One of my favourite marketers/guru’s are moments away from taking their group and nuking it.
Why? No engagement.
It’s all bullshit though.
Engagement exists.
It’s just been microwaved into a soggy, dopamine starved husk by the brain rot hordes.
(You know the ones. The “Why isn’t this free?” crowd.)
The “TL;DR” legion. The “But what about my feelings?” death cult.
This dude?
He was giving away gold. Actual, no bullshit, “holy fuck this works” knowledge.
For free. And still…
Crickets. The equivalent of a graveyard.
The thing is. They’re also the problem.
There’s this ego trap though.
He’s a genius. No, really. The man’s got receipts. His shit works. But…
He’s also a fucking tyrant. Someone posts something dumb? (And oh, they will and do often.) Instead of guiding them, he atomises them. A verbal smackdown. A “How dare you?” wrapped in a “You moron.”
Newbies? They don’t learn from that. They flee. They crawl back to their safe space echo chambers where everyone gets a participation trophy for breathing.
And look, I get it. You want to scream. You want to shake them by their slack jawed faces and yell, “THIS ISN’T PRIMARY SCHOOL. THE WORLD DOESN’T CARE ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS.”
Although if you treat your tribe like idiots, they’ll either leave or become idiots.
THE RYAN HOLIDAY SOLUTION
Ego is the enemy. (Yes, that book. Read it. Burn it into your skull.)
Correction ≠ crucifixion. You can educate without eviscerating. (Wild concept, I know.)
Newbies need scaffolding, not a guillotine. They’re babies. Soft, squishy, stupid babies. But babies grow. If you let them.
The hard pilll…
Changing platforms? Won’t help.
Charging for everything? Won’t help.
But in this instance the reactive, hair-trigger, “I AM THE LAW” bullshit and the inability to separate being right from being useful will slowly erode this group.
(I’m hoping he doesn’t close the group. It’s one of the rare ones I enjoy seeing pop up the feed when someone isn’t posting some dumb shit)
But there’s always a choice if you were found in this position.
You can keep being the smartest asshole in the room. (You’ll eventually be alone.)
Or you can learn to teach without turning every interaction into a fucking gladiator pit.
But they’ll need to pick fast.
Cause the clock’s ticking.
And the brain rot hordes?
They’re not waiting. They’re running around the internet with their umbilical chords out waiting to plug into the next great guru.
Stephen Walker
P.S. I’m not your next great guru. I’m a dude who writes email.
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
Hey man. It feels like yesterday when we were going on about that stupid dress.
Now here’s another fun little debate that’s popped up on the ‘ol internets…
And Look, I know we usually talk about real stuff. Like your boss who is actually a hairball with a personality or my ongoing battle with existential dread at the grocery store cause I have to fight the old people for the milk at 8am, but I need you to focus up.
Because there’s a debate raging across the internet and it’s just silly fun.
What is it?
100 men vs. 1 gorilla.
Yeah. That one. The one that keeps popping up on Reddit, in group chats, and probably in the background of every failed first date in America.
I mean, this is it: The apex of human intellectual achievement.
Plato’s Republic? Pfft. Try Chad from accounting versus a silverback on a bad hair day.
Here’s the premise, in case you’ve missed the memes (in which case, are you okay?)
100 regular dudes. Not action heroes. Not guys with weird survival skills. Just…guys. The kind who think “hydration” means a third beer.
1 gorilla. Not just any gorilla. The kind of gorilla that could bench press your car and then use your femur as a toothpick.
And the question?
Could those 100 men, unarmed, actually take down the gorilla?
Let’s break it down. Because apparently, I have nothing better to do and neither do you.
Team 100 Men:
“Just dogpile it, bro. Simple math.”
“We’d use tactics, like ants. Or the Avengers, but with more sweat and less charisma.”
“Sheer numbers, man. The gorilla can’t punch everyone at once.”
Team Gorilla:
“Have you seen a gorilla? Google it and then apologise to the concept of hope.”
“One swipe and you’re a human Capri Sun.”
“The gorilla could probably unlock a car door with your ribcage.”
Real-world test?
Gorilla: Allegedly deadlifts cars.
Men: Deadlifts a pizza box if there’s motivation.
Gorilla: Pure rage. No taxes. No rent.
Men: Lose morale the minute someone gets a papercut.
Tactics?
“Zerg Rush”: All 100 men charge at once.
Half trip on their own shoelaces.
The rest become gorilla confetti.
“Surround and Poke”: Try to flank it.
Gorilla spins like a murder blender.
“Sacrifice a Greg”: Distract the gorilla with a Greg.
Greg’s last words: “Tell my memes I love them.”
Honestly, this isn’t Planet of the Apes.
It isn’t Home Alone with 100 Kevin McCallisters.
It’s Battle Royale meets Donkey Kong on bath salts.
So, who wins?
The gorilla. Every time.
The 100 men would realise too late that “strength in numbers” isn’t a cheat code for “immune to getting turned into a human smoothie.”
The only real winners are the internet trolls who keep this debate alive and everyone who gets to watch the chaos unfold from a safe, gorilla free distance.
Is there a moral to the story?
Don’t underestimate gorillas.
Definitely overestimate the stupidity of groups of men online.
And hey, next time I’m bored, I’m starting a “100 toddlers vs. 1 goose” thread.
(The goose is basically a winged demon.)
Alright, that’s my brain dump for the day, I’m out to go get some sun which is a rarity up north.
Let me know which side you’re on, or just join me on Team “Why Are We Like This?”
Stephen Walker
Interesting image for contextual numbers but probably won’t make a difference…
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
Picture this… it’s midnight, I’m three cold slices of pizza deep (still greasy, still judgmental), and I decide to check out this new series.
The Bondsman. Why? Because Kevin Bacon.
Because I have a soft spot for undead weirdness and because my brain craves some weird shit because everything lately has been a snooze fest.
I’m trying to make this as spoiler free as possible, but also, you know me. No promises.
So here it is…
Kevin Bacon is a backwoods bounty hunter.
Who just so happens to be dead.
But not dead dead. Like the undead, but with a job and a questionable sense of style.
I’d say it’s like if John Wick got run over by a combine harvester.
Then woke up, and decided to keep hustling souls for the DEATH himself.
There’s grit. There’s blood. There’s a chicken that may or may not be possessed (Okay it’s not but I thought it would’ve been cool if there was.)
But here’s where it gets all meta and useful, because I know you always on the lookout for a way to make your writing less oatmeal and more, I dunno, spicy meat tornado.
Lesson 1: Character Agency Is Everything Even If You’re Dead
Bacon’s character? He’s got problems. Big, existential, death flavoured problems. But he chooses to do something about it. He doesn’t just shamble around whining about the afterlife like a sad sack of expired deli meat. He hustles. He fights. Sometimes he loses (spectacularly), but dammit, he tries.
Takeaway: Don’t let your characters be human shaped paperweights. Give them something to want. Give them something to do, even if it’s just revenge, redemption, or more pizza.
Lesson 2: Genre Mashups are your friend.
This show? It’s horror. It’s comedy. It’s a little bit Western, a little bit “what if the Coen Brothers made a zombie flick.” And it works because it doesn’t apologise for being weird. It just is.
Like, one minute you’re laughing at a fart joke; the next, you’re staring down the barrel of existential dread and a shotgun made of bone.
Takeaway: Don’t box yourself in. Mix genres. Throw in a curveball. Your story doesn’t have to fit in a neat little Amazon category.
Lesson 3: Dialogue. Make It Snap, Crackle, and Bleed.
The Bondsman is packed with dialogue that’s sharp enough to slice bread. Hell, sharp enough to slice you. Minimal tags. Maximum punch.
People talk like people. Or, at least, like people who have had a few concussions and a run in with the supernatural IRS.
Takeaway: Don’t let your dialogue die on the page. Make it do push ups. Make it bleed. Make it say more with less. If you can cut a tag, cut it. If you can make it weird? Even better.
Bonus Round: Writing Advice, Stephen style.
Write what scares you.
Write what makes you laugh and cringe.
If you get stuck, ask yourself: “What would an undead Kevin Bacon do?”
(Usually, the answer is: “Something reckless, something funny, and probably something illegal.”)
Alright, enough rambling.
Go watch The Bondsman.
Then go write something that makes you feel alive.
Or undead.
Or at least less bored than you were five minutes ago.
Buy yourself some pizza. You’ve earned it.
The Bondsman is here
Stephen Walker
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
I posted this on the old book of faces and thought it would be of value to my favourite people…
It’s also one of the most underrated ways to get higher quality people into your world too.
And as you all know email for the most part is just text. (Well. The way I do it.)
People who buy books are generally readers, right and I’ve always found that people who like to read are generally just better humans overall. Call me biased but it’s just the way it is.
So this is where Amazon can be the answer you need.
Yes it needs work.
No it’s not an over night fix, but when done right and consistently you can easily get a couple hundred new people onto your list every few weeks.
The more you do. The more you’ll get back.
Take a single idea or concept and write about it. Add your own sauce. It doesn’t have to be tens of thousands of words. It just needs to be done.
The next step is just prettying it up and adding a few sections strategically and this is generally how you’d want to do the thing…
Format the “book” and set the expectations straight up.
Make the cover look good/bad. Hell it doesn’t matter. Keep it on brand or whatever.
Let the reader know that this “book” is short, to the point and easily actionable.
Add a disclaimer page.
Create an introduction to who you are and what the purpose of these “micro books” are.
Put in an Opt-in link to your list with a little bonus/freebie. Think of it as a one page mini sales letter.
Content / meat of the one thing you’re sharing.
Closing additional thoughts.
Opt-in link to your list with a little bonus/freebie.
Final page where they can either buy other products or check out what other micro books you’ve made on topics that are tied into this one.
That’s it. Nothing magical. Nothing sexy. Just something that works if you put in the work.
Think of it as a fancy-ish blog post on steroids.
Pricing can be free if on kindle unlimited or you can start it at 99c to $1.99.
We’re not out here writing war and peace. We just want to get simple concepts and ideas out there for people to read, action and get some results on.
The reason we do this is if we can give them a quick win. They’ll get more of our stuff and then later on happily give us more money for being more awesome.
The wheels of commerce don’t have to stand still if you’re willing to put out unique to you content which get people moving whatever needle it is they’re struggling to move.
Here’s an example from my boy Ben Settle
Granted a lot of his stuff on Kindle are just transcripts from podcasts/interviews he has done. If you pretty up your writing and do what I’ve mentioned you’ll be able to knock out more of these and they’ll be high quality. Which will also naturally build your presence and authority out in the whole book writing world.
Non-fiction is great for introducing people to the way your mind works and how you overcome challenges and apply lessons and when you create that level of buy in, it doesn’t matter what you share in the future. You’ll have fans that’ll pick up what you do because they just like you. Just make sure you don’t steer them wrong and do right by them and you’ll be golden.
Stephen Walker.
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
“Blame is the coward’s solution to failure.” – Pat Riley
A well-known business guru just dropped a post that made me want to reach out, pull him close, and give him a warm, compassionate kick in the teeth.
Here’s what it said…
(post is shortened but all words are his — if you want to see the full post hit reply)
”I parted ways with 90% of my staff this week.
People in this industry don’t know sh*t. I’ve hired people that worked that worked for big names, but they couldn’t even set up an automation without it breaking.
Total trash. From now on everything will be built by me.
Starting with these garbage reels I put out. I’m putting a FULL STOP on all IG posts by my team.”
And, as a hollow chorus of cheers rose from the comments section, I couldn’t help but think:
You’re screwed, dude.
You’re screwed, and you haven’t even realized it yet.
Not because you’re stuck building everything on your own now (tough, but it can work)…
…But because somehow, after all these years, you still don’t know what you signed up for when you became an entrepreneur.
‘Cause here’s the deal:
When you become an entrepreneur, everything that goes wrong is now your fault.
Period, full stop, end of story.
If you’re in charge, you don’t have the luxury of pointing the finger at anyone else, because everyone else is your responsibility.
If your employees aren’t performing, it’s your fault for hiring and/or mis-managing them.
If your customers are complaining, it’s your fault for selling a product they complain about.
If the market is changing and sales are slowing down, it’s your fault for not adapting fast enough.
The buck stops with you, bucko.
Nobody else.
After all, isn’t that why you became an entrepreneur in the first place?
To take your future into your own hands, and step fully into your own creative power?
If it is, then just remember:
Power follows responsibility.
Whoever we point the finger at, we give power to.
And pointing it at others leaves us powerless, because we don’t control others.
So I recommend turning that finger back around, pointing it where it belongs, and stamping two simple words into your mind ’till they stay there:
”My fault.”
Then, get back to work.
T
P.S. This just dropped:
5 Ways To Signal Confidence Without Saying A Word
Banger clip from our Advanced Communication & Charisma session, on how your body, energy, and attention are silently speaking to everyone you meet.
If you want more, the full 3 hour session is available to watch now inside The Path.
P.P.S. I’m still playing with the format of these weekly emails.
I want to include the section below but I’m not sure where to put it yet, so I’m just gonna stick it here for now:
3 Things To Make Your Weekend Better
What to watch, listen to, and be inspired by this weekend.
Chris Williamson: Why we really do this work.
This entire vlog is beautiful… But 18:30 is a moment I hope every entrepreneur gets to experience: The moment you realize you’ve built something you’re truly proud of, and in the process have become someone you’re truly proud to be.
The Brutal Truth About Running a $100k/mo Startup
A very real, very insightful, and very endearing story of two founders who are deep in the trenches right now… And winning.
Theo Von Bought A Katt Williams Statue
Theo remains undefeated.
“Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified?” – Chuck Palahniuk
Unsubscribe | Update your profile | 5-420 Erb St. W, Suite 433, Waterloo, ON N2L6K6
Some would say hacker because of the work I used to do.
I was just a dude who looked at terrible code and logic and then simplified it.
Just like in writing. I try to say the most with as few words as possible.
Is it art, science or witchcraft? I’ll let you decide.
Although there was one part of programming that I still use to this day and that is conditional logic.
And the easiest way for me to ‘splain it is like this:
IF you read my emails it makes me happy.
Else I will get sad.
If-else statements.
When we write code a lot of the functions and operating aspects of it all are built around those statements.
If a user clicks and does this give them X else give them this.
But you should 100% be doing this in your personal development side of life too.
If I send a daily email. My readers will bond with me and buy my warez (insert else clause)
Which is if I don’t email them daily, they’ll forget about me and my list dies.
If I go to the gym 3x a week and eat healthy I’ll get jacked as hell but if I don’t then I’ll probably die from health related bullshit.
If else loops are a pretty good way to tie in wins and losses with shit that needs to get done while also bullying you the right way if you don’t do it.
Just one of the many nerdy ways I know how to write the words to keep me on the straight and narrow.
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
“Blame is the coward’s solution to failure.” – Pat Riley
A well-known business guru just dropped a post that made me want to reach out, pull him close, and give him a warm, compassionate kick in the teeth.
Here’s what it said…
(post is shortened but all words are his — if you want to see the full post hit reply)
”I parted ways with 90% of my staff this week.
People in this industry don’t know sh*t. I’ve hired people that worked that worked for big names, but they couldn’t even set up an automation without it breaking.
Total trash. From now on everything will be built by me.
Starting with these garbage reels I put out. I’m putting a FULL STOP on all IG posts by my team.”
And, as a hollow chorus of cheers rose from the comments section, I couldn’t help but think:
You’re screwed, dude.
You’re screwed, and you haven’t even realized it yet.
Not because you’re stuck building everything on your own now (tough, but it can work)…
…But because somehow, after all these years, you still don’t know what you signed up for when you became an entrepreneur.
‘Cause here’s the deal:
When you become an entrepreneur, everything that goes wrong is now your fault.
Period, full stop, end of story.
If you’re in charge, you don’t have the luxury of pointing the finger at anyone else, because everyone else is your responsibility.
If your employees aren’t performing, it’s your fault for hiring and/or mis-managing them.
If your customers are complaining, it’s your fault for selling a product they complain about.
If the market is changing and sales are slowing down, it’s your fault for not adapting fast enough.
The buck stops with you, bucko.
Nobody else.
After all, isn’t that why you became an entrepreneur in the first place?
To take your future into your own hands, and step fully into your own creative power?
If it is, then just remember:
Power follows responsibility.
Whoever we point the finger at, we give power to.
And pointing it at others leaves us powerless, because we don’t control others.
So I recommend turning that finger back around, pointing it where it belongs, and stamping two simple words into your mind ’till they stay there:
”My fault.”
Then, get back to work.
T
P.S. This just dropped:
5 Ways To Signal Confidence Without Saying A Word
Banger clip from our Advanced Communication & Charisma session, on how your body, energy, and attention are silently speaking to everyone you meet.
If you want more, the full 3 hour session is available to watch now inside The Path.
P.P.S. I’m still playing with the format of these weekly emails.
I want to include the section below but I’m not sure where to put it yet, so I’m just gonna stick it here for now:
3 Things To Make Your Weekend Better
What to watch, listen to, and be inspired by this weekend.
Chris Williamson: Why we really do this work.
This entire vlog is beautiful… But 18:30 is a moment I hope every entrepreneur gets to experience: The moment you realize you’ve built something you’re truly proud of, and in the process have become someone you’re truly proud to be.
The Brutal Truth About Running a $100k/mo Startup
A very real, very insightful, and very endearing story of two founders who are deep in the trenches right now… And winning.
Theo Von Bought A Katt Williams Statue
Theo remains undefeated.
“Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified?” – Chuck Palahniuk
Unsubscribe | Update your profile | 5-420 Erb St. W, Suite 433, Waterloo, ON N2L6K6
I’ve had one of those days where I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus.
So a little TLC was had. I woke up. Did a few things and then got back into bed and got watching one of my many favourite films.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone.
(Yes people are still mad to this day because of the swap of names)
Anyways.
With the doom and gloom of the internet at the moment, where everyone is worried about A.I. taking over their souls (It’s already doing it tbh)
Us creatives need to be looking to build a world people will throw their money at faster than first years rushing the Honeydukes Express cart. Chocolate frogs anyone?
And as it pains to be type this… There’s blueprint hidden right in the first film.
Buckle up. We’re getting a little sweary.
LESSON #1: THE DRAMATIC FUCKING ONBOARDING EXPERIENCE
Remember Harry’s journey from miserable cupboard under the stairs kid to actual wizard? That’s customer onboarding done right.
Hagrid didn’t send a goddamn email newsletter. He kicked down a door during a lightning storm on a remote island and said “YER A WIZARD, HARRY” Then whisked the kid to Diagon Alley. A hidden world of wonder where even buying a stick (wand) feels like a religious experience.
Business translation:
Make your customer’s first experience with your brand memorable as hell.
I get that we have to sell a product or a service but you need to initiate people into a world they didn’t know existed.
Create “Diagon Alley moments” where ordinary transactions feel magical and think to yourself how can you make that first purchase amazing. What else can you give them to make them feel special.
When someone discovers your brand, are they getting a form letter or are they getting Hagrid? Are you selling wands, or are you selling “the wand chooses the wizard” moments? The difference is everything.
LESSON #2: HOUSES, LOYALTY & TRIBAL PSYCHOLOGY
In the business world when someone is coaching someone or whatever people are always referred to as “Students”
When you attend Hogwarts you think just a typical school with students and magic, but what they actually have is Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws and Slytherins. Each with distinct values, aesthetics, and a built in rivalry system that makes people care about arbitrary differences more than they care about their actual blood relatives.
The Sorting Hat is low key the most brilliant customer segmentation tool ever created and you might just think it’s there for sorting but it gives them identity. Something to defend, represent, and wear on everything from scarves to underpants.
Business Translation:
Create tribal identities within your customer base.
Develop clear value systems that people can self identify with.
Foster friendly competition that drives deeper engagement.
People will forget what you sell them, but they’ll never forget what team you put them on. What’s your version of “house pride”? How can you make customers feel they belong to something bigger than a transaction?
Find that, and you’ve found brand loyalty that’ll stick no matter what it is that you do.
LESSON #3: ACCESSIBILITY LAYERED WITH MYSTERY
The brilliant thing about Hogwarts isn’t just that it’s magical it’s that it’s knowable magic with unknowable depths.
First years understand classes, points, and Quidditch immediately. But what’s in the forbidden corridor? What’s Nicolas Flamel’s deal? What’s with Snape’s whole… everything?
Rowling created a world with clear entry points and hidden trapdoors. You can enjoy the surface and be rewarded for going deeper.
Business translation:
Make your core offering immediately understandable.
Layer in mysteries, insider knowledge, and discovery paths.
Balance accessibility with the thrill of exclusivity.
Your business needs its own version of “restricted section in the library” energy.
Something customers can discover after they’ve mastered the basics. The goal is to create both casual fans and obsessives who will fight a mountain troll to learn more about what you offer.
The real magic of Harry Potter wasn’t just wizards and wands. It was creating a world so immersive that people would rather live there than here. Your brand doesn’t need actual spells (though if you have them, call me), but it does need to feel like a place worth visiting, again and again.
Do it right and you won’t only have customers. You’ll have first years arriving wide eyed at your platform, ready to spend seven years (and their Gringotts vault) exploring everything you’ve built.
And a lot of the way I’ve started to think about this is because of my main man Ben Settle
If you’re wanting another look into it all grab his book here
It’ll get you thinking about worlds instead of just offering your things and stuff.
Stephen Walker
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
So a little while ago I happened to participate in the weirdest threesome of my life.
NOT THAT KIND
You perverts.
I don’t mean anything sexual.
I mean from a friendship and relationship point of view, the kind that makes you question if the sky daddy up there is just playing out some reality show for bored interdimensional teenagers or whatever…
But as the kids say nowadays.
Let me spill the tea.
It’s more of a clusterfuck but I’m sure you’ll find it entertaining cause it involves yours truly.
WOMAN #1: The one that got away, then came back, then nuked everything from orbit.
We reconnected after months of radio silence.
And I shit you not. It’s like someone out there has a voodoo doll of me and out of the blue it’s like “hey remember that person you adored? HERE THEY ARE AGAIN, SUCKER.” and so the messenger icon lights up and low and behold I get a message from her.
The thing is. We had history. Like a punch to the gut type of history.
WOMAN #2: Industry adjacent cool person with gaming cred and cheese opinions. NOT ROMANTICALLY INVOLVED WITH ME. I repeat for the people in the back.
JUST. FUCKING. FRIENDS.
ME: The idiot standing in the blast radius with a “this is fine” coffee mug.
Here’s what happened.
Woman #1 and I rekindled whatever smoldering ember remained of our previous connection. It felt good. Like finding that one sock you thought the dryer demons had claimed for their cloth sacrifice ritual. Meanwhile, I’d made friends with Woman #2
(who is well known in my industry and once dated someone in our mutual circle because life loves a good six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon situation)
Woman #2 and I just hit it off. Pure platonic chemistry. The kind where you find yourself sending World of Warcraft memes at 2 AM and having existential debates about whether Gouda is overrated. (It isn’t. Fight me.)
Just two humans enjoying each other’s company without the complication of wanting to see each other naked.
(And yeah yeah, I hear you. “Men and women can’t be friends without sexual tension!”
That’s some When Harry Met Sally bullshit we can dissect another time. The 1980s called, they want their heteronormative assumptions back.)
But here’s where everything went sideways fast.
Woman #1 developed thoughts (the dangerous kind)
Insecurities bloomed like toxic flowers.
Woman #2 got dragged into our emotional shit show.
Things escalated from “slightly awkward” to “probably gonna bomb Russia if they had the chance”
Despite my honesty with Woman #1 Because I’m a grown ass adult who uses words instead of passive aggressive Instagram stories and Facebook posts, everything went full nuclear. The emotional equivalent of Chernobyl, except instead of radiation it was just hurt feelings and misunderstandings spreading through the atmosphere.
It’s sad really, because if anything had progressed further with Woman #1 and we started actually dating, Woman #2 would have been the first to know. I would have sent her a formal notification, possibly via carrier pigeon or one of those singing telegram gorillas. That’s how fucking clear I would’ve made it.
So while everything went to hell in a handbasket. A particularly stylish handbasket with flames painted on the sides
Woman #1 vanished from my life like she entered the witness protection program.
Meanwhile, Woman #2 stuck around, still sending memes and occasionally mentioning that Woman #1 was “stupid to let it get to this point.”
And I’m trying to pull some creative / marketing / magical lesson here…
But there’s no fortune cookie wisdom to wrap this shit show in a bow.
Sometimes people’s insecurities just get them.
I don’t hold it against them. I wish them happiness, success, good hair days, and whatever else people wish for others they once cared about.
But damn if it doesn’t sting watching something pretty amazing get discarded like that.
That’s just life I guess.
Stephen Walker
P.S. Feel free to buy yours truly a couple of Guinness to wash away the ugh from this clusterfuck you’ve just put yourself through. I guess I’m better off sticking to what I’m good at. Writing and reading books.
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
An ex client hit me with the question the other day and this seems to be a recurring theme for anyone who slides into my world.
“How do you do what you do?”
And I could feel it.
This little flicker of hope in their voice, like I was about to drop some ancient, mystical wisdom on their head.
Maybe I had a secret formula. A magical ritual. A holy grail of productivity that only the chosen few could access.
But here’s what I told them as I tell everyone…
I just show up.
That’s it. That’s the whole thing. I show up and do the work. Day in, day out. Rain or shine. Whether I feel like it or not. Whether it’s fun or it’s hell.
It’s not original advice, by the way. I didn’t invent it. Smarter people than me figured this out a long time ago.
People who’ve built empires, written masterpieces, created works that make the world stop and feel something.
And they all say the same damn thing. You show up and do the thing.
Even when it sucks.
Even when you’d rather be anywhere else.
Even when you’re sure it’s not good enough, or smart enough, or whatever enough.
I always wished that improvement would be like a strike of lightening. I’d be walking around outside and then bam all of a sudden I’m the best at whatever it is I’m doing.
And as much as I’m not a fan of the hustle grind culture I’m annoyed to say that it happens in the grind.
Like me, writing this email right now. Cause, trust me, I didn’t wake up today with fireworks in my chest and a hot muse sitting on my lap and whispering in my ear. But I’m writing it anyway.
Or when I’m teaching myself some absurdly complicated piece of music software that feels like it was programmed by a sadistic robot… but I keep poking at it, learning one thing at a time, because that’s how you get better.
Every time you show up, you’re turning the wheel. Maybe it’s a tiny turn. Maybe it feels like nothing’s moving at all. But it is. I promise you, it is.
And one day, you’ll look back and realise you’ve been doing the thing so long, so consistently, that you’re good at it. Maybe even great. And the people around you will ask, “How do you do it?”
And you’ll tell them the same thing…
I just show up.
So, go. Do the thing. Do it good or do it bad but as long as you’re doing it. You’ll get to where you want to be.
Even if you don’t feel like it.
That’s little Monday kick up the ass.
Stephen Walker
https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
That’s what boredom is. It’s not harmless but it’s akin to death.
It’s the kind of thing that turns your brain into mush and makes your soul feel like it’s been left out in the sun too long.
(Obviously not here in England though cause it looks like it’s about to piss down tonight where I am)
But yeah. Nobody likes their soul feel brittle, cracked, and useless. That’s what boredom does before you inevitably want to crawl up into a ball and die.
But there is a cure. There is an antidote and it’s simple.
Will it cost you $997 to discover? Nope.
Just learn something.
Anything. Pick up a skill, dive into a topic, chase after something that sparks even a flicker of curiosity.
It doesn’t have to be related to what you do for work, or even what you think you’re “supposed” to care about.
I’ve just gotten back into music production and switched from using one piece of software to another. It’s hard because they work completely differently from one another. But the thing is I’m learning.
I mean you can take up woodworking. Learn to bake bread. Watch documentaries about black holes or ancient civilisations or competitive sheep shearing (yes, that’s a thing). It doesn’t matter.
What matters is that you’re feeding your brain, giving it something to chew on, something to stretch and grow with.
The cool thing is…
Whatever you learn will bleed into what you do. Always.
Bake bread, and you’ll start to see how patience and precision changes everything.
Study black holes, and suddenly you’re thinking about the vast, terrifying beauty of the unknown and how that applies to your own work. Even weird shit like sheep shearing teaches you something about focus, skill, and the weirdly satisfying joy of a job done well.
Learning keeps you sharp. It keeps you curious. And curiosity is the magic sauce for everything.
Without it, you’re coasting. And coasting is another word for stagnation, and stagnation is just boredom dressed up in a slightly fancier outfit that covers your own flesh vessel.
So, what are you learning today? And if the answer is “nothing,” then here’s your sign to fix that. Go pull on a thread. Follow it. See where it leads.
I mean the more you learn the more you become or whatever it is the fancy identity and belief shifting guru’s try sell to you.
And if you want to see competitive sheep shearing in action this is the type of shit that pops up on my youtube at around 2-3am
Stephen Walker
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
It’s almost become a thing for me to do micro book reviews or give recommendations and why…
So if you’re wanting a little break from my madness then check these out.
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
Why read it?
Because life’s an absurdist joke, and Camus hands you the punchline like a swift punch to the face.
Should you off yourself in a world without meaning? The answer is no but if you’re a writer. It’s basically gasoline for stories about characters grinding their teeth against the world and what is going on.
The Conspiracy Against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti
Ligotti’s nihilism has been likened as a cheese grater for your soul.
Existential horror so sharp it’ll make Lovecraft cringe.
I’ll admit that I had to read this one a few times to unpack what was inside, but if you look at it. It’s like the series Black Mirror but for you as a writer.
SJWs Always Lie by Vox Day
If you want rage-bait before rage-bait was a thing. Read Vox’s stuff. It’s pure culture war paranoia. Which is flawed, furious, and fucking polarising. If you want a masterclass on rhetoric, this will show you how it all curdles into dogma.
Shout out to https://bensettle.com/
He put me on to his stuff years ago.
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie
Sometimes you wake up and it feels like your brain is on a meth binge and you’re everywhere in thought. Nothing good, nothing bad but it just sits there.
If you’ve ever wanted someone to chill you out and set you straight again…
Carnegie’s the grandpa slapping it with a newspaper full of common sense.
In the creative world. Anxiety is the enemy of the muse.
On that note. After spending a few hours out in the sun (Which is rare here in England)
I’m gonna go enjoy a nice pint of the black stuff.
Stephen Walker
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” – Albert Einstein
Yesterday, I missed sending a daily email.
I missed the day before too, and another one last Wednesday.
This almost never happens:
Not at random, without letting you know in advance.
I think I had one random miss last summer, but only because it took me two days to write the infamous and epic Maze email.
So, what’s my excuse this time?
And no, it isn’t something lame like “I have no excuses, and I’m deeply sorry.”
Oh no, I have an excuse.
A good excuse.
I’ve been cooking something up for you, and before I share it with the world, I want to share it with you first.
Here’s the story:
I’ve been developing the first (I think?) AI-powered self-discovery tool for entrepreneurs.
Think personality typing meets strengths finder meets spiral dynamics meets AI meets Taylor’s twisted mind.
This slick little bot unlocks insight into…
Your unique "Founder Archetype" (a matrix of 16 personality patterns entrepreneurs naturally fit into)
What businesses you're naturally suited for (imagine being able to pick the perfect business idea for your unique wiring)
Exactly what to focus on, and what to delegate to others for maximum leverage
Your deepest growth edges; tactical weak-points that must be solved if you want to unlock maximum business and personal growth
Other famous entrepreneurs who share your unique Archetype, and how they leveraged it for maximum growth
…And a whole lot more, if you ask it.
As Path member and 8-figure entrepreneur Mason Vranes put it:
”Without this you could be constantly spinning your wheels, fighting against yourself.”
And I agree.
The right entrepreneur running the wrong business — or, running the right business the wrong way — is going to fail.
(or, at best, make their life much harder)
So that’s what this bot does:
It helps you find, play, and win your own game (not Hormozi’s or Dan Koe’s or — I’m drawing a blank because I barely follow this sh*t anymore but insert your favorite influencer here).
In other words:
It shows you how to build a business that is built for you.
And today, I want to let you try it.
No cost — but I do want something in return:
I’m BETA testing the bot right now, working out some kinks and fine-tuning some variables before I push it out into the world.
So after you’ve tried it, I want to know what you think.
Good, honest, useful feedback. No lazy sh*t.
If we’ve got a deal, just reply to this email with the words “I’m in”.
And my assistant Simon or I will get you the details.
Gracias and de nada and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
T
P.S. Here’s what Path member Jared Schwartz said after using the bot and chatting back and forth with it about his results:
”This is my new best friend. It’s fxcking insane. How long did it take you to build this? It’s crazy… precisely accurate.”
Jared is running running a 30k/mo agency at 18 years old:
So he’s got real, blood-on-the-floor experience with fighting against his natural wiring…
…And, what happens when you finally stop.
P.P.S. Damn, I forgot how much I love writing.
That blood-on-the-floor line was nice.
“The answers are all out there, we just need to ask the right questions.” – Oscar Wilde
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On the 24th of March a lone developer by the name of Tyler (TVGS) launched a viral hit of a game.
Something he thought would’ve been a meme of a launch right off the bat…
As of yesterday the peak all time player count was sitting around 414,166.
(And this might not interest you but it’s simulator game where you need to build up your drug empire)
It wasn’t a serious thing he stated but he has now promised to keep updating it for years to come because it’s garnered an almost over night cult-like fan base.
Imagine almost shelving their game the week before launch to have missed out on this.
“Who wants to manage imaginary production timelines?” was a quote taken from him…
Just over 72 hours later, it became the #1 strategy game on Steam.
And the lesson here is that it isn’t about luck.
It’s about the 40 prototypes they built first. The 236 playtests they ran. The daily 5 AM coding sessions they honoured even when progress felt invisible.
There’s a strong lesson learnt from Tyler and his launch:
You can’t predict hits. You can only build momentum. “Good enough” shipped beats “perfect” abandoned.
Every “failed” iteration is market research in disguise.
The work you’re hesitating to release? The project collecting dust in your “maybe someday” folder? That’s your Schedule 1 waiting to happen.
This week’s challenge:
Pick one thing you’ve overthought.
Share it with any human by Friday.
Let the market. Not your inner critic, decide its value…
Worst case? You’ll get real feedback. Best case? You might accidentally build something people can’t stop talking about.
Now if you excuse me I’m gonna go build a meth lab…
Stephen Walker
P.S. Go check it out here https://store.steampowered.com/app/3164500/Schedule_I/
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
His philosophy centres on absurdism, the idea that life has no inherent meaning, and our search for meaning often clashes with the silent, indifferent universe and when you look at it from just that lens. Damn that is some bleak shit.
But instead of letting the despair get to you, Camus advocates for rebellion. Embracing life fully, creating your own purpose, and taking action despite the absurd.
One of his most famous quotes comes from The Myth of Sisyphus
“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
In this story, Sisyphus is condemned to endlessly push a boulder up a hill, only for it to roll back down.
He suggests that Sisyphus finds meaning, but not in the outcome, but in the act of pushing the boulder itself.
At the surface level it’s just “hey man push that massive rock, you’ll be fine!”
But if you look at the lesson around that alone it’s pretty profound and I’ve written about a similar thing in past emails…
If there’s a “boulder” standing between you and where you want to be, don’t waste time questioning why it’s there or waiting for life to make sense.
Just do the thing.
Show up, push the boulder, and find fulfilment in the process of striving, even if you’re unsure about the outcome.
We get sucked into over thinking.
I mean a few minutes of scrolling online will get us stuck because we’re looking to compare our lives with someone else’s.
It’s just a highlight reel after all…
Just remember it’s in the action of doing, that’ll get us where we want to go.
So if you’ve been putting something off. Just go do it.
THEN you can have a little break and not beat yourself up about it.
Stephen Walker
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
Today’s email is a remix of one of my all-time favorites, originally sent one year ago. Enjoy 🙂
(FYI: Strong language in this one…) I woke up in a whiny-a** mood today. From the jump, my mind was tossing out complaints like a toddler who needs a talking to, so that’s what I’m gonna give myself right now. Hopefully we’ll both learn something along the way. For context: I’m a little over a month into a two-month solo retreat, where I’ve stripped away most of my favorite things… Coffee, MMA, podcasts, most books, TV shows, ~90% of the food I normally eat, and a bunch of other stuff I listed (along with details on why I’m doing this) here. So when I woke up, and my mind started reaching for… Coffee — nope. UFC news — nope. Sht, a snack? — nah, bro. Well, can I at least watch YouTube or something? — hahah. No. …And I realized all I had to look forward to was: Silence. And then more silence. For a month. …My — should I say it? — yes,Goggins would be proud — inner btch — started crying like a — well, I just said it. ”Why did you do this to me again?!” “Seriously, again?! We just did two years of this!” “And you want to do another six months next year?!” “You’re a real prick, you know that buddy?” At this point I should probably mention that this happens pretty much every time, to pretty much everyone who does this protocol. So while I may be a prick, at least I’m not special. And over the years, I’ve learned a cutting-edge technique that instantly transcends the noise of the mind, effortlessly transforming it into deeper power and clarity: Telling it to shut the fck up. (told you there would be language) This little-known technique is rare in spiritual circles, where gently stroking your inner child while attuning to the inner light of the sacred heart chakra manifests a space of gratitude that generally frowns upon kicking your inner btch straight in the teeth. But damn, it works. Two seconds of tough love did what ten minutes of patiently listening to my whining mind couldn’t do: Got it to stop whining, and made me feel way better. Of course, there’s a time and place for being gentle with yourself. But working on your “inner child” doesn’t mean letting it kick and scream and throw food on the floor just ’cause it isn’t getting what it wants. It means being a good parent, which means (full disclosure, not a parent here) dropping some tough love, every once in a while. Hey, I feel better now 🙂 I hope you got something out of that, too. More tomorrow.
T P.S. Important point: We’re not talking about repressing emotions, here. We’re talking about shifting into a stronger, more determined state of mind which in turn shifts your emotional state. The measure of effectiveness, of course, is how you feel afterwards. If giving yourself tough love leaves you feeling stronger, more capable, more determined, etc — bueno. If it doesn’t, change your tactic. Or, if you wanna just cut to the chase: You could join us here and never wake up in another whiny mood, experience another painful emotion, suffer another defeat, be served another undercooked hamburger, or stub another toe.
Ever again.
Guaranteed.
“If you focus on what you lack, you lose what you have. If you focus on what you have, you gain what you lack.” – Greg McKeown
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And as with anything. The theft-y Mctheft of artist works seem to be getting worse as the days go on…
You can read the full article here, especially if you care for creative work.
That being said. A chap named Adam Nevill wrote this yesterday and I have automatically become a fan because this is sadly what’s happening in the creative space.
And as someone who punches away at a keyboard or scratches away on pen and paper to form sentences and stories. The sentiment is here for anyone pushing on tech to take over what makes us human.
Here it goes:
So, part two – and this is aimed at people who are using AI, and who intend to use AI, in the creation of books. It’s also for readers.
If you use AI to generate ideas for stories, you are not a writer. Similarly, if you need AI to rewrite your sentences and paragraphs, or restructure your book, or even produce any portion of a written work, then you’re not a writer.
If, by some combination of keywords, the AI produces something that appears competent, you didn’t create it; nor does this make you creative. The technology can only perform this function, at your prompting, because it has been illegally trained on the work of real writers. Tinkering with the output, editing it and rearranging it, doesn’t make you a writer either. Every derivative produced was produced by the software, not you.
If you truly love books but use AI to make them, you are destroying what you love. And once you have destroyed what you love, what then?
Very few people master anything. To master anything, innate ability is required, as well as a significant investment of time and a sense of purpose. To be original, you also need vision. There are no shortcuts. Any other method is cheating. The constant promise of tech companies that their apps will “unleash your creativity” is a shameful lie. It’s a heinous form of neo-Marxist propaganda. What this means is: no one is exceptional, everyone is the same, everyone is not only creative, but equally creative. Which any rational person knows is BS. There has only ever been one Shakespeare.
So, if you are taking shortcuts and cheating and destroying what you profess to love, what is your motivation? Laziness, self-deception, competitiveness, greed, uncertainty about what you are doing with your life? Or is it something malicious, like envy and resentment directed at those who have accomplished something – “look, what I can do too!” Only you’re not creating anything – the software is producing something and you’re cheating. What are you displacing?
Of equal importance to writers, in this catastrophe and in this entire space, are the readers. They’re hard to attract. Their appearance and interest and appreciation is a magical process. Once they appear, they invite other readers to read the same books. To keep readers reading your books, you need to build trust with a readership and you can’t let them down. This can take decades (in my case). It’s a contract and connection so precious, it is sacrosanct. AI produced/part produced books betray and cheat readers and kill all of the magic. Forever.
So, folks, if you are using AI to “produce” books, or part produce books, you and I are done. It’s over.
Every single time that someone cheats and uses AI to provide a story, or provide a character, or rewrite a description, another part of culture withers, another threat to human talent and expression is sent into the world. What we’re then reading will not be truthful, not sincere, not genuine, not even human, and it is a betrayal of human endeavour.
It’s a weird place to be in right now. I have people who ask me if it’s still worth being a writer or a creative of any sort and I’m like “Hell yeah!” the blood sweat and tears of getting good at something that fills your soul is WAY more important than some robo-tech-bullshit that pretends to mimic what it means to be human.
It’s the one thing we can do as people to connect with one another and if you think telling a machine what to do is it, then man do I have a bridge I want to sell you…
Anywho.
Go give Adam Nevill some love. He is a good dude.
Stephen Walker
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
If you look around online or even offline in person. People are scared shitless to do anything because they’re scared of being judged by their peers.
And yes. It’s natural. No matter how confident and good you are at something you’re always going to have to work on.
I know too many awesome people who are scared to do anything because they’re scared of what mom or dad or friends and partners are going to think of them.
Fuck it I say.
We’re all gonna die one day and that’s the harsh reality of it. So why are you not pursuing what makes you happy?
Wanna stream yourself getting mad at a video game and make a living off of it? Do it.
How’s about reviewing terrible B rated horror movies with a twist. Do it.
Wanna talk about how passionate you are about growing mushrooms? Come on. There’s a market for all of this and more…
I know a lot of the things I write and share with you are hit and miss. But I show up every single day cause it’s something I love to do. Some of you will never get to meet me and some of you will. That’s just the way this whole internet game works.
I don’t want fame and all of that shit but getting paid to talk about and share thing the things I love, well… That to me has always been the ultimate end goal.
You might need to stir the pot and go against what everyone else is talking about in your circle or market but you can make it valuable, cause it’s your own brand of secret sauce.
People will follow you just because it’s you and your own take on whatever is going on.
You just need to get into the routine of sharing all of the crazy shit you love and the people who dig on it will show up.
You need to think long term. Have fun and look at getting better every day. Even if you do have a few moments where you doubt yourself.
That being said. I’m gonna go shove some hot cross buns into my face hole and go see if I can find anyone else whose having a melt down about Tesla today.
Stephen Walker
https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
Not everything you do is going to be an absolute banger straight off the bat.
I mean if it was then damn, you’d be rollin’ in the money and popularity and all the status you could ever dream of…
The only thing you’ve got control of is showing up daily.
Systems are gonna fail, algorithms are gonna change and Big Tech are gonna make it impossible (Or at least harder to get your message out there into the world)
But you just need to show up, even on the days you don’t want to.
I have the days were I wonder if what I’m doing and building will be worth it, but for me it’s just something I love to do.
I get to share my wild ideas and dreams with you. I get to take you on a little journey and when I get to that destination… I might celebrate with a beer or two.
All I’m saying is that you need to keep going.
You can’t have everyone liking you and believe it or not, people are also busy with their lives so they’re not going be stalking you all the time.
They will be watching but not all the time. So it’s your time to shine and not care what others think and do the best work you can.
Stephen Walker
https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
Quantity is the goddamn engine that drives quality.
Michelangelo wasn’t born with the gift of perfect carving…
No. He learned to do that. He cut, he hacked, he made sloppy, half baked messes until…
…until he started making something worth looking at.
I love answering questions about the craft of writing and pretty much everything in the creative world and yet the best thing you can do to improve is to keep cranking out work.
I write a massive quantity of these types of emails. Sometimes they’re straight to the point or veer off on tangents or have a direct response cut to the bone style or even just random musings and ideas that come out of nowhere.
But the aim is also to be light hearted, not too serious, entertaining and at the minimum, give you something to ponder about.
And I get it.
Sometimes we end up sitting there, staring at a blank page, or canvas, or whatever, and we wait for the perfect idea. The perfect sentence. The perfect anything. Well, guess what?
Perfect is a myth. Perfect is a lie. Perfect is the reason you haven’t written, painted, coded, or created anything in weeks.
And the self help guru folk and coaches don’t want to tell you things like:
You don’t get good by thinking. You get good by doing.
You don’t improve by planning. You improve by shipping. Get that thing shipped out to the world and then repeat.
You don’t learn by theorising. You learn by failing fast and over and over and over again…
The more you create, the better you’ll get.
It’s math. It’s numbers. It’s volume.
Think about it like this from a gym analogy:
Every word you write is a punch you throw.
Every brushstroke is a rep in the gym.
Every line of code is a step on the treadmill.
You don’t get stronger by sitting on the couch thinking about lifting weights. You get stronger by lifting. And yeah, sure, some of what you make will be garbage. Most of it, even. But here’s the thing…
Garbage is fertile ground.
You can’t grow a garden without getting your hands dirty. You can’t make a masterpiece without first making a mess.
So stop waiting for the perfect idea. Stop chasing the perfect sentence. Stop worrying about what people will think.
Just… create.
So go.
Make something.
Make a lot of things.
Make so many things that you start to forget what’s good and what’s bad.
And then…
Then you’ll find your voice.
Then you’ll find your style.
Then you’ll start making things that matter.
But only if you start.
Stephen Walker
https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague
P.S. If you’re still not convinced, here’s a bonus “secret”
A story by Dr. Wayne Dyer
In a mother’s womb were two babies.
One asked the other:
“Do you believe in life after delivery?”
The other replied:
“Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”
“Nonsense” said the first.
“There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”
The second said:
“I don’t know, but there will be more light than here.
Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”
The first replied:
“That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”
The second insisted:
“Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”
The first replied:
“Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”
The first replied:
“Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”
The second said:
“She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”
Said the first:
“Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”
To which the second replied:
“Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”
Happy Monday 🙂
T P.S. Something new… The only difference between you and the people you admire is volume.
They’ve just made more stuff than you have.
So go.
Catch up.
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
Quantity is the goddamn engine that drives quality.
Michelangelo wasn’t born with the gift of perfect carving…
No. He learned to do that. He cut, he hacked, he made sloppy, half baked messes until…
…until he started making something worth looking at.
I love answering questions about the craft of writing and pretty much everything in the creative world and yet the best thing you can do to improve is to keep cranking out work.
I write a massive quantity of these types of emails. Sometimes they’re straight to the point or veer off on tangents or have a direct response cut to the bone style or even just random musings and ideas that come out of nowhere.
But the aim is also to be light hearted, not too serious, entertaining and at the minimum, give you something to ponder about.
And I get it.
Sometimes we end up sitting there, staring at a blank page, or canvas, or whatever, and we wait for the perfect idea. The perfect sentence. The perfect anything. Well, guess what?
Perfect is a myth. Perfect is a lie. Perfect is the reason you haven’t written, painted, coded, or created anything in weeks.
And the self help guru folk and coaches don’t want to tell you things like:
You don’t get good by thinking. You get good by doing.
You don’t improve by planning. You improve by shipping. Get that thing shipped out to the world and then repeat.
You don’t learn by theorising. You learn by failing fast and over and over and over again…
The more you create, the better you’ll get.
It’s math. It’s numbers. It’s volume.
Think about it like this from a gym analogy:
Every word you write is a punch you throw.
Every brushstroke is a rep in the gym.
Every line of code is a step on the treadmill.
You don’t get stronger by sitting on the couch thinking about lifting weights. You get stronger by lifting. And yeah, sure, some of what you make will be garbage. Most of it, even. But here’s the thing…
Garbage is fertile ground.
You can’t grow a garden without getting your hands dirty. You can’t make a masterpiece without first making a mess.
So stop waiting for the perfect idea. Stop chasing the perfect sentence. Stop worrying about what people will think.
Just… create.
So go.
Make something.
Make a lot of things.
Make so many things that you start to forget what’s good and what’s bad.
And then…
Then you’ll find your voice.
Then you’ll find your style.
Then you’ll start making things that matter.
But only if you start.
Stephen Walker
https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague
P.S. If you’re still not convinced, here’s a bonus “secret”
The only difference between you and the people you admire is volume.
They’ve just made more stuff than you have.
So go.
Catch up.
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
but I’m considered a genius cause I always look at the smarter folks and apply what they share in my life.
It doesn’t always work out. Sometimes it backfires like shit and well, you gotta roll with what happens.
Well. I was asked today by a long time subscriber of my shenanigans:
“How do you keep going when things just feel stuck?”
Now I’m no guru or life coach or whatever but the dudes miles smarter than me have always said something along the lines of; “No matter what happens to you in life. It’s your fault. Good, bad or whatever. The only person you should blame is yourself.”
It’s not the type of message that does well. Especially with the way the internet has been shaped over the last few years.
If you start talking about putting all the blame on yourself and accepting everything as your own responsibility, especially if you’ve got a penis between your legs. You’ll get the whole “That’s such toxic masculinity!!!” crowd pouncing on you and trying to drag you under whatever metaphorical bus will make them happy.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow but it works and to a varying degree, especially if you’re reading this right now…
You have the privilege to do so. Does it sound arrogant? Of course it does, but it’s true.
You and I have the ability to open our phones and have access to almost everything we need to live a life of comfort and our own success. (Putting the work in is a whole different kettle of fish)
So if you’re feeling stuck or even if things are kicking ass. It’s all your fault.
You can either mope around and be mad or you can be grateful that you have the opportunity to be awesome.
Adopting this frame of mind is also one way to overcome some of the harder things in life that the world will inevitably throw your way.
We just need to keep on going.
We’re the only ones who are able to put our own oxygen masks on after all…
Stephen Walker
https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
“Originality is not something you invent so much as it is an utterance through you by your origins.” – Toko-pa Turner
I’m reading a beautiful book right now called The Dreaming Way, by Toko-pa Turner.
And I’m reading it old school:
Not by asking ChatGPT to summarize it, extract the bones and feed them to me in a single, raw gulp.
But slowly. Deliberately. One word at a time.
Retracing sentences, paragraphs, pages, and sometimes entire chapters.
Stopping, thinking, considering what I’m reading.
Feeling through the words to the deeper energy they carry, and allowing that energy to saturate my mind until the message becomes an experienced reality.
Books like this don’t come along often.
Once or twice a year, maybe. Sometimes less.
And when they do come along, they leave bookmarks in the timeline of our lives:
Noting the shifting of a paradigm, when we leave an old version of our worldview behind and step into a greater one.
These books don’t simply offer knowledge, they offer an experience that transcends knowledge.
An experience that, if we let it, can transform us permanently.
To speed-read a book like this would be like blending a Michelin Star meal into a smoothie to swallow it faster. Sacrilege.
But this is a possibility AI has opened, for us:
Rapid ingestion of information unlike anything humanity has ever known, where limitless knowledge can be mainlined into our mind with the click of a few buttons…
…Inspiring us to move faster and consume more while thinking little and experiencing less.
It’s not bad and it’s not good, it’s a tool that unlocks potential, and potential swings both ways.
What you use it for and how you use it makes all the difference.
But if you want my advice:
Be careful what you use it for.
While AI can accelerate our learning, innovation and advancement, it often does so by stripping the soul from our experience.
So, when you come across something truly beautiful:
A book, a piece of art, a video, a talk that inspires you…
Slow down.
And then, slow down further.
Take it in — all the way in.
Give it time to work its way through your mind, into your heart and spirit where it can come alive.
I love Twitter. Every time I open the app or the site. I see someone crying about Elon Musk and Tesla and they are telling people to stick it to “them” by destroying those weird ass looking cars.
And if you’re reading this and you’re one of those “If I could key a Tesla I would!” weirdos. This message is for you…
You’re not a revolutionary. You’re a vandal with a saviour complex. But guess what? There’s a better way to fight the good fight.
A way that doesn’t involve committing misdemeanors or making Chad from accounting cry over his scratched Model 3.
It’s called sending daily emails…
Why Daily Emails Are the Activism You’ve Been Missing
They’re Legal (duh)
Unlike keying a Tesla, sending emails won’t get you arrested. Unless you’re spamming people with dick pics. Don’t do that.
They’re Fun and Effective
Want to fight fascism? Start a newsletter. Want to combat climate change? Write an email series. Want to stick it to Elon Musk? Build an audience and tell them why he sucks.
They’re Actually Helpful
Keying a Tesla just pisses people off. Sending emails? That can inspire, educate, and mobilise. It’s activism without the collateral damage.
They’re Not Dumb
Let’s face it. Keying a Tesla is the intellectual equivalent of eating glue. Sending emails? That’s strategic. That’s smart. That’s how you actually make a difference.
How to Get Started with Daily Emails (and Stop Being a Dumbass)
Pick a Cause
What do you care about? Climate change? Social justice? Exposing Elon Musk’s questionable life choices? Choose your battle.
Build Your List
Start with your friends, your family, and that one guy from high school who still owes you $20. Grow it from there.
Write Like You Give a Damn
No fluff. No filler. Just raw, unfiltered truth. Tell stories. Make people laugh. Make them think. Make them act.
Hit Send (That’s the hard part)
Every. Single. Day. Consistency is key. You want to change the world? Show up.
What You’re Doing Now:
Keying Teslas.
Being a petty vandal.
Accomplishing exactly nothing.
What You Could Be Doing:
Building an audience.
Spreading your message.
Actually making a difference.
If you’re serious about fighting the good fight, it’s time to put the keys down and pick up your keyboard.
You’re an artist after all.
Stephen Walker
https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague
P.S. If you’re still thinking about keying a Tesla, just… don’t. Send an email instead. Your future self will thank you.
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
The Backsliding Series: Part 1 (remixed from November, 2023)
“Leaps forward are often preceded by desperate, regressive steps backward.” – Don Beck & Christopher Cohen, Spiral Dynamics
The big trick in the game of inner development is mastering the part of you that doesn’t want to develop. This is critical, so stick with me: Have you ever noticed that whenever you make a big leap forwards…
When you break through to a new level of performance
When you sink into a consistent rhythm of discipline
When more of your natural personality begins to open up
When the work you've been doing actually starts to show real-world results
…Basically, when what you’ve wanted for so long finally begins to happen… …There’s almost always a strange, insidious little urge to backslide? To take your foot off the gas and either slow down, stop, or fall into reverse? (really, hit reply and let me know if you’ve noticed this) Maybe you take a day or two off… Eat some not-so-healthy food… Tumble down the social media / video game / television rabbit hole… Slack on your habits… …And generally just muck up the good work you’ve been doing. Because hey, you’ve been doing good work. You’ve earned a bit of a muck-around. But then your day or two off turns into a week or two, and that big leap forwards shrinks to nothing more than a small step. It feels a bit like spending a cash windfall at the casino: It’s sort of fun (but also kind of hollow), and you leave wondering why on earth you let yourself lose all that capital. And so it goes: Grind, grind, grind, big leap forwards, backslide, regret, start grinding again… Never quite making the continuous forward progress you know is needed to bring your vision to life. Yeah, it sucks. But there’s also a very good reason for it. This weird little urge to backslide serves a critical purpose. And understanding that purpose is the key to finally making your temporary transformations become permanent. More on that tomorrow…
T P.S. In related news, here’s: Why You’re Working Hard But Getting Nowhere
The Backsliding Series was first published in 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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I’m on a live call with someone I respect in the coaching world.
Now I’m no coach at all, but having a coach in my corner changed my life.
The one thing I love about this live is the fact that the is exposing the whole coaching industry for what it is.
Complexity and the never ending circle of getting course after course without even starting is slowly getting dismantled. The thing is. You don’t need course after course or unlimited credentials to change your life or circumstances.
So when you sit down and look around. Every industry is slowly collapsing and going back to a simplistic model.
I’ve said it for years and now it’s all coming true.
The fancy shit is dying and simplicity is becoming the next cool thing.
And I’ve preached it for years…
Find a thing you love to do or an industry that has a problem.
Find the solution.
Create a 1 page website that offers some help or an entry level price for that solution.
Collect their email and then email them cool shit around that too with an offer here and there.
That is it and I can see every single market and industry shifting from the bloated complexity to simple and easy.
So whether you’re a coach, consultant or an artist of any sort. You need to dig deep and figure out how to offer your thing as simply as possible. Deliver it and give them a great experience.
That is all. Definitely not super sexy. It’s fairly boring on paper.
Now get to it.
Stephen Walker
https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
Which is great news for us old fashioned creatives.
I’m sure you all remember how cool MySpace was.
We could make our page our own. Code it all pretty and even have our favourite tunes playing when someone viewed our page.
And even though Tom did what anyone in that position would have done, which was sold it on for a massive payday and then live out his days pursuing his art which is photography.
But the downside to selling MySpace was that the investors who took it over decide we want to modernise it and add new features which nobody asked for and that’s when they started alienating their audiences.
Things became clunky and slow and the control you had was slowly carved away from you.
We moved on to other platforms like Facebook and Twitter as they started to crop up and they gave us what we were looking for. The freedom to do what we want and again, make that place our own.
Although as you can tell. The bigger and more popular those places got. The tighter the restrictions became and so we moved on to other platforms that gave us that some thing.
It’s a never ending cycle of freedom followed by restriction and you can see it happening again…
More features. More bloat. New platforms come out of the woodwork. Existing platforms start to copy one another and then they inevitably dial it back yet again. So you’re stuck chasing that same feeling again.
But you know what has stayed pretty much the same since the 1990s?
Email. Good old fashioned plain text email. There’s nothing super sexy about it. But if done right, you can make it stay fresh for decades.
And so this is just another reason start building your list and emailing your friends, fans and customers interesting stuff every day.
If you stay consistent and show up even when you don’t want to. They’ll stick around forever.
Platforms come, change and go but email lasts forever.
So get building and get writing, cause it’ll make you a better creative overall…
Stephen Walker
https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
It’s no secret that I love email and respect the dudes who pioneered the way we do things today.
So I’m giving a little love to Matt Furey
He is without a doubt. The Grand Poobah of email marketing.
I got his email training years ago and decided to revise it again and just as I was digging through it he also dropped a banger of an email into my inbox like some weird woo-woo-email-synchronicity.
He doesn’t email as much as he did in the late 90s and early 2000s but he’s still around.
But this was what he sent me today and I would highly recommend getting on his list if you’re wanting to learn some great fitness, health and marketing nuggets from the man himself.
Here goes:
Subject: Gold Moon Rising
Yesterday gold hit a new all-time high, and early this morning the moon was bloody orange.
Coincidence?
YESSS-UH!
Anyway, I was out and about at 2 AM, taking in the sights above as my feet were planted on terra firma.
As I gazed upward I noted the cool spring Florida breeze. Owls hooted, deer grazed, rabbits and armadillos prowled and dogs howled as I observed this moment.
I thought about all the people who will not see or experience such wonders because they have an inflexible routine.
Emerson wrote, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
He was partly correct.
Being consistent with a daily routine works, at least, it works until you need a breakthrough. That's when you can benefit from changing things up a bit - or in some cases, a LOT.
A friend of mine, John, once said, "Consistency kills," in reference to how he became a champion collegiate track star. I looked at his big gut and smiled, "Indeed, it does. You haven't worked out in years."
He laughed.
A few days later John told me that he changed up his routine. He was back on track. He was going to get lean 'n mean again.
I asked him what he was doing. He told me he was gradually working up to the same routine he followed in college.
"That was 30 years and 75 pounds ago," I said. "That was before your knees went gimpy and your back and belly began to bulge."
"Well what do you suggest then, Mister Furey?"
"You can call me Master Furey, or Guru Furey, if you want an answer," I joked.
"Alright, Master Furey, what shall I do?"
"Well, being you need to rehab your knees and improve the health of your back and hips, I encourage you to practice Dao Zou every night, and the later the better. This practice will begin to unwind your mind and body. It will remove the knots and strengthen the weak links."
"Isn't Dao Zou that backwards walking regimen you created?" John asked.
"It's more than backwards, my friend. Anyone can turn around and move backwards, but that's low level training. It's more about HOW you move and how you breathe in reverse. There are a lot of different patterns I cover."
"Well, give me some suggestions. I'm all ears."
I proceeded to show John several different walking patterns and he followed my lead as best he could. Within a few minutes he was amazed, especially after he tapped various pressure points and energy centers while moving in reverse.
"This is unbelievable," he said. "I can really feel this in my glutes and my hips. Any my energy is off the charts."
"You ain't seen nuthin' yet. Wait till you go to sleep and you start having incredibly vivid dreams, and wait till you start recalling things from long, long ago, that you couldn't possibly remember.
I then showed John how the backwards routine in Dao Zou eventually leads to running and, if you dare, swimming (and writing) in reverse
"Ya know, back in the day when men weren't filled with estrogen, a fighter by the name of Gene Tunney knocked the holy hell out of Jack Dempsey in the heavyweight division, winning himself a world title. Tunney was in the most phenomenal shape of any heavyweight fighter ever seen before. And do you want to know what his secret was?"
"I think you just showed it to me."
"Part of it," I replied. "Just a part of it."
I told John to get started with the easy stuff I showed him, then added, "If you are consistent with it for a month, I'll show you more."
"I'm on it," John smiled. "Consistency kills, remember."
"Indeed. And so does inconsistency."
Don't be a fool stuck in the same ole - same ole routine. Change it up here and there. A bit of inconsistency leads to breakthroughs unimagined in daylight hours.
Matt Furey
P.S. If you're chomping at the bit for a change of pace, mentally and physically, go get my Dao Zou course NOW. It will shift your life into overdrive!
As you can see. Matt has such a fun style of writing too. I'm always loving what he puts out.
Stephen Walker
P.S. There's been some activity outside now that it's warming up...
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
Hey, short and sweet one for you: If starting an online business feels overwhelming, and you’re struggling to learn the skills, platforms, and technology necessary to get your business off the ground… …Here’s a simple cure: The fastest way to learn online business skills
And, if you want more…
This clip comes from a longer 2-hour discussion on building modern businesses we held at last year’s retreat. You can watch the full recording now, inside The Path…
…But the price increases permanently at midnight tonight, so if you still want in, it’s now or never. I hope we see you inside.
T
P.S. We are holding a private, business-only AMA call for Path members this Saturday at 10 am EST.
You’ll be able to ask me any question about your business, and get immediate, detailed feedback.
(we do this every few weeks, so if you’re an entrepreneur and you’re not attending every single call you possibly can, you’re outta your mind) Again, the price increases permanently at midnight tonight…
So if you want in, now is the time.
“Sensible people get paid for doing what they enjoy doing.” – Alan Watts
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If you love an old outdated website with interesting information like I do…
Then www.milk.com
Will appeal to your nerd-y heart.
It takes you back to the days where websites were fun and you weren’t hunted down by those god damn cookies so the ad moguls can blast bullshit ads right into your eye sockets.
Granted these websites are not fancy.
But they are fun.
You get to see what the creator has gotten up to and where their personality shines.
And so this is where the attention economy is slowly shifting.
Going back old school. Going back to where stories were real and the people living them weren’t scared to share.
Everyone’s going on about web 3.0 but web 1.0 is making a massive comeback.
Go check out https://milk.com/experiments/
Dan is hilarious and the hours lost on that site will do wonders for you as a creative who needs to spice things up.
Stephen Walker
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
Sometimes we need to squeeze those trendy bastards for all they’re worth…
But let’s talk about your addiction like the marketing junkie you are.
We all know that hot spicy rush when we see the next big thing.
We love that dopamine hit when we whip out our credit card for another course, plugin, or platform that promises to transform our business into a money ejaculating unicorn overnight.
(We’ve all been there googling “how to make money online” at 3am)
We all know the cycle. Buy the shiny thing. Get high on possibilities. Never implement. Feel shame. Swear off shiny things. See new shiny thing. Repeat until death or bankruptcy, whichever comes first.
The problem isn’t the shiny objects themselves. It’s the relationship with them that’s more toxic than if we were take our ex and drop them in a vat of radioactive gunk.
Now stay with me for a second cause this might be a novel idea…
…what if those gleaming, promise filled objects aren’t inherently evil?
What if they’re just lemons waiting to be squeezed into something refreshing?
Let’s use good ol’ marketing as an example:
The fundamentals of marketing are still the same blunt instruments they’ve always been. They’re the rusty hammers and bent nails that have built empires for centuries.
List building. Copywriting. Offers that don’t suck. Customer service that makes people feel less like numbers and more like humans.
These basics aren’t sexy. They’re the marketing equivalent of missionary position. They work, but nobody’s making TikToks about them.
But ignoring the new shit completely? That’s just as stupid as buying every shiny object that crosses your path.
Platforms evolve. Algorithms shift. Attention migrates. (Insert 2020 as an example)
But if you look at the “master” and imho, the real fucking wizards of this game. They don’t ignore the shiny. They don’t worship it either.
That’s the real trick.
They sample it. They test it. They implement the parts that enhance those boring, effective basics. They squeeze the goddamn lemons and make refreshing lemonade.
And as an example cause you know what I feel about all of this A.I. bs:
…go ahead, buy that course on the latest A.I. copywriting tool or that new funnel builder everyone’s raving about.
But and this is a big BUT…
For the love of all things profitable, use it. Test it against those unsexy basics. See if it amplifies what already works.
The hardest part isn’t finding new things to try. It’s sticking with what’s proven while selectively experimenting with the new.
It’s making that shiny object lemonade. One part trendy innovation, two parts time tested fundamentals, stirred with the sweat of actual implementation. Then you can sit down. Sip it. Savour it. And for once in your life, finish the whole damn glass before reaching for another one.
Which is also why I’m going back through this gem right here. Cause it’s some of the best fundamentals of direct response you’ll ever get.
Yeah it’s boring and not so sexy but it’s the type of thing that works. Even if on paper it may bore you to tears.
Stephen Walker.
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
The internet’s drowning in a septic tank of A.I. generated horseshit.
Perfectly formatted. Perfectly vacuous. Reading it is like licking the inside of a corporate bathroom’s hand dryer.
The words look like words, sure. The sentences have subjects and predicates and all that grammatical foreplay, but they’re dead eyed mannequins wearing human skin suits. No pulse. No soul. Just the robot equivalent of a smile painted on a department store dummy whose eyes follow you around the abandoned mall.
You’ve felt it, right? That creeping sensation when you’re reading something that sounds like it was written by a chorus of marketing graduates being slowly digested in the belly of a silicon beast.
The way your eyes glaze over, your brain cells committing suicide one by one rather than process another “According to experts” or “In today’s fast-paced world.”
People are starving for words with fingerprints on them, you know? Actual human words.
Content that bleeds when you cut it. Sentences assembled by someone who occasionally stares into their refrigerator at midnight contemplating the existential dread of expired yogurt.
Write like you’ve got nightmares and dreams and that weird memory of your uncle’s basement that smells like wet cigarettes and regret.
Write like your keyboard is connected directly to the meat computer behind your eyeballs, not some cloud based suggestion engine that’s been fed a diet of LinkedIn motivational posts and corporate style guides.
(Did I tell you I don’t like LinkedIn before?)
Your readers can tell the difference. They might not say it, but they feel it in their gut.
That subtle wrongness when words have been sanitised of all humanity, like a hotel room that’s too clean and you just know someone died there.
So spill your guts onto the page. Let your sentences have nervous breakdowns. Occasionally go off on tangents about how pigeons might be judging your life choices. Be weird. Be human. Be the kind of writer that A.I. can only poorly imitate, like a child wearing their parent’s clothes and pretending to go to work.
At the end of the day, we’re all just electrified meat puppets trying to connect through strings of symbols before the universe pulls the plug and we all cease to exist. Might as well make those symbols taste like something other than corporate approved flavour packets.
Be your weird self. Sneak it into your writing and watch people look for more.
Stephen Walker
https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
“…helped grow my marketing agency to 7 figures, and led to big breakthroughs in my life and business.” – Ben Bader, CEO 94Marketing
It’s time.
After four months of waiting…
The Path is finally open to new members.
This time is different, though…
…So before you jump inside, there are three things you should know:
1.
I’ve decided to re-open our founder’s discount one last time.
Which means, when you join before Thursday at midnight, your membership will be half price for life.
2.
After Thursday at midnight, The Path will remain open, but the price will be doubling permanently.
3.
As we spoke about last week…
In the coming months, we will be specializing The Path for up and coming entrepreneurs.
Of course, all of our previous masterclasses, practices, and systems will remain in the platform.
But our new material will aim to help you build and scale your business…
…While also developing and mastering yourself, in the process.
Entrepreneurs who are committed to building both outer and inner skills are exceedingly rare.
But somehow, we’ve managed to build an entire community of them, inside The Path.
And there ‘aint another one like it 🙂
Come join us.
T
P.S. I want to make clear:
This pivot to entrepreneurship isn’t a replacement, it’s an addition.
Our usual material on self-development and self-mastery will continue to be added to the platform.
(and, will continue to grow and evolve as it always has)
But, as every experienced entrepreneur knows:
The path of entrepreneurship is a path of self-mastery.
It is a path of channeling your inner skills into the outer world, and turning your most inspiring ideas into a living reality.
If you’re serious about that Path:
Welcome to the right place.
“There is a saying that if you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life. At Apple, I learned that is a total crock. You will work harder than you ever thought possible, but the tools will feel light in your hands.” – Tim Cook, Apple CEO
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Another Monday. Another goddamn wrestling match with your email service provider…
There you are, bleary-eyed, first sip of coffee barely touching your lips, and already you’re navigating through seventeen different screens just to send a simple broadcast.
Click here. Scroll there. Wait for this page to load. Check that box. Uncheck the other one.
Why the hell is this button greyed out? Where did my draft go? Why does this platform hate me with such burning passion?
Meanwhile, the rest of the digital marketing herd is doing the same shuffle across their platforms of choice…
ActiveCampaign users are drowning in tabs.
Aweber folks are fighting with the template builder that somehow manages to be both overly simplistic and needlessly complex.
Drip users are watching that spinning wheel of death. (I used to love Drip back in the day)
You didn’t get into this business to become an amateur software engineer. You’re here to write emails that connect, persuade, and sell.
To craft words that make people feel something. To build relationships through the inbox that will eventually translate into cold, hard cash for your warez and service you provide. I mean you’re an artist after all. You don’t want tech to suck.
Me? My Monday morning looks different.
I roll out of bed, stumble to my desk with coffee in hand, and open BerserkerMail. Two clicks later, my broadcast is loaded. Another click and it’s scheduled. By the time you’ve navigated your platform’s labyrinthine dashboard, I’ve already hit send on an email that’s going to land straight in my subscribers primary inboxes.
Before my first cup of coffee is finished, I’ve completed what takes most email marketers half their morning.
No bloated features I’ll never use. No constant upsells for “premium” functionality that should be standard. No need to watch another 72 tutorial videos just to figure out how to edit a sequence. Just a clean, intuitive interface built by people who actually use email marketing to make their living.
BerserkerMail was built by marketers who were sick of the same bullshit you’re dealing with.
So they created what they couldn’t find.
An email platform that plays into the sexiness of email marketing while slapping the complexity completely out of it.
So if you wanna join me in the land of the living? Where sending emails is actually enjoyable again? Where you can focus on your words instead of fighting with your tech?
Go here and check it out: https://berserkermail.com/
Stephen Walker
P.S. Ben Settle is my boy and cause he used one of my testimonials in an email. I thought I’d give him some love, cause so far I haven’t been given the slap like I was given by an email service provider I shall not name…
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
Sometimes your writing needs to be nice and polite and professional and all that responsible adult horsecrap…
Then sometimes it needs to transform like The Hulk and turn your restrained voice into a raging monster of hyperbole that grabs people by their eyeballs and drags them right down the page and into your world.
Exaggeration is one of those tools that are so far ignored that when you start to use it. The results were shock you.
Boring writers don’t want you to know that humans don’t respond to reasonable statements. We respond to emotion and intensity.
Now I’m not saying go over the top where you’ll be dancing that fine line where compliance might come back and bite you in your ass…
I’m talking about the type of exaggeration that amplifies your personality to make things more fun to read and ultimately more fun for you to write.
You think anyone remembers mild mannered Bruce Banner? Hell no.
They remember the raging Hulk smash machine that destroys everything in its path.
When you need to hook someone’s attention, subtlety is for suckers. You need to become larger than life. You need metaphors that would make English teachers weep with terror. You need adjectives that violate the laws of physics.
Don’t tell me your product “improves workflow efficiency.” Tell me it “obliterates productivity roadblocks like a tactical nuclear warhead.”
Don’t say your service “helps with stress reduction.” Say it “wrestles your anxiety to the ground and makes it cry uncle while your peace of mind does a victory dance.”
The world is drowning in vanilla content. Be the writer who shows up painted green.
Stephen Walker
https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague
P.S. When people tell you you’re being “a bit much,” that’s when you know it’s working.
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
“Stop measuring days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degree of presence.” – Alan Watts
Life goes by way too fast…
…Most of the time.
But I’m two weeks into a solo retreat right now, and time is stuck at a stand-still.
Two weeks ago feels like two months ago, and I’m staring down the barrel of seven more weeks of silence, which might as well be a year.
Time distortion. It’s a bxtch.
Speed it up, and life becomes a blurry haze of day to day tasks, one after the other, not a single rose smelt.
Slow it down, and, well, you find yourself sitting here writing this email whining that the clock won’t move.
There’s gotta be a sweet spot around here somewhere…
…But it’s damn hard to find, and I’m convinced the reason why is none other than:
Technology.
Yes, technology.
Screens, content, notifications, posts, podcasts, reels, likes, hearts, thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs stuck sideways from swiping that damn infinite-scroll that sucks the brain right out of your head and the time right out of your life.
Which is exactly what I’ve eliminated or minimized over the past two weeks, hence, the time distortion.
It’s a bit scary, when you think about it:
If you’ve ever been laying in bed looking at your phone, only to snap out of the spell and realize it’s 1 AM and you’ve totally botched your bedtime…
If you’ve ever binge-watched a show, only to pry your bleeding eyes away from the screen and look at the clock in shock…
If you’ve ever disappeared down a YouTube rabbit hole and watched time disappear along with you…
…And afterward, had that eery, sobering, way-too-familiar thought:
”Holy sh*t, that was a huge waste of time…”
…Well, here’s another one for you:
We do that to ourselves, in small hits or big doses, continuously, all day long.
Every time our attention dances from one shiny notification to the next, time blurs and accelerates and then is gone.
Sometimes we get something in return for it:
A new insight, a wave of inspiration, or even just some genuine, high quality entertainment.
But more often, if we’re honest about it, we get nothing.
We spend the two most valuable resources we have — our time and attention — on empty calories that leave us worse for having consumed them.
It’s a raw deal.
I once heard Buddhist teacher Reggie Ray say:
”Modern technology is one of the most dangerous threats to our spiritual development that we face today.”
And every time I reduce or eliminate it, I remember why.
I don’t think the solution is to throw away our phones and stare at the wall all day.
But it also isn’t what we’ve been doing, which is playing our lives on fast forward while barely paying attention to the scenes because we’re too busy looking at our phone.
Let’s stop speedrunning and play this game right.
We only get to play it once, after all.
T
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I’m just gonna give a little shoutout to Jack Grapes
For years he’s been teaching a thing called “Method Writing” and one of his core techniques is the literary equivalent of streaking…
It’s basically you running naked through a field of words, while letting whatever bonkers thought nuggets tumble out of your skull meat and onto the page.
You don’t stop or edit. You don’t let your inner critic come say hello on your shoulder. You just keep writing.
And whatever comes out. Just stays. Could be about your breakfast. Could be about that weird dream you had where your teeth turned into tiny harmonicas. Could be any entire paragraph about how pigeons are secretly government surveillances drones (which they are…)
The point isn’t to write something good. The point is to write something true. Something raw and unfiltered.
All you need to do is a set a timer for 10 or 15 minutes or whatever you feel comfortable with and get to work.
If your hand starts to cramp? Tough. Keep going.
Running out of ideas? Write “I have no ideas” fifty times until new ideas burst out of your writer-ly chest cavity.
This exercise isn’t about craft or making art.
It’s a technique to get your brain to know that it’s totally cool to just spit out words of pure consciousness.
The good stuff? The real writing? That all comes later. The aim is to get your brain to produce words on demand.
If you want to go deep down this rabbit hole, jump onto Amazon and punch in Jake Grapes. Those two books are a MUST have if you have to produce loads of words or if you have days where you doubt yourself.
(…and remember: pigeons aren’t real.)
Stephen Walker
https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
Spoiler: We’re all douchebags within a various degree.
The world runs on a special fuel made from blended confidence and bullshit.
The most dangerous predator in the business ecosystem isn’t the smart person. It’s the certain person and this applies in every aspect of the world we’re so happily sucked in to.
Meanwhile, the person who actually knows what they’re talking about is usually the quiet one saying things like “I think we should test that assumption” or “the data suggests otherwise.” But nobody listens because uncertainty sounds like weakness to primate brains wired for tribal hierarchies.
(The little meat computer in between our ears can be an absolute bastard to deal with)
The Confidence Industrial Complex
The self-help industry is a $10 billion machine that sells confidence like it’s miracle-grow for success. “BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!” they shout, as if mere belief will transform your mediocre startup into Amazon.
Here’s what they don’t tell you though. The graveyard of failed businesses is packed with the corpses of ventures led by supremely confident CEOs. Their tombstones read something like this:
“HE WAS CERTAIN. HE WAS WRONG. NOW HE’S DEAD.”
How to Not Be a Confidence Drunk Moron
When someone never expresses doubt, run. They’re either delusional or lying.
Actual expertise looks like nuance and specific knowledge, not broad, sweeping certainty.
The phrase “I don’t know” generally comes from people who know their shit, or at least have battle tested it and survived the tale.
But if you look at the world now, especially in politics and business. The loud wrongness gets promoted over quiet competence.
The most dangerous words in life and business might just be “I’m absolutely certain.”
You need to doubt appropriately and be a little sceptical, otherwise you’re just going to get caught by the douchebags that are little more confident than you and that swing, is wild.
Stephen Walker
https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
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
https://stphnwlkr.com/theleague
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
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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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
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
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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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…
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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
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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
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.
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Stephen Walker Unit 146317 PO Box 7169 Poole BH15 9EL United Kingdom
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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