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Little Johnny comes home from school excitedly to finish up for Christmas.

He walks into the kitchen, pacing slowly.

“Mom,” he whispers but you can hear the confusion in his voice.

He sees her sitting there expressionless. He inches closer and waves his little hand in front of her. Not a twitch. Not a blink. Not even a little exhale.

But before he can react. Her head turns and she grabs him by his scrawny little shoulders. A look of horror washes across his face. He can’t do anything to resist.

“Mom?” he says.

“You’ve forgotten that only three years ago you were perfectly capable of writing a text, writing an email, telling a story and it should worry you that powerful companies have convinced us we can’t do things we’ve been doing since the dawn of time…” she says.

“Big Tech is offering you a Faustian bargain. It promises to remove all friction from life, to keep you from having to think or study, and the result is your brain will become pudding, you’ll become incapable of creativity or communication. They want to make you a non-person!” she says. This time more aggressively.

She drops him to the floor and runs out of the front door. Poor little Johnny is trying to process all of the words his mother has just said to him.

Outside there’s a loud crash and people are screaming. A blood curdling shriek echoes back inside of the house.

“I’m sorry Johnny, I didn’t want it to end like this!”

/end

SEE WHAT BIG TECH IS DOING. IT’S DRIVING PEOPLE MAD, INCLUDING ME.

In all honesty though. ‘Tis the season to read books and eat food and snacks and watch real movies (While you still can)

Cause next year is gonna be an absolute clown show. The way things are going to be forced into our lives without any resistance whatsoever will drive you truly bonkers.

Give this to your loved ones and help them prep for 2026. Thank me later.

Stephen Walker.

P.S. By time this lands in your inbox. I would’ve probably been heavily dosed up on lemsip and deep in a coma. So you can thank the medication for my semi-fever-dream type story.

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

A last minute decision was made to rest properly.

It’s nearly Christmas and my chest and cough has come back with a full vengeance.

I have a few days to try and get back to normal and it’s the most annoying and frustrating period of sickness I’ve had in years.

So if you’re celebrating Christmas with family, friends and loved ones.

I hope you have an amazing time.

If you’re solo and just cracking on. I hope you have a great rest too.

I appreciate you for sticking around and reading my shenanigans over the last few years of starting up this here lil’ cult.

All your replies, suggestions, stories and ideas have been amazing.

Love you all.

Stephen Walker.

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

The best movies were made without it.

The best games were made without it.

The best comics were made without it.

The best stories were made without it.

The best songs were made without it.

And now for some reason we really need it, there’s no other way and if we don’t adopt it and make it our whole personality, we’re gonna die…

Which is something you can notice as the quality of all work being created nosedives.

It’s why art and art prices are surging.

It’s why people are going back and watching “The classics”

It’s also why more and more people are opting back in to books that have landed pre 2020.

The uncanny valley vibe being forced into our faces on a day to day basis, by marketers who believe they’re on the cusp of greatness, while also simultaneously leading a life of delulu (as the kids would say) is starting to hit massive proportions.

The beautiful thing though is that there’s such a massive hatred for this generative AI tech and the companies that are forcing it on us, that you’re seeing it bubble up and watching the rejection push through.

Now there is advantages to AI (Actual artificial intelligence) but the generative AI that most of the tech and marketing bros are on their knees for is starting to reverse on them.

I don’t think anyone would’ve every thought that we’d head down a path, where these tools would slowly strip away the things that we did that makes us truly human. (The arts)

But here we are in this weird timeline where the battle is slowly unravelling.

Every day you log in you, see garbage generated by AI infecting your eyes, while actual creatives are pushing back.

It truly does suck that it’s gotten to that part, although it’s a fight worth fighting for, cause before we know it. We’ll be mindless drones scrolling, drooling and saying “Please sir, may I have some more!”

Stephen Walker.

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

By the time you’re reading this.

I might be laying face down in a ditch somewhere in Manchester…

That being said. It’s that time of the year where I am in charge of adults and making sure they don’t unleash a lot of chaos right before everyone winds down for Christmas.

I’ve learnt a little trick over the years.

You can hypnotise people and bring them under your spell if you take them all out for a meal.

They will hopefully do your bidding, as long as the meal is good.

Not one of those corporate pizza parties from hell.

Just a good meal.

Some good vibes.

And genuine connection with fellow meat puppets after this year has honestly slammed people about mentally, spiritually and physically.

Years ago I would’ve been about the whole hustle culture and just went full on into the new year.

But as you get older and wiser you realise that there’s honestly no need to go absolutely batshit and burn yourself out before the new year starts.

So take it slow. Wrap up any work you need to do and take some TLC time for yourself.

Get a new book or a favourite hot drink, get some new shoes or even cut off people who have made things horrible this last year.

It’s all about going into the new year fresh. With love and with positivity.

I’ll still be sending out emails over the Christmas period, but I’ll probably be in a food coma and they’ll sneak out automatically… (Like this one)

Stephen Walker.

P.S. I know I’ve said in past that I’m not all about the automation life, however a few people have said that I need to stop being full on all the time with the writing. I need to live a little (Go figure lol)

P.P.S This is the greatest Christmas film of all time as it adds a lot of introspection on the times when we’ve wanted to throw in the towel.

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

I felt like I was dying a few weeks ago.

I had what most people would consider the man flu.

Yes it is bad, was bad and is still (kinda) bad but I’m 99% over it now.

For about a month it felt like my whole body was being folded up like a lawn chair.

As much as I had medicine or pills of any sort. I went to the local GP and he deduced that whatever I had caught was viral and there wasn’t much I could do, except for do things that would soothe my throat and take something for the fever, and my body would sort itself out.

So I did that. I drank the gross drinks, I took a few painkillers and nothing. I mean it worked a little but I was still tossing and turning and waking up in the middle of the night, sounding as if I was going to hurl a piece of lung from my chest cavity…

So I did what everyone usually does when they want to make money online…

They go onto google and type “how to make money online!” except this time it wasn’t money it was:

“Please lord how do I stop my throat from feeling like I’ve deep throated a razor blade…”

Low and behold. A crusty old forum which I’ve visited years and years ago, popped up and recommended coconut oil.

Cold pressed, organic coconut oil.

The idea was to take a teaspoon and melt it in your mouth, followed by gargling on it.

(It was gross and okay ladies now I understand…)

But within 10-15 mins. The throat burn was gone and whatever magic it did, it some how managed to take a whole bunch of the gross gunk (I’ll leave out the visceral details) and it made it easier to just cough up this ball of nastiness.

It felt like a snotty exorcism and I felt good.

Who would’ve thought that good old coconut oil would do the trick.

Sore throat, flu-like symptoms, viral tonsilitis or whatever it was that I had…

Poof. Gone within a few minutes.

Obviously I’m going to keep going with this until it clears up, but let me tell you one thing…

These old granny remedies or wives tales. They seem to work like some voodoo black magick.

This is also just my anecdotal experience and shouldn’t be taken as gospel medical advice, but it’s worth looking into if you ever get stuck feeling like you want to rip your throat out.

If you wanna try out some natural remedies, this place should be your go to guide.

Stephen Walker.

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

You want to support the writer in your life?

Great.

Here’s how…

Grab a stake and drive it straight through the heart of the digital vampire currently draining the life out of all of us.

I’m talking about Generative AI.

That soulless content abomination sucking up our creative work like some kind of algorithmic Dyson, hoovering up everything we’ve ever written, painted, composed, or created, then regurgitating it back into the world as flavourless gruel. [Insert “PLEASE SIR, I WANT SOME MORE,” gif]

Here’s what you can do starting now.

Stop posting AI slop.

Just don’t.

Don’t share it, don’t create it, don’t accidentally make it part of your aesthetic because you thought that weird image looked “kinda cool.”

Stop reposting sketchy shit.

If a photo or news story doesn’t pass the smell test. Put it in the bin.

If there’s no reputable link backing it up, leave it alone.

You’re not helping. You’re just feeding the misinformation beast while it wears our collective faces as a mask.

Stop actively using AI anything.

No Sora garbage. No ChatGPT “just to brainstorm.” No Midjourney because you “can’t draw.” None of it.

And for fuck’s sake, stop playing Devil’s Advocate about it like some smug philosophy freshman who just discovered debate club.

Just get on board the FUCK AI train.

Say it loud. Say it with your whole chest.

Tell everyone that AI sucks.

Not just because it’s creatively bankrupt, but because it literally sucks.

It siphons our work, our effort, our entire information environment (and our actual environment, because those server farms guzzle power like it’s going out of style), then files the serial numbers off our art and shoves it back into the world with all the soul scraped out.

There’s no mechanism for any of this to help us pay rent. Or buy groceries. Or afford healthcare.

It’s an artbarf machine.

A content slurry factory puking low value nonsense into the open mouths of people who want to cosplay as creators without doing any of that pesky work.

They ingest the vomit, puke it onto the floor, clap their shitty little hands and go, “Look! I made art!”

It’s horrifying.

Why would you like this? Why would you defend it?

It’s the idolisation of the idea paired with the demonisation of both the creator and the creation.

It ruins us.

So you need to fly that flag. Loud and proud.

HATER-OF-AI.

Wear it like a badge.

If you love the writers, artists, musicians, and creators in your life, if you actually give a damn about what they do, that’s what you’ll do.

You won’t fight us on this.

You’ll just trust.

Stephen Walker.

Also watch this cause it all makes sense…

P.S. The best gift you can give a writer is telling AI to go fuck itself. Everything else is just wrapping paper.

P.P.S. artbarf is my favourite word.

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

The world is on fire even more now and I’m so tired of pretending everything’s fine.



It’s like we just can’t catch a break this year. Things go from bad to worse to Worcestershire sauce levels of unpronounceable disaster and back again.



Every time you think we’ve hit rock bottom, someone hands us a shovel and points downward.



Atrocities in America. Atrocities in Australia. Atrocities everywhere you look, because apparently the human race has no upper limit to the amount of bullshit we can inflict on each other and ourselves.



I don’t even know how to cure all of this. I’m not smart enough to solve global suffering or wise enough to explain why people keep choosing cruelty when kindness is right there, free of charge.



The news cycle is a relentless machine designed to make you feel helpless and angry and overwhelmed.



Every notification is another reason to lose faith in humanity.



Every headline is a reminder that the world is broken and getting more broken by the day.



And as much as I want to throw in the towel. Well, we just have to keep going.



So hug your loved ones close. Make art that matters. Be the light in a world that desperately needs more of it. Create something beautiful in the face of all this ugliness.



This place is exhausting sometimes. It’s okay to admit that. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed by the sheer weight of everything wrong with the world.



Just don’t let it paralyse you. Don’t let the darkness convince you that your small acts of love and creativity don’t matter.



They do. Especially now.



Time to turn off the internet for a bit and come back when things aren’t running out of control.



Stephen Walker.




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

Remember when we used to mock those ridiculous Facebook posts?

“If you were a bread, what bread would you be?” or “Comment your birthday month and I’ll tell you which Disney princess you are!”

We’d roll our eyes at the obvious engagement bait.

We knew it was stupid.

We knew it was manipulative.

And yet… people ate that shit up like free pizza at a college party.

Those posts worked because they tapped into something fundamental…

Our desperate need to be entertained and our even more desperate need to talk about ourselves.

The “free iPhone” scams were even more brilliant in their evil simplicity.

“We have 1000s of unboxed iPhones with little dents, so we can’t sell them, might as well give them away! Just like and share!”

Pure engagement farming that got pages to millions of followers before flipping them to sell random dropshipped garbage.

It was all powered by our basic human psychology…

We want to be entertained, we want free stuff, and we want to feel special and the list goes on and on.

Those tactics worked. They just happened to be wielded by scumbags who turned engagement into empty manipulation instead of genuine connection. (Which is ironically the one thing that is lacking so much now, cause people just want to punt their warez)

But what if we used those same psychological triggers for good?

What if we created content that was genuinely engaging without being of the super cheese variety?

Opinion Traps are fun to play with. They work well on Twitter and I see them popping up on FB lately too.

Instead of “What bread are you?” try “Hot take: People who put pineapple on pizza have better taste than people who refuse to try new things. Change my mind.” (Funny thing is. You’ll get the moral high ground police that’ll comment “WELL IT’S NOT A HOT TAKE IF YOU SAID IT’S A HOT TAKE” No shit sherlock, but it got you to engage didn’t it?)

You’re still asking for engagement, but you’re sparking actual conversation about something people have real opinions about.

Plus, you’re subtly positioning yourself as someone who thinks outside conventional wisdom, cause you’re willing to mix it up.

Another one to use is an Experience Exchange

Instead of fake giveaways, try “I’m collecting stories about the worst business advice anyone’s ever given you. I’ll share the best ones (anonymously) in next week’s roundup.”

You’re getting engagement, gathering content for future emails, and creating genuine value by crowdsourcing useful information, plus the fact that you’re allowing people to send you things shows that you genuinely value their opinions etc.

The last one is a Vulnerability Hook

Instead of arbitrary personality tests, try “I spent $10K on a business coach who told me to ‘just believe in myself harder.’ What’s the most expensive lesson you’ve learned the hard way?”

You’re sharing something real about yourself while inviting others to do the same. Natural engagement and not just baiting for clicks.

And as much as I want to slap Gary Vee because of some of his takes. When he said that he attention economy isn’t going anywhere, he was right.

We can either master it ethically or watch the cheesy engagement farmers continue to win by default.

And if you’ve been building your audience properly. You’ll know that they’re smart enough to see through bullshit.

So you might as well them something worth engaging with.

Stephen Walker.

P.S. These were just vague examples but I’m sure you got the gist of it. Whatever niche you’re in. I’m sure you’ve seen the outlandish stuff that passes as content, so at least wrap it in something that makes sense and is a net positive for engagement.

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

Now apparently this is true and even if not. It’s hilarious.

Sometimes the universe presents you with an opportunity to be absolutely, magnificently petty.

And when that moment comes, you have two choices…

Take the high road like a boring adult, or embrace your inner petty demon and create a masterpiece of justified spite.

50 Cent chose option two, and it’s fucking beautiful.

Here’s the quick TL;DR version…

Teairra Mari owed 50 Cent about $30K from some legal bullshit. Instead of just paying up like a normal person, she decided to drop a diss track called “I Ain’t Got It” which basically turning her debt into some weird flex or whatever.

Now, most people would’ve just rolled their eyes and called their lawyers.

Maybe written an angry Instagram post.

But 50? Nah.

50 saw this disrespect and said “hold my champagne.”

He trademarked the phrase “I Ain’t Got It.”

Then he bought the domain name.

Basically ensuring that if Teairra Mari wanted to make any money off her own diss track, she’d have to pay him for the privilege.

Imagine taking someone’s attempted clap-back and turning it into passive income?

The sheer audacity of it is chef’s kiss perfect.

Now I’d imagine every time someone searches for “I Ain’t Got It,” every time someone wants to use that phrase commercially, every time that song gets mentioned our boy 50 cent will win.

Entrepreneurial pettiness should be a whole niche in itself.

The new business model? Disrespect.

Sometimes you can’t take the high road. Sometimes people push you to a point where being the bigger person feels like letting them get away with bullshit.

Sometimes you have to show people that fucking with you comes with consequences they didn’t anticipate.

50 Cent understood the assignment and got paid for it…

Although it is the internet, this could be half true, but it was hilariously entertaining for me to look up on the old Twitter.

Now I need to look for my Grinch-like moment to be petty before the year ends.

Stephen Walker.

P.S. Tonight’s agenda though. A bit of fibonnaci study, food and this film, unless I pass out…

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

Let me tell you about the marketing equivalent of putting pineapple on pizza, except worse, because at least that’s consensual…

It’s opting people into your email list without their explicit consent.

I don’t care if they bought something from you five years ago. I don’t care if they downloaded your free PDF about productivity hacks. I don’t care if you think they’d “totally love” your new newsletter about cryptocurrency investing or whatever half baked idea you’re peddling this week.

If they didn’t explicitly opt into THIS list for THIS content, then adding them is a cardinal marketing sin.

Here’s why this pisses me off…

Years ago, I used Substack under a completely different pen name, tied to a burner Twitter account, with a separate email address. It was for writing creative content that had absolutely nothing to do with my current work. People had to actively seek out that content and deliberately subscribe.

That list was sacred. Those subscribers chose to be there for a specific reason.

Now imagine if I decided to migrate that entire audience to my current business newsletter without asking. Just because I had their email addresses doesn’t mean I have permission to bombard them with completely different content they never signed up for.

You’re not being a smart marketer by doing this. Mainly because the rules of changed and ESP and email providers will kick your ass if they ever find out.

Yet I see this shit constantly.

Some entrepreneur decides to pivot from selling yoga mats to teaching Facebook ads, and suddenly everyone who ever bought a yoga mat is getting emails about conversion funnels and pixel tracking.

Or worse…

They buy email lists. They scrape LinkedIn for contact information. They add every business card they collected at a networking event to their “valuable insights” newsletter.

It’s stupid and it’s not marketing.

You’re training people to associate your brand with spam. You’re burning bridges before you even build them. You’re basically announcing to the world that you don’t understand consent, boundaries, or basic human decency.

The worst part? It doesn’t even work.

Unengaged subscribers drag down your deliverability rates. They mark you as spam. They actively hurt your ability to reach people who actually want to hear from you.

So here’s a very simple rule… Don’t do it. Ever. Not to your best customers. Not to your worst enemies. Not even if you think you’re doing them a favour.

Build your lists organically. Ask for permission explicitly. Respect people’s choices.

Cause we all know it gives off “amateur hour” vibes.

I couldn’t imagine spamming people who never asked to hear from me.

Stephen Walker.

P.S. DO NOT CLICK THIS LINK. HONESTLY, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. DO NOT GET MAD AT ME IF YOU CLICK IT…

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

“There are two kinds of pain in this world. The pain that hurts, the pain that alters.”

One of my favourite quotes from a movie.

That movie is The Equalizer 2.

TL;DR it’s what John Wick should’ve been.

Anyways. This isn’t going to be checklist and things you need to do but more a “hey you, yes you!” you need to reframe that pain.

Most of us are stuck in this type of limbo where we just let pain hurt us all the time.

We haven’t learnt to switch it around and use it as the type of pain that alters us.

Sometimes it does come naturally, or out of a forced situation, but most of the time the types of pain we suffer from are self inflicted due to how complacent and lazy we’ve become.

(Unless someone has driven a sledgehammer into your foot, then that’s real pain that hurts and you should probably get that checked out)

The point is this:

We can hurt and be in pain and be miserable and want to eat all of the cake and ignore the world. But that pain is just going to make us get deeper into a spiral.

We need to learn to use that pain and turn it into a pain that alters.

But do you know how to do that?

I’ll let you have a little think about it cause it’s definitely some weird spiritual and philosophical view, although it’s good to get the think-y bits in your brain box working again.

Stephen Walker.

P.S. If you haven’t seen them before. I suggest you watch them. It’s just better than John Wick.

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

I know the world feels like it’s circling the drain most days.

Open social media and it’s rage bait, grifters, and people filming themselves pretending to care about things for clicks.

Then there’s the performative empaths doing things like it’s some new TikTok trend.

But then there’s Josh…

This guy goes around handing out food, cash, whatever people need and he does it because he actually gives a shit.

Not because there’s a camera crew staging the perfect “wholesome moment.”

Not because he’s building a personal brand called Kindness™ or whatever.

He just does it.

And his community? (Yes we know a lot of communities are batshit unhinged)

They are the ones who help fund it.

Real people throwing in real money so Josh can keep being a decent human in a world that’s forgotten what that looks like.

No marketing spin. No “join our movement” horseshit. Just a guy who saw people struggling and thought, “Yeah, I should probably help.”

I don’t know about you, but that hits different, especially this time of the year.

And I know how easy it is to get cynical. Easy to assume every good deed is just another play to appeal to the social media engine.

Easy to think everyone’s in it for themselves.

Josh is out there proving that wrong though.

And maybe that’s the thing we need to remember when the news cycle feels like a slow motion car crash and half the internet is trying to sell you something you don’t need. (I DON’T WANT YOUR SCENTED CANDLES TIFFANY)

There are still good people doing good things.

Not for applause. Not for shares.

Just because it’s the right fucking thing to do.

So yeah. The world’s still dark in a lot of places.

But there’s light too.

And sometimes it looks like Josh, walking around his neighbourhood, making someone’s day a little less heavy.

That’s it. That’s the email.

Stephen Walker.

P.S. If you know someone like Josh in your world, someone doing the work without the performance, tell them they matter. We need more of that energy going into 2026. Oh and someone’s chopping onions on this side of the world right now…

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

Thought I’d hit you with a little bit of direct response shenanigans today, mainly cause my brain is mush.

Ever notice how sending an email these days feels like shouting at a wall, hell…

Even social media posts tend to just sit there and feel meh.

The thing is.

You fire off a message. Then you hear cricket sounds. Follow up some more. Then even more crickets.

And you start wondering if you’ve somehow become a ghost, if this is your “Sixth Sense” moment and nobody told you.

But we all do this and you get it. Cause you also treat your inbox/feeds like a biohazard zone.

Opening it feels like cracking a door where you trapped something feral and unpredictable.

We’re drowning in the wreckage of the attention economy. (THANK YOU GARY VEE)

Everything feels like a public square set on fire, where strangers attempt to relocate their problems into your Tuesday afternoon.

So what do you do when you actually need someone to respond?

Time to steal from the people we love to hate…

Salespeople.

Yeah, I know. Those “HUGE SAVINGS TODAY ONLY” emails make you want to throw your laptop out the window. But they work. And whether we like it or not, they understand human psychology better than most therapists.

So let’s ethically jack what they do and use it for good.

Whether you’re trying to close a work deal or convince your mate to finally pick a restaurant or place to grab a few beers.

Firstly, you need to appeal to their self interest.

Stop thinking about what YOU need and start with what THEY get. The reader doesn’t care about your goals. They care about their Tuesday not getting worse.

Don’t bury the benefit. Lead with it. First line. “Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.”

Not “Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, when I was a young boy…”

Get to the point ffs.

Second: Your subject line better earn its keep. The rent is due and those words need to pay up.

The best ones offer a benefit, promise news, or spark curiosity. Ideally all three.

“Newsletter #37” is not a subject line. You might as well pretty it up and send it straight to the cemetery. Nobody’s opening that.

Something like “How we quietly crushed Q2 while everyone else flailed around.”

Same information. Now it’s gossip. Now it’s alive.

Probably most important: Write like a human, I honestly don’t think I have any other way to say this.

But here goes: H U M A N

“Our groundbreaking app provides cutting edge tools to enhance workplace synergy.”

Who talks like this? Nobody you’d want to have a beer with, that’s who.

Write like you’re sitting across from someone, telling them something that matters between bites of a sandwich.

Short paragraphs (under five lines). Short sentences. No jargon that sounds like you’re regurgitating an HR manual.

“Circle back” makes me want to run in squares out of spite.

Fourth: Tell them exactly what to do. (I have no clue how people fuck this up)

Don’t hover around the point like a nervous teenager asking someone to the dance.

Give them ONE action. One deadline. Make it stupidly obvious.

Not “Let me know what you think.” Try “Can you send feedback by Wednesday so we can move forward?”

A clear call to action wins. You’re doing the hard thinking so they can just reply “yes” and get on with their life.

Here’s the dirty secret which does suck to a degree:

Nobody’s reading your email/posts. They’re skimming.

But you know what everyone reads?

The P.S.

It’s where you drop the performance and just say the thing. “P.S. Please send the draft by 5PM or the boss will lose his mind at both of us.”

These techniques are just good manners in this whole marketing shindig thing we’re doing. If you’re borrowing someone’s attention for a few minutes. Consider it a favour from them to you.

Tell people why they should care. Be friendly. Ask for one thing and make it easy.

The best types of emails/posts aren’t seen as transactions. Think of them as slow built connections.

Stephen Walker.

P.S. See? You read this bit. Now go write an email/post that doesn’t make people want to fake their own death.

P.P.S. A lot of these things can be forgotten if you’ve built somewhat of a “brand” but that’s a topic for a whole different time.

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

I know this world is a cold place a lot of the times.

But it can also be a beautiful place if you let it be.

Sadly today. A friend I work with got the call that nobody wants to get. His best friend has sadly taken his own life.

In this situation you can’t always think of the right words to help comfort, cause the brain switches off and emotions take over.

But if we can show that we’re there for them with actions, it makes things a little more bearable.

While human connection is hard to get nowadays, cause everyone’s living permanently online while projecting a perfect world.

We need to realise that behind every screen is an actual living person. That same person has good days, bad days and days that are so heavy that they often wonder it’s worth pushing on.

You might feel this too.

There’s no right or wrong way to approach being human, but what you need to know, that no matter how difficult things get, you matter.

You matter more than you know, even on your darkest days.

If you feel that someone might need a little help, reach out.

If you need a little help, reach out.

My inbox is always open if you need it.

This time of the year is tough but we’ll make it through it.

Look after yourself and don’t forget.

You matter.

Stephen Walker.

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

I’m busy thumbing this email while on the last train back home.

If it sends, it sends. The signal is meh.

I had a catch up with a friend who I’ve not seen in forever.

We shot the shit, had a few espresso martini’s, did some people watching and mused on the state of the world.

We both came to the conclusion that the hyper acceleration of artificial everything is going to lobotomise society.

We’ve predicted that 2026 is going to be filled with the biggest gap of fake versus real we’ve ever seen.

It doesn’t matter what space you operate in, it’s going to be monumental and so far his and mines predictions since 2019 have all come true.

But here’s the short and sweet fix to it all…

Connection. Genuine, fun, friendly and intimate connection.

That is how we don’t get sucked into the world of fakery and bullshit.

While everyone is trying to automate their lives with AI. If you drill down into being an actual human…

You’ll be leaps and bounds ahead. Funny thing I witnessed over this last year too is, that everyone who has peddled some AI “thing” in their offers, have truly not given a rats ass about the person who buys it. They’re only in it for their own profits.

Profits of people? Not my gig.

So keep this in mind as we roll into 2026.

Connection will be the new commodity and if you can handle that. Everything will be golden.

Figure out how to make that human element stronger in what you do and you’ll wipe the floor with these AI nerds wanting to squeeze every buck out of everyone.

Stephen Walker.

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

“There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.” – Warren Buffett

As I write this, my brain feels like applesauce.

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The reason:

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I entered into a solo retreat last Saturday, where I’m…

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Eliminating salt, oil, sugar and caffeine (and most other foods for that matter)

Meditating intensively

Restricting all inputs (social media, reading, tv, etc)

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For two weeks.

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My plan was to keep working as usual:

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Banging out YT content, emails, and the new offer I’m working on.

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But my brain had other plans, and decided to teach me a surprisingly valuable lesson in how to:

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Match the work you’re doing to the state you’re in.

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It started when I tried outlining a new YouTube video, and flew through the first 80% of the ideation phase before smacking into a brick wall when I tried to apply the final 20% polish necessary to actually record and post it.

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In other words…

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When I zoomed out and focused on the big picture — the central idea, the core points, the stories — I could see it perfectly.

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But when I zoomed in on the details — the hook, the examples, the supporting evidence — everything went fuzzy and my mind turned to mud.

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This is normal during solo retreats like this:

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Cutting out salt and stimulation and cranking my meditation volume way up pushes my analytical, detail-focused left brain into hibernation.

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But it also lights up my intuitive, vision-focused right brain and activates a higher intelligence that is often drowned out by the noise and stimulation of regular life.

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That’s the point of doing these retreats, after all.

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So I should have known better.

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But it still took my stubborn ass four days to stop fighting against my state and start working with it.

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In practical terms, that means waiting until after the retreat to:

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Polish and record YouTube videos

Write my email welcome sequence

Build out my new offer

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And instead, spending the next week:

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​Coaching one on one clients (the intuition boost has made coaching even more effective)

Clarifying my big-picture vision

Planning big ideas for content & offers

Identifying & removing any psychological blocks that are slowing down my business & personal life

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In my younger years, I would have been way too bull-headed, too brainwashed by mamba-mentality to shift gears when I ran into excessive friction.

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But this retreat has schooled me in the value of:

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Matching my work to my internal state.

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And I hope it gives you permission to dump the grindset propaganda and introduce more flow into your own work, as well.

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Of course, sometimes the task just needs doing.

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And before you shift tasks, it’s always a good idea to:

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Make sure you’re in the right state for the task ahead of time (lifestyle, diet, training, sleep)

If you’re not in the right state for the task, put yourself in it (movement, breathing, caffeine)

Try grinding for ~20 minutes until your state naturally shifts and you sink into the task.

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But sometimes that’s either not possible, not efficient, or not optimal.

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Sometimes, the wrong state for the task you planned is the right state for a task you didn’t plan.

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And sometimes you just need a nap.

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Hope that’s helpful.

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Let me know if anything landed for you.

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– T

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P.S. This means, most likely:

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No new YT talks or emails for a couple weeks.

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But I’m not sure yet.

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I’m going to run the rest of the retreat as an experiment in following my energy and seeing where it leads me.

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Should be interesting…

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“Relaxation is essential for the full expression of power.” – George Leonard, Mastery

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There’s a new type of energy floating around social media, and it’s not the good kind.

I’m calling it “Dig Bick Energy”

The not-so-nice flaccid cousin of Big Dick Energy.

Instead of confident competence, it’s just digging into topics you don’t understand and bickering about them online to sound profound.

Some masculine woo woo influencer just posted a rambling takedown of “48 Laws of Power” that perfectly demonstrates this phenomenon.

His hot take?

The book is “tragically incomplete” because it promotes a “zero sum scarcity model” and treating people like “game pieces in your own private chess match”

This is peak Dig Bick Energy.

He’s taking a complex work of historical analysis and reducing it to a simplistic strawman so he can argue against something that was never the actual point.

Robert Greene didn’t write “48 Laws of Power” as a self help manual for aspiring sociopaths, but you can tell a lot of people are running with the Patrick Bateman from American Psycho vibe instead… (They should ACTUALLY read 48 laws of power tbh)

The thing is.

He compiled centuries of historical examples showing how power actually operates in the real world.

And I’m fairly certain (If I can dig it out) that there was in interview where he states it’s more descriptive than anything.

I mean if I were a doctor, I wouldn’t prescribe taking the 48 laws of power to heart.

I guess we could also call it an instruction manual for being an absolute asshole, although if you look a lot deeper into what he was sharing and writing.

It’s 100% anthropology.

But this influencer missed that entirely because actually understanding the book would require acknowledging uncomfortable truths about how the world works.

Instead, he’d rather live in his fantasy bubble where “infinite resources are as freely available as oxygen” and everyone can just collaborate their way to success. (Which is possible but lol, just wait until someone uses one of the biologically hardwired laws against them and the herd…)

I’m down for wilful ignorance though, cause there’s no way you can try and sound smart and enlightened by watering complex ideas like that down.

The book documents how people like Cesare Borgia, Napoleon, and countless others actually gained and maintained power throughout history.

You can find those lessons morally repugnant, but pretending they don’t exist won’t make power dynamics disappear.

This is what happens when people consume content in bite sized chunks and think they understand complex topics.

They dig for surface level criticisms and bicker about half baked interpretations instead of grappling with the actual ideas.

Social media rewards this behaviour because nuanced understanding doesn’t get engagement.

Hot takes and moral posturing do. (Join Twitter and you’ll see exactly what I mean)

Next time you see someone confidently dismantling something they clearly don’t understand, you’re witnessing Dig Bick Energy in action.

Don’t be that guy.

This is also why I wanted to rip my eyes from my skull when someone tried to tell me that Blinkist would increase my book reading speeds and comprehension and LmaoGPT would fully change our views…

Anyways. That’s my Friday Soap Box session done.

Go have a kickass weekend.

Stephen Walker.

P.S. Give the 48 laws of power a read and then go deep down the rabbit hole on the people it was based off. That’s when you’ll really see where this all comes from…

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

Give me your tired, your sleepless, your weary minds yearning to think clearly…

And I’ll remove brain fog and all of the icky gross shit that is tied to it.

Although firstly: This isn’t medical advice and if you do attempt to follow this, please do not blame me if you get the runs.

I’m just a guy with a keyboard, not a doctor with a prescription pad.

With all of that said…

Your brain is running on empty, and it’s not just because you stayed up until 4 AM doom scrolling TikTok.

Sleep deprivation literally depletes creatine levels in your brain, which is why you feel like you’re thinking through mental quicksand after a bad night.

Here’s where it gets interesting though…

Researchers took a bunch of sleep deprived meat puppets aka people, and gave half of them creatine, half a placebo…

Then they tortured them with 24 hours of no sleep plus exercise (because apparently scientists are sadists, lol go figure)

The results?

The creatine group performed significantly better on tasks that hammer your prefrontal cortex, you know, that part of your brain responsible for decision making, working memory, and not acting like a complete moron.

While the placebo group’s brains turned to mush, the creatine group maintained better mood, faster reaction times, better balance, and superior cognitive performance.

Even after being awake for 24 straight hours.

These people were functionally zombies, but creatine kept their brains firing on most cylinders while everyone else was operating at potato level intelligence. (Which honestly was me for the last few weeks or so while this illness, virus or megaultracovaids hit me)

The magic dose? Five grams, four times a day for a week in the study.

But most research shows 3/5 grams daily is enough for cognitive benefits once you’re loaded up.

It first saturates the muscles cause muscles are greedy bastards and then your brain snaps up the rest.

Your brain burns through energy like a Ferrari burns through fuel though, especially if you’re doing all that fancy think-y shit like writing or studying.

When you give it premium fuel (creatine), it runs better.

When you don’t, you get the mental equivalent of engine knock.

It’s more that foggy, sluggish, “why can’t I think straight” feeling and we’ve all been there.

I always thought brain fog was normal. But after my lack of sleep and mental activity, It was just my brain begging for better fuel.

Feed it what it needs and then like magic…

You’re a functional human again.

So if you’re feeling like you’ve been run over mentally, even if you’re eating right, sleeping right and doing all the things you’re supposed to.

Maybe try supplement creatine and get the squishy stuff between your ears a little lovin’

Don’t forget to hydrate like a mofo too. Cause for some reason your body absorbs more liquids when you’re supplementing creatine.

Stephen Walker.

P.S. For the nerds who wanna read the study, here’s some cited info and all that good stuff.

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

I must’ve been living under a rock the size of Montana because I just watched the first episode of Yellowstone and holy shit, where has this been all my life?

Kevin Costner as a modern day cattle baron who owns the largest ranch in America?

Sign me the fuck up. But it’s not the premise that got me.

It’s how they introduce the story that made me realise I’ve been wasting my time with everything else.

The first episode grabs you by the eyeballs from minute one and doesn’t let go.

No bullshit exposition dumps. No gentle world building. Just pure, immediate tension that makes you lean forward in your chair and forget you were supposed to be doing literally anything else with your evening.

Within the first twenty minutes, you know exactly who these people are, what they want, and why they’re willing to kill for it.

The stakes are clear, the conflicts are established, and you can practically taste the violence simmering just beneath the surface.

This is how stories need to be introduced. Not with forty five minutes of character backstory and careful setup.

Not with gentle nudges toward the plot. Just drop people into the deep end and let them swim or drown.

Yellowstone doesn’t fuck around with pleasantries.

It shows you a world where power is measured in land, family loyalty is everything, and modern progress is the enemy.

Then it throws fuel on that powder keg and lights a match.

You can feel the action coming from episode one. It’s like watching storm clouds gather on the horizon.

You can feel the tension in the air and the pressure drop as you know lightning is about to strike, you just don’t know where or when.

Now I have to binge the entire series like some kind of Montana ranch obsessed maniac, and I’m not even sorry about it.

Sometimes living under a rock means you get to discover gold when you finally crawl out.

Consider me officially obsessed.

I’ve also now considered upgrading my cabin in the woods lifestyle to a cabin in the woods that must also double as a ranch and house horses and all of that good cowboy shit too.

Stephen Walker.

P.S. Here’s the trailer for your tired eyeballs.

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