really don’t like the platform at all. I want that old nostalgia baby. Where we can rise up with our pitchforks and talk about things we are passionate about, while still having an anonymous presence.

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

Let me tell you about the time I watched a room full of marketing dickweasels discover that fear sells better than sex.

It involves summer camp murder and a metric fuckton of coffee because I got stuck travelling down to London and we stopped at Wolverhampton for an hour. Good old fashioned British transport lol.

Anyways.

So there I am, right? (Once we got to where this talk was)

Slouched in my chair like a half melted action figure, watching these “content strategists” circle jerk their way through another presentation about “engaging storytelling frameworks” and “authentic audience connection.”

The kind of shit that HR would smash into your face if you were stuck in a cubicle gargling on the balls of corporate whatever.

Because the universe has a sick sense of humour after I mainlined 3 espressos…

I had this moment of clarity.

“how do you grab someone by the eyeballs and make their brain beg for more?”

The answer was 200%…watch Friday the 13th.

The original. Not the remakes. Not the sequels. The 1980 masterpiece of murderous simplicity.

Here’s why…

The Hook: Two teenagers decide to play hide the salami. They die. That’s it. That’s the hook. No backstory about camp history. No character development. Just hormones and homicide.

(Your LinkedIn post about “disrupting the paradigm” is looking pretty flaccid now, isn’t it?)

The Questions:

Every good story is a meat grinder for your brain. It keeps churning out questions faster than answers. Who’s killing these kids? Why? What’s wrong with this place? Will anyone survive? What happened to the parents?

The Momentum:

Ever see a car accident? You’re trapped in this beautiful death spiral of “oh shit, oh shit, OH SHIT.”

And here’s the thing that’ll really bake your noodle…

The movie doesn’t give a single solitary fuck about your expectations. It’s not trying to be your friend. It’s not trying to teach you valuable life lessons about summer camp safety.

It just wants to drag you into the woods and murder your attention span.

There’s no elaborate setup, no justification for existing, no apologies for the violence. Just pure, uncut story mainlined into your eyeholes.

You know what modern content creators do?

They write fucking manifestos explaining why you should care. They craft “value propositions” and “content hierarchies” and other terms that make me want to gargle bleach.

But Mr. Voorhees? He just shows up and starts solving problems with sharp objects.

(There’s a marketing lesson in there somewhere, but I’m too caffeinated to find it)

This movie was made for what amounts to pocket lint and promises. They had about twelve dollars and a dream. But they understood something fundamental about human nature

So when you sit down and write again;

Don’t explain.

Don’t apologise.

Don’t waste time setting up your story’s LinkedIn profile.

Just grab your audience by the throat and don’t let go until they’re either dead or subscribed to your newsletter.

(Metaphorically. Please don’t actually strangle your audience. That’s what lawyers call “evidence.”)

And for fuck’s sake, stay away from summer camps. Nothing good ever happens at summer camps.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go write some horror stories about content marketing. Because after sitting through those meetings, I’ve got plenty of material.

(The real monster was ROI metrics all along, duh)

Stephen Walker

https://www.facebook.com/stphnwlkr

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

Someone up there is using England as their own personal microwave.

Whether it’s Aliens, God or if we’re in some simulation like The Matrix.

It’s been hot.

Not nice hot.

Flesh is slowly cooking into a nice medium rare kind of hot.

And… as much as us Brits like to moan about it being too hot. It also gets too cold and everyone knows we wouldn’t be British if we didn’t whine about the weather every now and then.

Now as much as I was watching my laptop slowly transform into a makeshift George Foreman grill today.

My brain’s been about as functional as a chocolate teapot in this weather, and the only thought bouncing around my head was whether it was socially acceptable to work naked at my local Starbucks.

Sadly it was not.

But anyways. I’m trying too pool together some ideas and it just struck me. This is exactly what bad copy feels like to your readers…

When you blast them with the same tired, overheated bullshit that every other marketer is spewing. When you hit them with stuff like;

“Revolutionary solutions”

“Game changing opportunities”

“Market leading innovation”

Now as much as it feels like you’re forcing them to stand in this bastard heat wearing a three piece suite made of buzzwords…

There is a different play at hand.

Personally I’d like to be the ice cold bottle of whatever-the-fuck that your readers desperately need right now.

The kind that makes them go “oh thank fuck” when they find it. Gulp it down and can breathe a sigh of relief.

And so it just comes back to doing the basics and not sounding like some corporate shitlord.

And while it does sound difficult to do. It’s really not.

It’s as easy as writing like you’re sitting in their kitchen at 3 am, having a real conversation.

Not like you’re presenting a PowerPoint to a board of directors who stopped giving a shit sometime around slide two.

And even when my brain is shutting down cause of the heat. I’m reminded that the best writing, which is the kind that actually sells, isn’t about being clever or professional or whatever corporate buzzword bingo you’re playing.

It’s just the type that is raw and real and filled with genuine emotion.

And so with everything. Go back to the basics.

If you’re wanting brush up on how to write to sell.

Well… Write to Sell by Andy Maslen will give you a slap upside the head.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to stick my head in the freezer and contemplate whether this is what dinosaurs felt like just before that meteor hit.

Stephen Walker

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

I wasn’t going to write an email today.

Truth be told this week has been meh at most.

Just loads of niggly bits of stupid shit cropping up that makes you want to opt out of doing anything productive. The kind of petty annoyances that make you want to crawl back into bed and tell the universe to go fuck itself with a rusty spork.

The thing is though. I have to show up regardless of whether or not I want to cause nobody is going to do it for me.

Nobody’s gonna swoop in wearing a cape made of solved problems and finished tasks.

(Would be epic if they did lol)

Life has a funny way of fucking with us and it’s honestly just the way we respond to it that sets us apart.

I could let it kick me right in the nether bits and have a day of whining and cursing…

(And believe me, I’ve got a colourful vocabulary ready to deploy. I could string together profanities that would make a sailor blush and a poet weep)

Or I could try and muster up a little bit of energy and turn it into a somewhat okay-ish post.

Every. Single. Day.

You’re making a choice.

You’re either obsessed or you’re average.

There’s no magical middle ground where you get to half ass your way to greatness while binge watching Netflix and complaining about how unfair life is. That’s not how this works.

And as much as I don’t really dig the next dude I’m gonna mention…

Grant Cardone nailed it when he said you gotta be obsessed or be average.

Average is the slow death of everything you could’ve been. Average is looking back at 80 and wondering what the fuck happened to all those dreams you had.

Nobody gives a shit about your bad week. The world doesn’t stop spinning because you’re having a moment. Bills don’t pay themselves. Dreams don’t manifest through wishful thinking and vision boards.

You want extraordinary? Then be fucking extraordinary about showing up.

Even on the meh days.

So yeah, I wrote this email. Not because I wanted to. Not because inspiration struck like lightning. But because obsessed people do what average people won’t.

And tomorrow?

I’ll be in your inbox again.

Be obsessed or be average and if you don’t have anything to obsess over. You best get looking, cause the grim reaper is coming for all of us…

Stephen Walker

P.S. I’d 100% recommend getting the audio version of Be Obsessed or Be Average cause Grant has the type of accent that just inspires you to get motivated.

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

Nothing sucker punches the dopamine goblin quite like dropping your carcass into a chair and wrenching the cap off a frost slick bottle of bubbly brain fuel…

(Iced latte before 8pm is a good idea lol)

Followed by reading, your very own, palm sweat absorbent printed thingamajig…

Magazine, book, ransom note looking love letter…

Anywho…

Being able to touch, clutch, and violently yeet yourself offline, if only for a heartbeat, is crawling back into fashion like I dunno? A zombie in fishnets?

One of my favourite word nerds Chuck Wendig just wrote a love letter about magazines.

Skim it if you dare.

But I’ve been talking about this for years (in emails, on the socials, tattooed on my left thigh, duh)

…nothing beats a slab of atoms you can actually grip, flip, and inhale like weird paper cocaine. Then slink off to your blanket fort and devour words in peace. Your world and your world only.

We used to do that often as kids. Why did we stop?

The thing is. Look around.

Brains = fried courtesy of TikTok jump cuts, Insta dopamine drips, and the looming possibility of WW3

(Politics? Pass me the bleach cocktail)

It’s exhausting and soul sucking-ly depressing to try and juggle all of this bullshit.

Nobody yanks their eyes off the their sadness rectangle long enough to meet another human.

When did we auction off our humanity for infinite scroll?

I hate that we’re all living 0 to 120mph in two seconds instead of taking the scenic route, sniffing a pine tree, maybe getting mildly possessed by forest gremlins and just letting our imagination take us anywhere but here.

Don’t worry. Irony noted. This email is being punched out via keyboard.

But the second I smack SEND.

I’m going back to pen and paper.

Yes. I know a heap of us keep the rent paid by flinging pixels at the internet and charging for it.

But we also need to look after our sanity. Best way? Write something analogue or, bare minimum, snatch a physical mag. Could be The Onion so you can ugly laugh, or a niche zine about cataloguing the 311 species of frogs in Madagascar…

Just do it.

Your dopamine receptors will build a tiny shrine in your honour probably.

Stephen Walker

P.S. Craving something hand written? I gotchu. Drop a reply with your details and I’ll make it happen even if I’ve gotta duct tape the note to a slightly unhinged carrier pigeon.

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

Here’s one of my favourite poems by ol’ Bukowski

When you’re really in need of a little kick up the ass. Read this

if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
otherwise, don’t even start. 



if you’re going to try, go all the
way. this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.


go all the way.
it could mean not eating for 3 or
4 days.
it could mean freezing on a
park bench.
it could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,
isolation.
isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your
endurance, of
how much you really want to
do it.
and you’ll do it
despite rejection and the
worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine. 



if you’re going to try,
go all the way.
there is no other feeling like
that.
you will be alone with the
gods
and the nights will flame with
fire. 



do it, do it, do it.
do it. 



all the way
all the way.
you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter,
it’s the only good fight
there is. 

A lot of the times I’ll just sit and go through his work.

He is my favourite poet and I’ve been reading his stuff on and off since I was a teen.

Love is a Dog from Hell is one of my favourite collections and you should definitely add it to your library.

Stephen Walker

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