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Saw a Dragon Ball Z ad on YouTube today and suddenly I’m eight years old again, racing home from school to catch the latest episode, arguing with friends about whether Goku could beat Superman, and spending my little bits of pocket money saved up, on action figures I’d pose in epic battles across my bedroom floor.

Move aside The Undertaker. Goku is here.

It’s weird though. One thirty second ad unlocked an entire vault of vivid memories I didn’t even know I still had.

The anticipation of waiting a week to see if Frieza would finally be defeated.

The pure joy of watching someone power up for five episodes straight. The joke was always “How many Saiyans would it take to change a light bulb?”

“One, but it would take 15 episodes to get done…”

The way DBZ made everything feel possible and epic and larger than life seems to be the super power we’re lacking nowadays.

It’s crazy that for a moment, you’re not just remembering being young.

You ARE young again, feeling all those emotions with the same intensity.

We need to learn to bake some sort of nostalgia into our work.

Look at how Stranger Things doesn’t just set itself in the 80s, it makes you feel like you’re experiencing the 80s for the first time, especially the first bit of Dungeons & Dragons in their basement…

Or the way certain video games use pixel art not because it’s cheaper, but because it triggers that specific emotional response from childhood gaming.

I know we can reference nostalgic things.

But more importantly, we need to reference nostalgic feelings.

The anticipation of Saturday morning cartoons. The taste of birthday cake at eight years old. The way Christmas morning felt when you still believed in magic.

Yeah yeah, Nostalgia is a blast from the past but do you remember the emotions?

That’s what we need to tap into

If we manage that. We’ll have people hooked before they even understand why.

And if for a moment we can make them feel eight years old again, we’ve won.

Stephen Walker.

I also found out a pretty damn cool place to get sucked back into nostalgia land AND it only costs five bucks. It’s the steal of the century…

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

I’m not much of a news fan.

But the last few days have been insane.

I won’t go into detail, but here in the UK it just seems to be getting worse as the days go on.

(and yes there are also people who will be like “BUT YOU STILL HAVE IT GOOD HERE, LOOK AT ALL THE WAR AND TERRIBLE THINGS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD!!!!)

While that is valid. I’m not living there and I’m blessed to be where I am now, it still doesn’t negate the fact that this is all happening though…

I have friends, colleagues and clients who live incredibly close to where all of these things have happened. The sad thing is that nothing will be done about it.

It’ll make headlines and then that’s it. It just vanishes.

And as much as I’d like to say that I’m going to stay here forever, myself and a few friends are heavily considering getting out of England sooner than later.

It also annoys me that there’s so much opportunity here, yet why would you stay if every year the cities you want to visit get more dangerous and overrun with thugs?

Anyways. That’s enough of this rant.

My thoughts are with the families that have been affected by what has happened lately and I’m glad things got stopped before it got way worse than it did.

If you’re out and about, especially around Christmas time coming up. Just be aware and stay safe.

I’m always optimistic that things will get better, it’s just hard because we’re like “When?”

Stephen Walker.

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

“You and I are not like cows. We’re not meant to graze all day. We’re meant to hunt like lions. This idea that you’re going to have linear output just by cranking every day at the same amount of time sitting… That’s machines. Machines are meant to work 9-5, not humans.” — Naval Ravikant

Before we enter the thunderdome…

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…I need to preface this by giving Hormozi his well-deserved flowers.

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Numbers don’t lie; the guy is a beast.

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And, while I agree with him far more often than I disagree…

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This ‘aint one of those times.

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Here’s the story…

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Earlier this week, I sat down to record my first original YouTube talk in nearly 3 years:

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How I Built A 7-Figure Business Working 4.5 Hours A Day

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When I finished, I got up, walked over to my desk, popped in the SD card and began uploading it.

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(Literally) moments later:
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A clip popped up from Hormozi that outlines his recommended daily routine for early-stage founders…

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…Which is, basically:

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Work 12 hours a day.

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Instantly, I started second-guessing myself:

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“I just filmed a 25 minute rant about how working 12 hours a day is bullsh*t…

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…Was I wrong? Have I actually been a pansy this whole time?

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Do we need to call Goggins?”

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That continued for about 15 seconds.

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Then I woke up and remembered I’m not a bot this system has been battle-tested for over 15 years, and remains undefeated for me and every single founder I’ve ever given it to.

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Still, I thought I’d run it by Dr. ChatGPT to be sure.

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Here’s what it said:

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From ChatGPT:

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(I asked it to summarize a long response into bullet points)

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Decades of research (Newport, Ericsson, Pencavel, Pang, Csikszentmihalyi) show humans can only sustain around 4–6 hours of true deep work per day before focus and creativity crash.

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Deep work burns real fuel. The prefrontal cortex—the part responsible for reasoning, creativity, and strategy—runs on limited metabolic energy. After a few hours of intense focus, it physically can’t sustain high performance.

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Your best ideas often emerge offline. When you rest or step away, the brain’s Default Mode Network (DMN) activates—integrating memories, solving problems, and forming creative insights. Constant focus blocks this process, which means without deliberate downtime, you literally prevent your mind from connecting the dots that drive breakthroughs.

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Busyness feels productive—but isn’t. You might “work” 12 hours, but you’re likely only producing about 4 good ones. Grinding feels virtuous but often masks poor strategy and scattered focus.

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Of course, Chat could just be glazing me while telling Hormozi the exact same thing in reverse.

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(AI be flirty like that)

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But I don’t think so.

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According to science — and, more importantly, to real-world experience — the data is very clear:

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4-6 hours per day is the sweet spot for creative and intellectual work.

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However, the only data that matters is the data you collect yourself.

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And you can only collect the data by trying both approaches and seeing what works for you.

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(not me, not Hormozi, not ChatGPT — you)

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So please do.

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And then let us know your findings.

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If you’d like a damn good starting point that works damn near every time:

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Watch this today.

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T

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P.S. Big thanks to everyone who has been supporting by liking, commenting, and sharing the video.

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Like I said yesterday…

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Our channel has been stuck for a while because:

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Our topics are all over the place (YouTube doesn't know which audience to show our content to)
None of our videos are optimized for YouTube (they've all been random clips from live recordings)

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So this is the first video I’ve ever posted on the channel that is actually designed for YouTube.

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And I’m told re-training the algorithm and gaining traction will take ~8-12 weeks.

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But every like, comment, and share really speeds up the process…

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And thanks to y’all, this video is gaining good momentum already.

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So again — thank you 🙂

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Keep the support coming, and I’ll keep the videos coming.

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We’re just getting started…

“If you want to love what you do, abandon the passion mindset (“what can the world offer me?”) and instead adopt the craftsman mindset (“what can I offer the world?”).” – Cal Newport

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Now if I could bust out some bars like the Wu-Tang clan.

I wouldn’t be writing emails to you, my number one fan…

That said.

I fell asleep in what I can only believe is a pose that has managed to destroy my neck and shoulder for the 3rd time this year.

(It doesn’t help that the shoulder has been crushed from a past accident and yes there is a fun story about it but no I’m not going to write about it…)

But as much as I’d hate to admit it. The older I get. The more crunchy my injuries become.

And so the main thing I’d say is that you need to protect those injuries so that they don’t flare up again.

Back in 2020 I stumbled upon this dude

Yoga designed for the lads.

They were easy to do, kept the mobility up and brought back functional body weight exercises that didn’t kill you.

While I don’t have some mega insightful thing to say about yoga. All I need to say is you need to get your ass moving and stretching in all of the useful ways so your body doesn’t seize up and smack you about.

I’ve been spending a lot more time hunched behind the keyboard writing words and code for something massive and because I’ve not been as active the last few months.

My body is starting to squeak and crunch.

So check it out. Do some yoga. Save yo’ joints.

Stephen Walker.

P.S. Man Flow Yoga is legit one of the best humans on Youtube in my opinion.

(Wow Stephen. You put TWO links in an email going to the same channel. You must really endorse that dude…)

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

PREVIEW chapter from upcoming book on animal spirits

JERR

Hawk

Eye

and

eagle

sight

There will be times when a man will feel weighed down by the circumstances of his life. He will lose sight of his own purpose and will feel lost. This is when a man is suffocated by his problems and will hold despair in only seeing the problems that surround him.

When a man is depressed and loses vision, he becomes blind to the possibility of hope beyond today and sees no reason for tomorrow. He is consumed by a darkness and feels that the light has abandoned him.

There is a saying that goes, “cannot see the forest for the trees.” This saying means that a man who is face to face with a tree will not realize he is inside a forest because he makes himself blind to the greater reality by focusing too closely on the objects before him. This is a perceptional problem where the man’s becomes too confined and to restrained by being too close to his own problems.

One of the great perceptional issues that a man has is when his perception becomes confined by his closeness to his own concerns. He does not allow himself a sense of distance over himself and the world which creates a blindness to hope and a confusion to the truth of reality. It is only when a man can step back from his own problems can he examine them with rationality.

When a man is overwhelmed by his problems, he is unconsciously identifying with the animals that are confined to the earth and who are imprisoned by gravity. The feel the weight of their problems because those problems hold gravity. The word “gravity” comes from the Latin word “gravis” meaning heavy, weighty and serious. The word “gravity” and the word “grave” both share the etymological root from “gravis.” Graves are burial grounds for dead bodies that are held in the earth. Dust we and dust we return. A very heavy, weighty and serious matter. This is what it means to be mortal or confined by the gravity of the world. If a man was buried alive, his vision would be trapped by the dirt that covers over his eyes and he will be suffocated by the earth that binds his sight. Men who are overwhelmed by their problems are like men who are buried alive. They exist in a twilight zone of being both alive and yet buried. They see only the close earth like moles who dig at the earth before them and lose sight of purpose beyond the clawing away of each day. Their sense of gravity roots them to the earth and their close perceptions makes them lose sight of the big picture.

But when a man “breaks through” in gaining hope to his despair, it is like a breath from the surface of water or like breaking the earth and revealing the light. All he felt was pain and isolation. But by breaking through the dirt and scratching at the coffin’s wood. He is able to reawaken in the liminal space of the undead who seeks resurrection. This is when a man can project himself from the unconscious burden of his dead body and take possession of the bird that he sees above himself. A bird in a tree who can far above the earth and who can fly into the sky and break free from the tree in order to see the forest. “No tree is so tall that it touches the sky but every bird can try.”

When a man projects himself into the mind of a bird, he is able to soar and create a distance between himself and the world that binds him to his problems. He becomes free from the weight of gravity and is able to free himself from the “seriousness” or grave concerns that press down upon him.

There are the five senses of sight, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling. Then there is the sense of distance. This is a mental distancing that allows a man to establish space between himself and his emotions, establish space between himself and his problems and establish space between himself and the gravity of his situation. A man who feels like a mole in the dark grind of his life should break the surface and take control of the hawk that circles above him in the sky. “Hawks don’t squint; they see the world in sharp relief.” And “A hawk’s eye cuts through the fog of doubt.”

The birds of prey are totems of possession over the perception in order to gain a sixth sense of “distance.” When a man identifies himself with a bird of prey, he desires the freedom from gravity that binds him to his “grave concerns” and he desires the eyes that can see from horizon to horizon. “An eagle’s gaze pierces the horizon.”

Distance can not only help a man deal with his own gravity or grave concerns but also allow him the psychological distance for power. Remember, the king’s throne is raised above the court and the king looks down from the balcony of his castle. This is not just physical representations of distance but clues to his own mental distance over his subjects. The king would not only be raised up upon his throne, carried on the shoulders of his servants or look down from a balcony from his castle in order to elevate him from the gravity of that binds others to the earth but these elevations would allow him visual distance in order to behold his subjects as smaller in his sight. The servants would have to look up to him which would create a mental association with power in viewing themselves as below his authority. Kings would elevate themselves in order to see “horizon to horizon” which is a means of using the eagle’s eye. They would be able to see those under their frame of authority as “small ants.” The people would be below their gaze and small in meaning.

In ancient Egypt, the Pharoah was seen as a god-king who embodied Horus who was depicted as a hawk or falcon that symbolized divine vision and rulership. The feathers of Eagles have long been used by chiefs of native American tribes as symbols of divine vision. The heraldry of Byzantine and of the Holy Roman empire used Eagles which was a symbol of a king’s dominion over the earth and heavens. The Etana myth from ancient Mesopotamia features a king who rides upon an eagle in order to receive divine wisdom from heaven. In ancient Persia, the Simurgh was a mythical bird that guided kings in the Shahnameh bringing them divine vision and insight.

A king must have a sense of distance between himself and subjects, a sense of distance between the petty struggles of his subjects and a sense of distance over his own conscience compared to his subjects.

Men will struggle with their own minds and struggle with the gravity of their problems only because they lack the sense of distance that would allow them to rise above their problems. They feel weight over the state of their lives and the state of the world because they are bound by its gravity and are buried under the weight it. But men who seize the eagle in the sky become free from the weight of the world and are able to see mankind like ants. They are able to see the light of a new horizon before other because their vision is not blocked by earthly concerns. They are able to fly over the world and look down upon it with distance eyes. This is the eagle, hawk and raven as animal guides

“Social media made y’all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it.”

Probably one of my favourite sayings from ol’ Iron Mike.

The thing is. We’ve created a consequence free zone where people can be absolute shitheads without any real accountability.

And you see it more where people hide behind anonymous profiles, spew venom at strangers, spread lies, and face zero real world repercussions.

Now I’m not about bringing back schoolyard violence (Even though sometimes I want to stomp someone’s face in)

It’s really just about understanding that humans behave better when there are actual stakes involved.

When your words have weight. When being a dick to someone might result in having to look them in the eye and defend your position.

But social media stripped away the natural social friction that kept most people from being completely insufferable.

In real life, if you’re consistently awful to people, you get ostracised. Your reputation suffers. People stop wanting to be around you and before you know it you’re gonna get punched in the mouth.

Online? You can be a monster and still collect likes from other monsters.

We’ve lost the art of civil disagreement because there’s no incentive for civility anymore. I mean look at the politics side of social media. It’s wild as shit.

I mean come on. Why engage thoughtfully when you can just scream into whatever echo chamber you’re in and get dopamine hits from the fellow screamers too?

Maybe if people had to own their shit instead of hiding behind usernames, they’d think twice before turning every conversation into a piss fuelled dumpster fire.

We need to bring back stakes. Bring back accountability. Bring back the basic human understanding that words have power and you should use them responsibly.

/end soapbox rant

Stephen Walker.

I’m off to go give some love to Bret Easton Ellis with this gem.

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

This is gonna be a straightforward one.

What hobbies do you have or have neglected this year?

I need something fresh to dive deep into, so I’d love to see what you’re already obsessed with.

Yes. I read and write but hey, it’s not really a hobby to me. If I have to write an ad for someone it’s not the purely pleasureful writing. It’s the money making kind. It’s systematic and has a clear objective…

I mean a few friends are trying to rope me straight back to the good old days of Dungeons & Dragons and/or World of Warcraft and oh boy…

If I get sucked into that. Rest in peace productivity.

I’m frantically googling and having a look around. Winter is fast approaching and I just want something nice and chill.

So if you have any ideas. Hit reply.

I need some help.

Stephen Walker.

P.S. I think I might just have to go balls deep into this…

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

A longtime coaching client of mine, Ben Bader, passed away on Thursday night.

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He was 24.

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I won’t get into the details, because that’s not what’s important right now.

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What’s important is who Ben was, what he stood for, and what he would want us to learn from his life.

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He was clever, scrappy, and talented in ways hard work alone can’t explain.

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He was also warm, curious, and overwhelmingly generous.

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Impossible not to like. A joy to work with.

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Ben had a unique way of flowing through life without fear:

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A rare type of fxck-it-let’s-do-it enthusiasm that comes from a deep excitement at the endless possibilities of life.

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Which, I think, is why he realized so many of those possibilities in such a short time.

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Looking back at the goals Ben set for himself:

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Total financial abundance.

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His dream home in Miami.

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A group of true friends.

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A girl he loved.

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In the end, he achieved them all.

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He did exactly what he set out to do, and became exactly who he wanted to be.

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He did the damn thing.

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He lived free.

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As I’ve processed my shock over the past ~12 hours, I’ve noticed my mind zooming out:

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Gaining a rare, wider glimpse into how fragile, how fleeting — how strikingly beautiful — our lives are.

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It’s the type of perspective that is so hard to gain, and so easy to lose in the rush of everyday life.

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I suppose that’s one of the hidden blessings of tragedy.

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But I also know tragedy isn’t necessary to gain that perspective.

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It’s always there, because it’s always true:

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We are free to live our lives however we choose.

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To do exactly what we want to do, and become exactly who we want to be.

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To dream wild dreams and turn them into reality.

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That’s what Ben did.

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And I know that’s what he wanted, for everyone he touched.

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At the end of our first coaching call a few years ago, Ben invited me to Miami.

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“You gotta come party with us man — it would be a blast.”

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I laughed:

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“You caught me about ten years too late… Maybe in our next lifetime we’ll be born at the same time. If that happens… pray for Miami.”

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So until we meet again, Ben Bader:

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Godspeed.

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And fly free.

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I know you will.

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T

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It’s very rare for me to get annoyed at anything.

But customer support is where most businesses go to die.

Whether you’re a solo business owner or some corporate behemoth, it’s wild to me that the thought of ignoring your customers and clients is nuts.

You call a company with a problem and immediately get trapped in phone tree hell, bounced between departments, forced to repeat your issue seventeen times to people reading from scripts who clearly couldn’t care less if your problem gets solved or if you spontaneously get set on fire and burn your place down…

Although you’d also expect if you buy something from someone off of eBay or whatever, that they’d at least have the common courtesy to hit you up with a “I might have an issue getting your package out because I went out and got shit my pants drunk last night, but when I’m back to my regular self. I’ll drop it off at the post office for you…”

Simple really.

Communication isn’t THAT hard.

Taking someone’s money and letting them wonder when they’re getting the goods is just piss poor in general and so that’s what I’m dealing with right now.

I want the thing that I bought because it’s something I’ve genuinely wanted and have been looking around for it since forever.

But I’ve gotten ZERO communication about shipping or what’s up or even if they person is okay.

It’s just a hope and pray that I get said thing.

(I’m gonna be big sad if I don’t get it. I need my nerd fix of stuff before this year ends)

And so I’ve done the polite thing and just emailed them yet again to see if they’re all good and if they can hit me up.

The last thing I want to do is ask for a refund and all of that bullshit cause that’s not my style.

But it brings me to my point.

Whether you’re offering a product or a service as a creative.

Make it easy as shit for people to give you money. Make it fun. Make sure they get what you said you’re giving them. Follow up if they get stuck and show them that you’re grateful for them being a part of your world.

And for the love of all things holy. Give them a god damn tracking number if you are shipping them something…

Stephen Walker.

P.S. Tonight I am doing absolutely nothing but revisiting childhood memories by playing the best strategy game ever made. Plus their track list is just amazing.

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

Hey you.

Yes you.

Put down that copywriting book.

Stop reading another blog post about “the secret to high converting headlines.”

Quit circle jerking with other copywriters who all learned from the same three gurus who learned from the same two books written in 1966.

Cough Breakthrough Advertising cough

Pick up Lee Child’s The Killing Floor instead.

You want to learn addictive prose? Study how he opens that book.

No wasted words. No throat clearing. No setting up context for three paragraphs before anything happens. He drops you straight into tension and refuses to let go for 500+ pages.

He understands something most copywriters have forgotten…

Writing isn’t about tricks or formulas or psychological manipulation tactics which we get to hear about non stop on Facebook or Twitter.

You basically want to grab someone by the throat with the words and make them need to know what happens next.

Every sentence in a Jack Reacher novel has a job to do. Move the story forward. Build tension. Reveal character. Create momentum. There’s no filler, no self indulgent descriptions, no showing off how clever the writer is.

This is what your copy should feel like. Lean, propulsive, impossible to stop reading.

While you’re studying “power words” and A/B testing subject lines, he is demonstrating how to make readers physically unable to put something down.

He creates narrative tension that translates directly to sales copy. The desperate need to know what comes next.

Your favourite copywriting guru won’t get mad if you read actual writers. They might even learn something.

The best copywriters aren’t just marketers who learned some writing tricks, it’s more we learnt to sell things while writing.

Stop learning from people who learned from other people who learned from books. Learn from someone who actually knows how to make words sing…

Read real writers. Write better copy.

Stephen Walker.

P.S. Get your best damn education in writing solid copy for £2.99 over here.

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