Beliefs

Get to

February 8, 2026

One of the simplest shifts in language has massively changed my life.

I found myself saying things like “I have to do the show tonight” or “I have to go to that meeting”.

Shows and meetings are part of the life I’ve designed for myself- so “have to” doesn’t ring as true for me.

“Have to” is against your will. It’s reluctant. It’s “Okay, fine I’ll do that”

None of these belong in the life I want. And the good news is, we can use language te remind ourselves each moment that we have a choice.

Switch your “have to” to a “get to”.

“I get to do the show tonight”

“I get to go to that meeting”

Look at all you get to do. How lucky are we?

We all have a way in

February 6, 2026

The fact that you’re a human being means you have a way in.

Early on as a teacher I’d easily feel out of my depth when teaching things I didn’t have all the answers to. We get hypnotised in the culture to believing that we have to be experts.

More often than not, we don’t need to wear that responsibility. We just need a way in.

In acting, we’re encouraged to find truth in the imagined circumstances of a character. One of my teachers Miranda Harcourt calls this ‘make it true for you’. The text talks about a cousin? Build an internal reality of that person.

Make it true for you is the secret to finding confidence when we feel out of our depth in other arenas too.

I don’t know about drums and I can’t play the drums. So I have not connection to them right? No way to make it true for me?

Well I’d say the fact that I can’t play the drums is a relationship to the drums. I know what drums are. I had a friend at high school who played the drums. I’ve always liked that drum solo by Phil Collins.

I suddenly have found my way in.

No matter what we bring ourselves to, in any arena, we always have the ability to make it true for ourselves.

Education is about connection. So finding that connection to any material we teach is vital.

Make it true for you and you’ll have a never ending source of connection.

The lucky ones

February 2, 2026

We all have rules whether we know them or not.

We have rules for what has to happen for us to feel successful, to have fun or to feel appreciated.

A good way of finding your rules is to ask yourself: “What has to happen in order for me to feel ____”

And put any desired state in there…

To feel appreciated, for instance you might have to be told you’re awesome, or you might need people to see the work you’ve done and know how long it took you. Or you might be one of the lucky ones who just need to look at themselves in the mirror and smile to feel appreciated.

I say ‘lucky ones’… but the truth is, we’re in charge of our rules.

There’s nothing that says you can’t feel successful every time you take 5 minutes to be grateful.

There’s no rule that says you can’t feel deeply valued every time you show someone else they are deeply valued.

We’re the bosses, y’all. We get to choose the rules.

And while we’re at it, we might as well set ourselves and others up to win.

Be directionally correct

January 31, 2026

I’ve just started a business accelerator program for Online Kapa Haka. I’ll be coached and taken through training across this year and one of the first things they talked about is to not worry about being perfect- but just to be directionally correct.

One of our tasks in the program is to create various content assets for the business. So with that we don’t have to make each one perfect, we just need to ensure we’re in the right direction.

So as long as I’m talking about education and culture and not dinosaurs I’m doing okay.

Though I bet I could make dinosaurs connect somehow…

Don’t be perfect! Let’s just move in the right direction!

Little geniuses

January 27, 2026

People tend to be who you believe them to be.

If you want to be married to a god treat your significant other like a god.

I love thinking about this for teaching too.

I want my students to be clever, funny, interested, inspired, unique and have amazing magic to share with the world.

I want to teach little geniuses- How lucky would that be!

So you can guess what I choose to believe about my students. And so how I treat them.

Decide who you want the people in your life to be and treat them like that.

Useful metrics

January 25, 2026

Measuring things is useful. But not all metrics are useful at all times.

Like anything, it depends on your outcome.

How many likes you get on a video might not be a useful metric when you’re using the video to explore an artistic idea for yourself.

But if you made the thing for the likes, you ought to measure them.

Weighing yourself mightn’t be helpful… but rating yourself on a scale of 1 – 10 on how comfortable and strong your body feels might be.

To know what to measure we must know what we’re after. And to measure the right thing, we have to be strong enough to only care about the thing we are actually measuring.

Some metrics are louder than others. Real growth comes when you can listen to only what matters for your journey.

The game master

January 21, 2026

We all have rules.

Rules that state what has to happen for us to feel a certain way or experience a valued state.

What has to happen for you to feel like a valued team member? Questions like this will help you uncover your rules, by the way.

You might discover they empower you or you might discover they’re quite difficult to meet.

In order to feel like a success, for instance, you might have a rule that says people need to tell you you’re great all the time. This rule is good when it’s met, but you could end up feeling pretty bad when you don’t receive that external validation.

It’s worthwhile exploring our rules, I’ve found most of my discomfort or upsets in life stem from rules that are not setting me up to win.

Here’s the question again to help you find yours:

What has to happen(rule) in order for you to feel X (value/ desired end state)?

You’re the game master and you get to make the rules.

Ready or not

January 20, 2026

I’m beginning to wonder whether progressing in life is a series of doing things before you’re ready.

The nature of growth is that it is something just beyond where you are now. So in the moment before growth, by definition you aren’t there yet; you’re not ready.

I did not feel ready to teach for the first time

I did not feel ready to launch my own business

I did not feel ready to hit send on my first offer

These events only have two things in common: I was never ready and they completely changed my life/

Hmm- interesting.

Could it be that the life we want is just outside of our comfort zone?

I think it might be.

Keep comfy

January 19, 2026

I’m a big believer in choosing comfort over practicality.

It might not be practical to take your meditation pillow in your checked luggage for the weekend- but if you love using it in the mornings you should take it.

You might feel obligated to finish all the food on your plate because it would be a ‘waste’ otherwise. But you’ll pay the price with feeling too full.

Take the pillow and don’t over eat for the sake of it.

I think we’re trained in the culture to neck discomfort to keep the peace. But I think we should all be putting our own comfort ahead of little rules.

If it’s not hurting anyone and it’ll make your experience a little better, do it.

Contagious

January 18, 2026

Powerful things tend to be contagious. A bad mood is. And so is a good mood.

If we know that what we put out tends to spread and we also get to choose what we put out, we should probably pick contagions of good.

Abundance, gratitude and cheerfulness.

It’s not hard but it is powerful.

JUSTIN ROGERS

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