Author: admin
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163 miles away
Me being the incredibly high IQ person that I am.
Who everyone adores…
I’ve happened to have one of those days, where I ordered £60 worth of food
From a restaurant that is over 163 miles away, tucked away neatly in London.
Now my local place it’s usually around £25-30 and within a few minutes walk…
I should have noticed the price, but I was like “Well it’s probably just inflation or whatever”.
So when I got the message to collect I was like “Hell yea” and went off to get the goods.
I arrived and they were like “There’s no order for you. You might wanna check the app again”
And so I did and that’s when it hit me. Yep. I picked a restaurant with the same sounding name, based in London.
I laughed, they laughed and the owner gave me a drink cause we’re all good.
“It’ll take us 20 minutes to whip up your usual,” he says.
(Which is crazy if you’ve got a regular meal at a local restaurant and they all know you by name and/or beard awesomeness)
Anywho…
Long story long. I got my meal. I went hope and was just laughing at my own stupidity.
Life happens. Shit happens and you know? Not everything can be all peaches and cream.
And so when I got to thinking again about this who creative life most of us have decided to adopt. We know all too well that things aren’t gonna go smoothly.
Sometimes it’ll cost us money. Sometimes it’ll cost us relationships and sometimes it’ll cost us friends and family.
Will the outcome always be good? Hell no. Sometimes it’s bad and sometimes it’s just blasé with a side “meh-sauce”
But you know what we do?
We don’t cry about an order placed 163 miles away while being hangry.
We crack on and do what needs to be done.
We get some more food and we keep writing to our audience while sharing the wild and zany shit that does happen to go down.
And while I may be just shy of £100 out of pocket for a meal. Lessons were learned.
Well, it’s 22:20 as of sending this.
And the only real lesson is to re-read yo’ shit.
Pitches to clients, contracts or deals set up between you and someone else. Our brains do this magical thing where we gloss over comforts and that can sometimes bite us in the ass.
Stephen Walker
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Stephen Walker
Unit 146317
PO Box 7169
Poole
BH15 9EL
United Kingdom -
The kiss of death in business
“To build product, make something people want. To create art, make something you want. The best do both.” – Naval Ravikant
I’ve got three lessons for entrepreneurs — aspiring and experienced — today.
So square up, strap in, and listen close.
Yesterday, we talked about the big, hairy problem with our membership, The Path:
Ambiguity.
It’s tricky to say exactly what we do, here…
(self-development? spirituality? business? internal practice? …
…all of the above, hence the ambiguity)
…Which is the kiss of death for a business.
If you can’t say exactly what you do, and who you do it for, in clear, simple terms:
It’s curtains for you.
Lock the doors and close up shop.
That’s lesson #1.
Thankfully, The Path has been more creative outlet than business, for me:
A transition point between businesses, while I figure out what I’m going to do next.
But in the course of that creative process, clarity has emerged:
Clarity on the direction of my work, and who I can help the most.
Which brings us to lesson #2:
If you’re looking for clarity in your own work, and trying to forge your own path forward…
…Look first at the path behind you:
Your unique life experiences The skills you've developed Deep interests and curiosities What you feel naturally suited for Your successes and failures
Where do they intersect?
For me, the intersection point is clear and obvious:
- Entrepreneurship 14 years in online business
8 figures in revenue generated
Privately coached dozens of 6, 7, and 8 figure entrepreneurs
- Advanced Self-Development & Spirituality 12 years of intensive meditation and internal practice
10 years in traditional plant medicine and over 500 healing ceremonies
Completed over 2 years of formal solo retreats
Currently running ~10 group retreats per year
I’m a bumbling nitwit at many things…
…But when it comes to entrepreneurship and self / spiritual development:
I’m don’t play at this sh*t.
I’ve got serious skin in the game, deep experience, and a skill set I’d stack up against nearly anyone.
There are more successful business teachers, and there are more advanced spiritual teachers.
But put the two together, and I own that lane.
And there is no more potent recipe in business than owning your lane:
Your own unique intersection of the marketplace that you can serve better than anyone else in the world.
That’s lesson #3.
Which brings us to the big announcement:
Moving forward, The Path — and my work as a whole — will specialize in that unique intersection of:
Advanced Self Development for Entrepreneurs
And, if you’re an entrepreneur — experienced or aspiring…
…And you’re one of the rare few working to master both the outer business world and your inner world:
Welcome to the right place.
It’s an honor to share this path with you.
- T
P.S. Speaking of The Path:
I’m gearing up to re-open our membership for the first time in four months.
I don’t have a set date yet, but it won’t be long — more details to come.
In the meantime, watch the new clip one commenter called:
”…the most important talk I’ve heard so far”“What you seek is seeking you.” – Dune Prophecy
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- Entrepreneurship 14 years in online business
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103 days
…and 103 emails since I’ve had to restart this wacky list of misfits
Getting my ass booted off a platform I enjoyed has definitely changed the way I view the whole online space.
But the main thing I took away was:
Nothing is promised and can be taken away without any explanation…
So where you can have a backup. Make as many as you can.
I won’t say I wasn’t pissed when it happened, but I was left more annoyed at my own stupidity to be honest.
Well. I was lazy.
Luckily I’m using a platform that sends me email backups often and don’t care about the spicy nature of some of my emails.
So looks like I’m in good hands.
So whether I’m ranting, sharing wild shit or just doing a little more of the “teaching” side of things.
I’ll keep on sending these daily emails.
I look forward to writing them and I know a few of you enjoy reading them.
With the warmer weather coming back, I’ll be able to share more too.
For now though. I have to get back to building something I’ve wanted to for a long time.
Stephen Walker
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 -
Coffee shop hero
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
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Stephen Walker
Unit 146317
PO Box 7169
Poole
BH15 9EL
United Kingdom -
Capitalism Is Noisy.
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:
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:
”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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Fundamentals beat the quick-fix bs
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
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 -
I think we can pull this off…
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
“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
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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 -
Your time is not an all-you-can-eat buffet
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
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 -
Raw Advice For Young Entrepreneurs
“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
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When the work dries up, the weird turn pro
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
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.
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Stephen Walker
Unit 146317
PO Box 7169
Poole
BH15 9EL
United Kingdom -
Perfection is a pyramid scheme…
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
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
