Author: admin

A dead coffee shop is not a good coffee shop

(Even if the coffee is amazing)

So I go there to get my daily bean juice fix and it’s silent.

Like you can drop a pin silent.

So I ask the owner if they’ve got any socials set up and with a quick google I can see they have a facebook page and site that gives us that magical “This site can’t be reached” message, which is code for “we really don’t know what we’re doing and everything has gone to shit but hey at least our coffee is still amazing!”

So as any coffee lover who happens to know a few things about marketing and what not, I think it’s time to see if I can CPR this little slice of heaven and get some more eyes and feet going through their business.

I don’t know much about football but I did see that Garry Neville went there. So I might write a direct mail piece about that and riff on the viral “Come in and try the worst coffee one woman on trip advisor had in her life” angle.

Then I’ll see if I can revive their FB page and run a few bucks a day in local targeted ads/boosted posts off a few coffee memes and lastly see if she did what a lot of business owners do…

Collect emails to collect because they were told that’s what they had to do, but then they have been sitting in a file, dying and wanting to be emailed.

But first. I need to write up the pitch, bust out the old typewriter and type the letter, grab a stamp and post it out.

I’ve got my Friday cut out for me and this is just a glimpse of the daily shenanigans that flow through my mind.

Stephen Walker

https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague

If you’re not diggin’ these tasty little emails anymore you can hit the unsubscribe button right here >>> unsubscribe

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

Quote at the end, today…

​During our retreat last weekend, a friend dropped a line I won’t easily forget:

​
​”Capitalism is noisy.”

​
Hah!

​
(let that one sink in…)

​
Now, I won’t talk much about capitalism here.

​
​It’s an obvious mixed bag:

​
Not the best we can do, not the worst.

​
It’s not quite an adult, but it’s probably a teenager.

​
So that’s… Something.

​
But for all the good (opportunity, freedom), the bad (inequality, oppression), and the ugly (environmental damage, discrimination) of capitalism…

​
…One of the problems it poses to us — the self-mastery crowd — is far simpler:

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​It’s the goddamn noise.

​
Ads. Content. Reels. Notifications. Sales.

​
Urgency.

​
Flashing screens. Status signals. Information overload.

​
Gah.

​
It’s practically in the air we breathe:

​
Filling our mind and our nervous system with a chronic, buzzing static we can’t sleep off…

​
…So loud, so overpowering, so overwhelming we barely even notice it anymore.

​
We’re like a tinnitus sufferer who’s ears have been ringing so long he no longer hears it.

​
Or a fish that doesn’t know it’s wet.

​
​Also during our retreat last weekend, I entered into a solo retreat.

​
I’ll be living in isolation for the next two months, eating an extremely restricted diet, avoiding all physical contact, and cutting inputs (social media, television, books, etc) down to a minimum.
​
Which means I’ll be living mostly in silence.

​
I’ve completed more than two years of this protocol throughout my plant medicine apprenticeship.

​
And every time I do, the feeling is the same:

​
​Like a fog clearing to reveal a bright, shining sun.

​
The noise lifts.

​
My mind goes quiet.

​
And finally, for what feels like the first time in months…

​
I can hear the signal beneath the noise:

​
​The small, still voice within that always knows exactly what to do.

​

(there are many other reasons for doing this type of retreat, but I won’t go into them now)

​
That’s a bit freaky, since I live clean already:

​
I don’t drink or use drugs. I don’t sleep around. I use very little social media, meditate 2 hours a day and do hard exercise 6-7 times per week.

​
So I shouldn’t need to go to such extreme lengths just to return to the natural human state.

​
But that’s the modern world:

​
​It’s a spiritual sh*tshow.

​
High in entertainment value, alarmingly low in just about everything else.

​
And if you want to go beyond the level of superficial entertainment, to touch the deeper potentials of human life…

​
(which, I promise you, are far more spectacular than TikTok)

​
…Taking back control of your mind is step one.

​
You don’t need to lock yourself in your room and meditate all day, but you do need to unplug from the matrix way more often than you might think.

​
So that’s what I’ll be doing for the next few months.

​
Should be fun 🙂

​

• T

​
​P.S. Big announcement for Path members (and for those interested in joining The Path):

​

A brand new retreat recording…
​

Spirituality: The path of human potential​
​
…Just dropped inside the community, and in our private podcast.
​

This was our most surprising session of the year:

​

Most of the guys didn’t know what to expect, going in.
​
But afterward, many called it their favorite session of the week.
​
One called it:
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​”The session that changed everything.”
​
​Another said:
​
​”This one had me fxcked up.” ​
​
(in a good way)
​
Another simply said:
​
​”I just got Tao’d.”

​

If you’re a Path member, log in now to check it out.

​

If not:
​
​I’m (finally!) re-opening The Path next week, for the first time since November. ​
​
Stay tuned…

“This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.” – Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

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There are no shortcuts.

None. Zero. Zip. Nada.

The tactics over principles mindset is a festering, pustulent lie that needs to be lanced and drained before it infects your entire writing practice.

Tactics are the junk food of the writing world. Quick, satisfying in the moment, and ultimately hollow as a politician’s promise.

Principles are the slow cooked meal that actually nourishes you.

It’s seductive, this tactical circle jerk we see online. It promises results without the sweaty, unglamorous work. It’s the literary equivalent of those ab machines promising washboard stomachs in just five minutes a day…

It’s basically absolute horseshit wrapped in shiny packaging.

And why do we fall for it? Because real writing. The principle driven kind, is hard. It’s messy.

It requires patience and persistence and pain.

Principles aren’t sexy. They don’t fit in a TikTok. They don’t promise overnight transformation.

What principles offer instead is something so much more valuable, which is sustainability, longevity and depth.

Think about the writers who endure and who produce work that outlives them, that stands against time’s relentless erosion.

Were they tactic chasers? Hell no.

They were principle embracers. They understood the fundamental truths of storytelling that transcend genre, medium, and era.

Whether they were writing advertising copy or cut to the bone storytelling from the pulp era…

They stuck to what worked.

Principles like:

Character drives story. (not the other way around)

Emotional truth trumps literal truth.

Specificity creates universality. (paradoxical but true)

Voice matters more than vocabulary.

Curiosity beats cleverness every bloody time.

The thing that makes your writing worth reading isn’t some tactical sleight of hand or formulaic approach.

It’s YOU.

Your unique perspective, your lived experience, your weird brain with its particular arrangement of influences and obsessions.

The tactics obsessed writer is like someone trying to build a relationship based solely on pickup lines.

Might get you through the door. Hell it might even get you lucky once or twice. But it creates nothing lasting, nothing meaningful, nothing that withstands the test of time.

And isn’t that what we’re after? Work that matters? Work that remains? Work that leaves a handprint on the reader’s soul?

You don’t get there with tactics. You get there with principles, applied consistently over time, with monastic devotion to the craft.

So what’s a writer to do in this tactics saturated social media hellscape?

Recognise the difference. Tactics tell you what to do. Principles tell you why.

Read like your writing life depends on it. Because it fucking does. Not just in your genre. Not just contemporary stuff. Read the classics. Read poetry. Read essays. Read weird experimental shit that makes you uncomfortable. WATCH THIS BUT BE WARNED

Write with your gut, revise with your brain. First drafts need primal energy and revisions need intellectual rigor.

Get feedback from readers who prioritise principles over tactics. The “this worked for me/this didn’t” crowd rather than the “you should do X” prescriptivists. (plus prescriptivists are lame)

Be patient, goddammit. (This one’s hard for me too) The principles based approach doesn’t give you overnight results. It’s slow. Painfully slow. But it builds something that lasts.

I get it. We all want the shortcut. We all want the magic bullet. We all want to bypass the decade of shitty first drafts and rejection letters and crushing self doubt.

But that’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

So choose principles over tactics. Choose the long game over the quick win. Choose the fundamental over the fashionable.

Stephen Walker

https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague

P.S. It’s warming up around here again, so the I can guarantee the squirrels are gonna get up to no good…

If you’re not diggin’ these tasty little emails anymore you can hit the unsubscribe button right here >>> unsubscribe

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

Time is a finite resource. Not some magical renewable wellspring that gushes forth like a geyser of productivity while you smile beatifically at yet another “quick call” that stretches into the void of eternity.

NOPE. It’s more like a precious, limited-batch artisanal bourbon that everyone wants to chug like it’s discount swill at a frat party.

And in 2025? Holy mother of bullshit, it’s worse.

The always-on economy has evolved into something altogether more ravenous.

A many-tentacled beast slithering through every notification portal of your device-saturated life. The corporate world you escaped?

It’s still there, watching you with its beady little eyes, waiting for you to flame out spectacularly so you come crawling back, broken and compliant.

You don’t want that. I don’t want that for you. So let’s talk boundaries.

Not everyone deserves access to you. Not everyone who can fog a mirror should be allowed into your calendar, your inbox, your sacred creative space. Some people are time-vampires as my boy Ben Settle mentions.

They’ll drain you dry while complaining that your blood lacks adequate iron content.

Why you need boundaries? (a partial list of sanity preservation)

Because burnout isn’t just some cutesy buzzword of the day. (I hate LinkedIn for that shit)

It’s your nervous system setting itself on fire while your brain watches, while it helplessly eats stale cheese crackers.

Because “exposure” and “opportunity” are often code for “we’d like to harvest your organs while paying you in compliments.”

Because saying yes to everything means saying no to what actually matters… Like making actual money, or remembering what your family’s faces look like, or basic hygiene.

Because 2025’s AI-enhanced workflow expectations have created a hellscape where people think you should respond to messages within microseconds. As if you’re some flesh-puppet server farm instead of a human with bladder functions and occasional thoughts.

You need barriers…

Big, beautiful, fuck-off barriers. Not walls (we’re not monsters here), but well-crafted gateways that filter out the time-wasters, the energy-suckers, the “let me pick your brain”-ers who come wielding tiny forks and napkins tucked into their collars.

Send those assholes a paypal.me link for $99 that sets them up with a zoom calendar call for your time. The ones who respect it will pay and the ones who don’t won’t pay.

(And yes, I know your therapist told you to be “open to opportunity” But did they specify that this should include letting every random LinkedIn connection control your afternoon for their pyramid scheme pitch? I THINK NOT.)

Here’s what your boundaries might look like…

Application processes. Intake forms. Scheduled office hours. Tiered access models. Clear-as-a-freshly-Windexed-window pricing structures that don’t apologise for valuing your expertise.

Email autoresponders that don’t sound like they were written by an anxious Victorian butler.

Your corporate days taught you that accessibility equals advancement. That’s… and I cannot emphasise this enough…

Grade-A-Complete bullshit.

A carefully curated lack of accessibility is the hallmark of the successful independent professional in 2025.

Remember when the pandemic taught us about capacity limits?

Apply that wisdom to your professional life. Your time is a cozy neighbourhood bar with limited seating, not a stadium concert with general admission. And you’re the bouncer, the bartender, AND the talent.

Think I’m being dramatic? Hyperbolic?

THE EXACT OPPOSITE.

I’ve watched brilliant friends become hollow-eyed zombies shuffling back to the equivalent of corporate America (Here across the pond) because they couldn’t say no. Couldn’t build the systems that protected their time and energy. Their creativity and independence were consumed by the insatiable hunger of “just one more client” and “it’ll only take a minute.”

Don’t be them. Be the magnificent boundary-setting unicorn you were meant to be.

Your future self. The one who isn’t answering emails at 3 AM while quietly weeping into a cold cup of coffee, will thank you.

Set the damn boundaries. Protect your time like it’s the last roll of toilet paper in the apocalypse. Because it’s 2025, and the only thing between you and burnout is your willingness to say “that sounds like a you problem” to demands that treat your schedule like public property.

Go forth and filter ruthlessly,

Stephen Walker

https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague

“The path of true learning is strewn with rocks, not roses. Anyone who insists on taking the easier way ends up in a fools paradise.” – Jed McKenna

No promises, today…

​
But I think I can conjure the energy to write this email, and make it worthwhile for both of us.

​
Let’s see how it goes.

​
If we fall short, my excuse is that I’m still settling in back home after one of the most intense weekend retreats I’ve ever run.

​
​And, taking my first few steps up the mountain of a two-month personal retreat…

​
…Where I’ll be living in isolation, eating an extremely restricted diet, avoiding all physical contact, and most external stimulation.

It’s powerful and profound and boring and uncomfortable.

​
But I am experienced and ready and impossible to break.

​
​So bring it the fxck on.

​
There we go, the energy is moving now…

​
…And now that it is, I think what I want to say is this:

​
​To become a warrior, you need to go to war.

​
Why this is so hard to understand, I have no idea.

​
But it’s the clear and obvious truth that everyone seems to want to avoid.

​
We want strength without struggle.

​
Wisdom without scars.

​
Respect without worthiness.

​
​The fruits without the labor.

​
We want to make money without doing the painstaking work of becoming valuable.

​
We want to discover our life purpose without making the harrowing journey to find it.

​
We want to find the perfect partner without needing to become one, ourselves.

​
Which is why, over and over again…

​
We fail to travel the distance between who we are and who we want to be, because we want to move forward without taking a step.

​
​You cannot enjoy the view from the top of the mountain without making the climb.

​

And the climb is harder than you think it is.

​
But, as anyone who has made that climb will tell you:

​
That is exactly what makes it worth it.

​
There, I think we did it 🙂

​
Mission complete.

​
More tomorrow…

​

• T

​
​P.S. Yesterday’s video pairs perfectly with today’s message:

​

​Raw Advice For Young Entrepreneurs
​​
​
​
​

​Unsubscribe | Update your profile | 5-420 Erb St. W, Suite 433, Waterloo, ON N2L6K6

P.S. If this email made you uncomfortable, good. Discomfort is the feeling of your old people-pleasing habits dying a necessary death. Pour one out for them, then move the hell on.

If you’re not diggin’ these tasty little emails anymore you can hit the unsubscribe button right here >>> unsubscribe

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

Time is a finite resource. Not some magical renewable wellspring that gushes forth like a geyser of productivity while you smile beatifically at yet another “quick call” that stretches into the void of eternity.

NOPE. It’s more like a precious, limited-batch artisanal bourbon that everyone wants to chug like it’s discount swill at a frat party.

And in 2025? Holy mother of bullshit, it’s worse.

The always-on economy has evolved into something altogether more ravenous.

A many-tentacled beast slithering through every notification portal of your device-saturated life. The corporate world you escaped?

It’s still there, watching you with its beady little eyes, waiting for you to flame out spectacularly so you come crawling back, broken and compliant.

You don’t want that. I don’t want that for you. So let’s talk boundaries.

Not everyone deserves access to you. Not everyone who can fog a mirror should be allowed into your calendar, your inbox, your sacred creative space. Some people are time-vampires as my boy Ben Settle mentions.

They’ll drain you dry while complaining that your blood lacks adequate iron content.

Why you need boundaries? (a partial list of sanity preservation)

Because burnout isn’t just some cutesy buzzword of the day. (I hate LinkedIn for that shit)

It’s your nervous system setting itself on fire while your brain watches, while it helplessly eats stale cheese crackers.

Because “exposure” and “opportunity” are often code for “we’d like to harvest your organs while paying you in compliments.”

Because saying yes to everything means saying no to what actually matters… Like making actual money, or remembering what your family’s faces look like, or basic hygiene.

Because 2025’s AI-enhanced workflow expectations have created a hellscape where people think you should respond to messages within microseconds. As if you’re some flesh-puppet server farm instead of a human with bladder functions and occasional thoughts.

You need barriers…

Big, beautiful, fuck-off barriers. Not walls (we’re not monsters here), but well-crafted gateways that filter out the time-wasters, the energy-suckers, the “let me pick your brain”-ers who come wielding tiny forks and napkins tucked into their collars.

Send those assholes a paypal.me link for $99 that sets them up with a zoom calendar call for your time. The ones who respect it will pay and the ones who don’t won’t pay.

(And yes, I know your therapist told you to be “open to opportunity” But did they specify that this should include letting every random LinkedIn connection control your afternoon for their pyramid scheme pitch? I THINK NOT.)

Here’s what your boundaries might look like…

Application processes. Intake forms. Scheduled office hours. Tiered access models. Clear-as-a-freshly-Windexed-window pricing structures that don’t apologise for valuing your expertise.

Email autoresponders that don’t sound like they were written by an anxious Victorian butler.

Your corporate days taught you that accessibility equals advancement. That’s… and I cannot emphasise this enough…

Grade-A-Complete bullshit.

A carefully curated lack of accessibility is the hallmark of the successful independent professional in 2025.

Remember when the pandemic taught us about capacity limits?

Apply that wisdom to your professional life. Your time is a cozy neighbourhood bar with limited seating, not a stadium concert with general admission. And you’re the bouncer, the bartender, AND the talent.

Think I’m being dramatic? Hyperbolic?

THE EXACT OPPOSITE.

I’ve watched brilliant friends become hollow-eyed zombies shuffling back to the equivalent of corporate America (Here across the pond) because they couldn’t say no. Couldn’t build the systems that protected their time and energy. Their creativity and independence were consumed by the insatiable hunger of “just one more client” and “it’ll only take a minute.”

Don’t be them. Be the magnificent boundary-setting unicorn you were meant to be.

Your future self. The one who isn’t answering emails at 3 AM while quietly weeping into a cold cup of coffee, will thank you.

Set the damn boundaries. Protect your time like it’s the last roll of toilet paper in the apocalypse. Because it’s 2025, and the only thing between you and burnout is your willingness to say “that sounds like a you problem” to demands that treat your schedule like public property.

Go forth and filter ruthlessly,

Stephen Walker

https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague

P.S. If this email made you uncomfortable, good. Discomfort is the feeling of your old people-pleasing habits dying a necessary death. Pour one out for them, then move the hell on.

If you’re not diggin’ these tasty little emails anymore you can hit the unsubscribe button right here >>> unsubscribe

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

“Choose what you want and don’t compromise.”

Hey, how’s your week going over there?

​

I’m finally back home after running one of the most intense weekend retreats I’ve ever been been a part of, and settling into a two month personal retreat I’ll be running for myself until late April.

​

So I’m going to give myself the day off writing, and share this with you instead:

​

​Raw Advice For Young Entrepreneurs​

​

This four minute clip is my tough-love response to a young entrepreneur who is already doing 30k per month, at 18 years old…

​

…And wants to stop letting other people influence his path (“Go to school! Get a job!”)

​

The result is a banger.

​

​Watch here.

​

• T

​

​Unsubscribe | Update your profile | 5-420 Erb St. W, Suite 433, Waterloo, ON N2L6K6

Look, let’s be honest here (because why the hell not, right?)

When your client work dries up like a slug on hot concrete. Poof, gone, kaput… Adios income stream.

You have choices. Terrible, wonderful, absolutely batshit choices.

And don’t get me wrong. This was my choice. Clients were amazing, but hey. I gotta stand on my own two feet.

There’s a few things you could do:

You could panic (which is boring)

Update your portfolio (responsible but It’s also hard when a lot of the work is wrapped in stupid NDA’s – The life of an ex-ghostwriter)

Finally clean that thing growing in your fridge (it has gained sentience and is now demanding voting rights)

OR… do something spectacularly ill-advised yet creatively nourishing. Which is something I’m very good at…

Guess which one I chose?

Obviously…

So what’s a creative to do when they haven’t got any client work to do for the rest of the year? Well. I’ll tell you what. They take on a project that a buddy has mentioned would be a good idea, especially cause “You’re pretty damn good at the words” thing.

So I’ve bought some video editing software, started researching ideas and concepts and are going to start a faceless YouTube channel because that’s obviously what sane people do when they need to keep busy.

No baking Sourdough bread or writing the next great novel. They make videos, duh.

Let me be crystal-fucking-clear though.

I know NOTHING about video editing. Okay maybe a little but my expertise with video begins and ends with “I occasionally watch it” and “I once filmed my cat doing something weird but the lighting was so bad you couldn’t tell if it was a cat or a sentient dust bunny having an existential crisis.”

Does this stop me? Nope.

Cause creative work is not about what you know, it’s about what you’re willing to learn while publicly embarrassing yourself.

It’s about diving face-first into the festering compost heap of possibility and coming up with either (a) worms in your teeth or (b) the seeds of something magnificent. Sometimes both.

Why was it suggested? Well because it’s great practice for all the psychology and direct response principles AND it’s great to see people going back to the older days of Youtube videos, with simple production and just great content.

Like the early years of blogging, except now it’s just visual…

Remember those days? When content wasn’t algorithmically optimised within an inch of its life? When people just… made things?

Things that were weird and genuine and maybe technically flawed but alive with unprocessed humanity?

That’s the sweet spot I’m aiming for. That raw, unfiltered creative juice that tastes like someone’s actual thoughts instead of corporate approved flavour crystals.

The plan. If you can call this janky collection of half-baked impulses a “plan” is threefold:

Learn enough video editing to be dangerous (but not enough to be good. Good comes later, after the mandatory period of creating absolute horseshit)

Create content that scratches my particular brain-itch while maybe, maybe, helping other creatives who are similarly adrift in the chum filled waters of unemployment.

Stay anonymous because I don’t need the pressure and I also don’t want the fame.

I mean who really wants this? Not this meat sack of anxiety and caffeine, that’s for damn sure.

I bought the software yesterday. It stared back at me from my screen like a predator sizing up prey. I stared back. We’re at an impasse.

Tomorrow, one of us will break. (Spoiler: it will be me, sobbing into my keyboard at 3 AM, watching tutorial videos made by 12-year-olds who somehow already know more than I ever will.)

Is this a terrible idea? Yes.

Is it better than the slow death of creative stagnation? Absolutely.

Will I regret telling you about it when I inevitably produce nothing but the digital equivalent of a dumpster fire? Check back in two weeks or whatever.

If you’ve made it this far into my descent into madness. Thank you.

Either way, You’re in this now and you’re coming along for the ride.

Your friend who clearly needs supervision and possibly therapy…

Stephen Walker

https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague

P.S. Send coffee. Or whiskey. Or both, mixed together in proportions that would alarm medical professionals.

P.P.S. If you have any video editing tips that don’t involve “natural talent” or “years of practice,” I’m all ears. Preferably tips that can be implemented while panicking and questioning all life choices simultaneously.

If you’re not diggin’ these tasty little emails anymore you can hit the unsubscribe button right here >>> unsubscribe

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

Let’s cut the bone straight up.

Perfection isn’t a destination.

It’s a cult. It whispers sweet nothings like “Just one more edit” and “You’re not ready yet” while it pickpockets your momentum.

Perfection is a taxidermied owl. Looks wise. Is dead inside.

Progress is a raccoon on Red Bull. Ugly. Alive. Ripping up your trash.

The lie? That greatness happens in a single lightning-strike moment.

The magic isn’t in getting it right.

It’s in getting it wrong, 87 times, until “wrong” starts curtsying and calling itself style.

Perfection is a coma. Progress is a fistfight.

Stop polishing. Just get it done and let it fly out into the world.

Perfection is what holds us all back and just like in this super simple emails. I write them in one go and that’s it.

You just need to be willing to show up daily and if it fails, well. There’s always tomorrow.

Stephen Walker

https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague

P.S. The Mona Lisa was once a sketch. Jesus had 12 bad drafts before Judas.

P.P.S. Your brain will scream “But what if they laugh?!” Correct response: “Good. Cats in hats are funny.”

If you’re not diggin’ these tasty little emails anymore you can hit the unsubscribe button right here >>> unsubscribe

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

Let’s talk about the future…

You know? that thing we were promised would have flying cars and robot butlers?

Turns out it’s just a tide of ChatGPT diarrhea flooding Amazon with “how-to” guides written by algorithms that think poison ivy is a salad green…

Here’s a fun case for a Sunday

Some chucklehead decided “expertise” is overrated. Why pay a mycologist when you can ask a language model trained on Reddit threads and Minecraft fanfic to write “Foraging Fun: A Happy Little Guide to Not Dying in the Woods!” (I made that up but you get the point)

So they jumped on to our pal ChatGPT and did some “writing”

And their whole process probably looked like this:

Step 1: Generate 10,000 words on mushroom identification using data scraped from Etsy reviews and a Hannibal episode.

Step 2: Slap a stock photo of a smiling grandma holding a basket on the cover. (Trust vibes!)

Step 3: Watch as some poor soul mistakes death caps for chanterelles because the AI described them as “tasty little umbrellas :)”

Which is basically a headline for the future tabloids titled: “Here’s how A.I. accidentally kills you this week!”

Granted this was last year: https://stphnwlkr.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/lolmushroom.jpg

We have pretend experts using A.I. to create potentially life threatening guides on topics they have zero expertise on.

Now I’ve done my fair share of mushrooms over the years and I can tell you from first hand experience that if you eat the wrong mushrooms, you will either trip your balls off or potentially kill yourself. There’s no in between.

It’s why micro dosing has taken off for medical reasons…

(But this isn’t a day for fungi education)

It’s to point out that we now have idiots using these tools.

If you have a genuine interest or education / high level experience in a subject or topic then yeah, use A.I. for research.

I know those people will at least go out of there way to study and collect proven work on the work they want to share.

It’s just dangerous knowing that there are people out there who want to fast track to the other side and allow our robot overlords to take the wheel.

We’re not being replaced by A.I. We’re being out-stupided.

So if you do need to use these tools. At least know about the topic or become an expert on it, which is not really that hard to do.

I’ll stay in my lane though. I’m a pen monkey who just types words for your entertainment and educational purpose.

Hell there wasn’t even a real reason to share this. I just found it interesting because more and more of these cases are popping up and it’ll just get harder and harder to detect it all (Until a lot of people die…)

I’m off on a hike now before robots do all the walking for me.

Stephen Walker

P.S. The robots aren’t evil. They’re just committing evil via weaponised incompetence.

P.P.S. Real experts have trust issues. AI has a Trustpilot account. Choose wisely.

P.P.P.S. This post was written by a human. Probably. (Run it through the detector and pray.)

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

Let’s talk about the sorcery of words…

Alchemy isn’t dead. It’s just traded its alembics and philosopher’s stones for pens and Google Docs.

Think about it this way…

Base metal? Your half-baked ideas, rotting trauma, and that weird dream about lasagna that somehow came alive.

Gold? Sentences that make strangers weep, snort, or fist-pump like they’re mainlining adrenaline.

Writing is the last legal black magic. You take nothing. Air, angst, the static between neurons and transmute it into something that outlives you.

That’s not craft. That’s necromancy with a royalties clause.

It’s why I always go on about become a better writer.

Writing doesn’t just change the page. It changes you.

Every story is a ritual. You carve yourself open, let the ink-blood spill, and stitch the wound with metaphors. Do it enough and you’ll wake up one day unrecognisable, sharper, wilder, a little feral.

“But wait,” says the skeptic, “how do words pay bills? How do metaphors fix my Wi-Fi?”

The writing is really the side quest in this whole operation…

The real treasure is the alchemist you become along the way. The one who can turn rejection into rocket fuel or distill rage into dialogue sharper than one of this ginsu knives from the 90s. You also get to forge some wild levels of empathy from the scrap metal of your ego.

Those bits alone are what can change the way you approach life and the way you seek experiences.

The alchemists of old died chasing immortality. Joke’s on them though.

You’ll achieve it by writing a paragraph that sticks to someone’s ribs like a haunted kebab.

My year re-read of this gem always puts me back on the right path.

Stephen Walker

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

“There’s no such thing as a bad creation. Sometimes the seemingly bad ones need to happen for a good one to come.” – Rick Rubin

If you’re an entrepreneur, creator, knowledge worker, or artist…
​
Or, you’re trying to answer a big question, make a big decision, or clarify a big idea…
​
Here’s a framework for the creative process that has been invaluable to me.
​
I call it:
​
​”I-D-D-E-A”
​
Input
​Digestion
​Disconnection
​Emergence
​Action ​
​​
(and yes, it’s an original — so don’t even think about ripping it off. Looking at you, Liam Barney…)
​
Here’s how it works:
​

​

1. Input: Gather raw material (brain dump ideas, research, collect).

​
Don’t try to organize it yet, just dump it straight into your preferred note-taking system (ideally, your Second Brain).​
​

2. Digestion: Organize raw material (piece it together, try to turn it into a cohesive first draft).

​
Don’t expect it to come together perfectly, here.
​
It rarely will.
​
Instead, continue “digesting” until the infamous hopelessness stage is reached:
​
When the mind is scrambled, overwhelmed, and too lost in the trees to see the forest.
​

3. Disconnection: Unplug your mind from the project and do something else.

​
What to do: Sleep, go for walks in nature, exercise, journal, eat healthy food, consume art that inspires you (movies, books, documentaries, etc that are unrelated to your project).
​
What not to do: Doom scroll, content binge, eat garbage that dulls your senses, keep impulsively working on your project.
​
The goal: Turn the project over to your unconscious mind, and wait for…
​

4. Emergence: Of inspiration, clarity, and direction.

​
Often, it will come from out of nowhere or from somewhere unexpected:
​
In the shower, while on a walk, watching a movie, during an unrelated conversation, etc.
​
The goal here is not to make it happen.
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The goal here is to get out of the way and allow it to happen.
​
(without filling yourself with junk — social media, fast food, etc — that blocks it from happening)
​

5. Action: Return to the project and bring it to completion.
   ​

​
Of course, not all projects will follow this formula exactly.

​
Some pop up from out of nowhere, fully formed.

​
Others run through all five stages in a few hours, or a few days…

​
While some take weeks, months, or even years, and you’ll go through several IDDEA cycles before the final product emerges.
​
So as always, take what’s useful, when it’s useful to you.

​
I look forward to seeing what you create.

​

• T

​
​P.S. Funny enough:

​
I found this idea buried in my Evernote, from back in the DeepGame days.

​
I had (literally) hundreds of ideas for content unrelated to basketball, but it wasn’t practical to produce at the time.

​
Which means I have hundreds of ideas for original talks, videos, podcasts, etc that have never been shared or published…

​
…Sitting in my Second Brain, waiting to resurface.

​
And I have a feeling they’re going to begin resurfacing, very soon.

​
Stay tuned 🙂
​
Also:​
​
No email on Monday, possibly Tuesday.

​
I’m running a four-day retreat this weekend, and will be back early next week.

“Do not fight this process. Do not struggle against it. Do not resent it. Do not view it as an interruption or an impediment. Your brain is your friend. It is trying to help you. Every time it rejects an idea in midstream for not being good enough, it is making your story stronger and your voice more clear.” – Devon Eriksen
​

​

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The Dopamine Series: Part 3
​(remixed from November, 2023)​
​
“Dopamine is not about the pursuit of happiness, it is about the happiness of pursuit.” — Dr Robert Sapolsky

Dopamine is dumb.

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That’s right; the almighty molecule responsible for motivating us to do just about everything we do…

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…Dumb as rocks, and happily willing to make us dumb too, if we let it.

​
See, dopamine doesn’t care if it’s motivating you to do something healthy or unhealthy, productive or unproductive, enlivening or downright dangerous.

​
Dopamine doesn’t even care if you actually like the thing it’s motivating you to do.

​
Dopamine doesn’t enjoy, it craves…

​

And all dopamine craves is more dopamine.

​
(that’s why we keep doom-scrolling long after we’ve stopped enjoying what we’re looking at — because what if we find something cool in the next post?)

​
This dumb little molecule is responsible for shaping our future, through shaping our present motivations…

​
…So if we want a bigger, brighter future, we’d better learn to control it, instead of letting it control us.

​
How?

​
​By changing where you get your dopamine.

​
Instead of chasing cheap little “hits” from the buffet of modern stimulation (social media, junk food, video games, adult content, pick your poison)…

​
…Activities that act like empty calories for your brain, leaving you less satisfied and more depleted afterwards…

​
​…Hook dopamine up with activities that are rewarding now and in the future.

​
If you love training, dopamine will crave working out — and the feeling of making progress towards your physical goals.

​
If you love your work, dopamine will send you flying to your desk the way it sends others flying through their newsfeed.

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If you love the feeling of challenging yourself, pushing through discomfort, and overcoming your own resistance…

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​…Yep, dopamine will learn to crave that too.

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Because that’s what dopamine does; it craves.

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And, if you treat it like a programming device rather than an addiction…

​

You can program yourself to crave things that make life better now, and later on.

​

The choice is simple:

​

Program, or be programmed.

​

That’s the name of Dopamine’s game, and the stakes are high.

​

Choose well.

​

• T

​

P.S. Catch up on on earlier parts of this series below:
​
​Turns out, the path really is the destination (Part 1)​
​
​Dopamine and the thrill of the chase (Part 2)​

​

​

The Dopamine Series was first published November, 2023.

​

It was a huge hit, but many of our subscribers never got a chance to read it. So this week, we’re remixing and revisiting it with fresh eyes. Enjoy 🙂

​

​

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Evert now and then I’ll get a question about how to start.

So let’s cut through the prepocalypse…

You want to be a writer? Painter? Nude accordionist? Cool.

Here’s the secret, strapped to a rocket and aimed at your excuses…

Start before you’re ready.

The smart ones? They’re still stuck in the “research phase.”

Reading books about writing instead of writing.

Watching tutorials on brush technique while their canvases sag with dust.

Drafting 17 business plans for their Etsy store selling “artisanal chocolate marmalade.”

The dumb ones? They’re already elbow-deep in the guts of it.

Writing sentences so bad they’d make Hemingway haunt them out of spite.

Painting landscapes that look like a toddler finger-banged a kaleidoscope.

Playing the accordion so poorly, even subway rats toss coins to make it stop.

Preparation is a wank. Mastery is a myth. The only truth is this…

You will suck until you suck less.

Let’s use a quick metaphor to make this infect the mind a little more.

Imagine creativity is a back-alley tattoo parlor.

Smart You: Stalls for months, designing the perfect sleeve. “Is this dragon meaningful enough?” “What if the ink clashes with my aura?”

Dumb You: Walks in, slaps a $20 on the counter, and says “Gimme a sick scorpion holding a latte.” Two hours later, you’ve got a wonky arachnid with a foam-art heart. It’s terrible. It’s glorious.

(Cut to five years later: Dumb You’s covered in ugly-scarred masterpieces. Smart You’s arm is still pristine, pale, and pulsing with regret.)

Why does this work the way it does?

Brains are bullshit artists. Yours will whisper “You need another workshop” while it slowly pickles itself in anxiety brine.

Action is exorcism. Every shitty draft, botched chord, or deranged clay mug you make is a demon kicked out of your soul’s Airbnb.

Momentum is meth. Once you taste the crackle of doing, you’ll chase it like a feral raccoon hunting dumpster croissants.

Still stuck? Let’s weaponise a little incompetence…

Write the worst sentence of your life. “The moon howled like a diabetic wolf.” Congrats. You’re Tolstoy now.

Draw a stick figure. Give it a hat. A sword. A PhD in astrophysics. Boom. you’re a Pixar character designer now.

Record yourself singing “Happy Birthday.” Autotune it into a dubstep remix. NFT that nightmare. Retire.

The gap between “thinking” and “doing” is a graveyard where creativity goes to die in a Nike tracksuit. Stop polishing your tools. Stop curating your vibe. Start before your brain can hiss “But what if—”

Burn the plan.

Embrace the cringe.

Let your early work be a dumpster fire so bright, it guides other overthinkers out of the dark.

Stephen Walker

https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague

P.S. The world doesn’t need more “good” art. It needs your weird. Your raw. Your “what the fuck is that?”

P.P.S. Dumb isn’t an insult. It’s a revolution. Be the raccoon.

P.P.P.S. This post was written in 12 minutes. Edit? Never met her.

If you’re not diggin’ these tasty little emails anymore you can hit the unsubscribe button right here >>> unsubscribe

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

The nails hammered in with the finality of a judge’s gavel…

bang, bang, bang.

Inside? Ghostwriting. Your ghostwriting. That spectral little fucker you’ve been feeding for years, shovelling your voice into its gaping, incorporeal maw. (Poof. Gone. Like a fart in the church of getting paid)

And honestly I still don’t know how I feel about it. Kinda relieved and kinda meh.

I’ve signed off on my last Ghostwriting client and that’s it. Poof. Gone. Bang.

And if this was a dance. I’d say it was waltz that lasted way too long.

The NDAs were coiled around my throat like a lover’s hands.

And don’t get me wrong. There was this weird thrill of crafting worlds that’ll never bear my name…

(I’ve never had a thing for popularity and fame)

The cash though. Was thick, syrupy, cloying and dripping into my bank account while my ego was starved on a diet of shut-the-hell-up.

I mean I’ve written speeches for crypto bros who think “blockchain” is a sex position. Novels for influencers whose talent peaked at duck-face selfies. Corporate manifestos so sanitised they could’ve been scrubbed with bleach and a wire brush.

The list goes on.

No more though.

The straitjacket’s off. The muzzle’s cracked. The cheque’s cashed.

(I’ll miss the extra money. But freedom’s a currency that buys better drugs anyways)

It’s time to dig up the bones I buried.

2025? It’s a hungry year. A year of teeth and ink.

And a friend so aptly say “You’ve been the shadow. Now be the fire.”

If that isn’t motivation, then I dunno what is.

Lemme know if there’s anything you’ve decided to kick to the curb and if you’ve replaced it with something you wanna pursue.

Stephen Walker

https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague

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

The Dopamine Series: Part 1
​(remixed from November, 2023)
​

“Once you realize that the road is the goal and you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy.” – Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

You’re staring at a mountain in the distance.

​
The steep rock face ascends from the earth into the clouds, pulling your eyes upwards.

​
How incredible it would be to climb, you think to yourself.

​
Look at the view from down here — imagine what it’s like up there?

​
​You woke up on the wild side today, so you actually decide to do it:

​
You rent some gear, hire a guide, and start scaling the mountain.

​
A few hours later, you’re caught in some brambles, gasping for air, covered in scrapes and bruises.

​
“What was I thinking,” you moan, “climbing sucks!”

​
Then you remember exactly what you were thinking:

​
​The view.

​
That’s what you did it for; that stunning, majestic view that had you so captivated back on earth you climbed a freaking mountain for it.

​
So you look around…

​
…And see nothing but rock, trees, bushes, and a narrow glimpse of the valley below.

​
Your heart drops as you realize your mistake:

​
​The view of the mountain is not the view from the mountain.

​
In fact, you can’t even see the mountain from the mountain — you’re so close to it that it blocks your view.

​
The valley looks pretty cool from up here, so that makes you feel a bit better…

​
Until you realize you were just in that valley, looking up at this mountain, thinking about how cool the mountain looked from down there.

​
That old saying rings in your mind…

​
​”The path is the destination.”

​
And you finally begin to realize what it means:

​
​To chase a reward for the sake of the reward is to chase an illusion.

​
You climbed a mountain for the sake of the view, rather than for the thrill of the climb — until you realized the view you thought you’d enjoy isn’t real.

​
And so it is, all too often:

​
We pour our lives into an activity we think will bring us a reward, only to get the reward and realize it isn’t what we thought it would be.

​
And even if it is what we thought it would be…

​
If the view from the top really is spectacular — if winning the championship really is the greatest moment of your life — if reaching the goal really is satisfying…

​
​It’s only satisfying for a moment.

​
Then, we climb back down — we start a new season — we set a new goal — and realize that, functionally, our lives aren’t much different than before we got what we wanted.

​
So what gives?

​
Why even bother in the first place?

​
What’s the point of spending years pursuing a goal if you’re just going to enjoy it for a moment or two and then move on?

​
The point, of course, is the pursuit itself.

​
​The path to the goal is the goal — the pursuit of the reward is the reward.

​
So enjoy the path you’re on, or find a path that you enjoy.

​
(don’t climb mountains just for a view, if you don’t like actually climbing mountains)

​
To do anything else is to chase after something that doesn’t exist.
That’s a complete lesson in and of itself, and an important one…

​
But a deeper question still remains:

​
If we all know that the path is the reward, why is most of humanity still racing down paths they don’t enjoy, chasing rewards that never come?

​
In a word:

​
​Dopamine.

​
This simple molecule is the key to unlocking human behaviour, and tomorrow it is going to teach us one the most important insights the inner path has to offer.

​
I’ll see you then 🙂

​

• T
  ​
  ​P.S. In case you missed it yesterday, here are:
  ​
  ​4 Speaking Habits That Make People Listen

​

​

The Dopamine Series was first published November, 2023.

​

It was a huge hit, but many of our subscribers never got a chance to read it. So this week, we’re remixing and revisiting it with fresh eyes. Enjoy 🙂

​

​

5-420 Erb St. W, Suite 433, Waterloo, ON N2L6K6
​Unsubscribe · Preferences​

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