JUSTIN ROGERS

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Business

Some people are magnets

November 14, 2025

They make you smile, they make you feel heard and they make you want to shout “Heck yes!” when they share their vision for the world.

They aren’t magnetic because of any communication tricks or hacks- sure, they may have honed their craft, but theirs is an elementally magnetic core.

Where does it come from? Like most delicious meals, it’s a balance of all the good stuff.

Here are some of the raw materials:

A listener.

This person has the ability to deeply listen to people with both brain and heart.

A purpose.

This person has a burning purpose that will cut through anything. This might be a grand vision for change or something that leads them to hold down their corner of the world and enact the purpose daily.

Values

This person has a strong set of values. Values that make decisions for them.

We not me.

This person is not out for themselves. They understand that a win for you is a win for me. They know that there is no feeling greater than lifting up others.

Leverage.

This person makes big things happen with short conversations.

Abundance.

This person knows there is more than enough.

We need magnets in the world.

We need you to be one and we need you to create them.

Overchunking Medusa

November 5, 2025

These aren’t just two random words I put together, I promise.

There’s a balance we have to strike between dreaming big and actioning small. It’s a tricky one to get right.

If we spend all our time focussing on the giant goal- or even the just big task for the week- we can freeze. A bit like Medusa has paralysed us.

This is called over chunking. It’s looking at too many chunks of information or tasks at once.

It’s being daunted by the giant elephant, the whole mountain or the entire dissertation…

I think back to some monumental tasks I’ve undertaken in the past and I’m almost certain I’d never have even started if I knew all it took now.

So when we are at the foot of the mountain, we have to simultaneously know about the peak while just taking one proverbial step at a time.

Get this balance right and I’m pretty sure we can do anything.

Email batching- thanks Tim!

November 4, 2025

Some say 6, 7; I say 12 and 4!

This idea is from Tim Ferriss. I read this over 10 years ago and I keep coming back to it over and over again.

Tim’s advice is simple- we get more time by eliminating things. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean we miss out on things, it just means we are smarter about what we get rid of and when. So it becomes possible to have your cake and eat it.

Like most, I sometimes feel like I’m a professional email responder. My email inbox is a GREAT place to go if I want to feel ‘productive’.

The problem with that is we are being reactive to the needs and the to do lists of other people. I open my inbox and suddenly an hour and a half would disappear.

My day becomes a continuous stream of processing the request that leak in from people whenever they feel like sending me an email. Over time, this removes my energy and ability to do what’s important and non-urgent to me.

Tim suggests instead we batch our emails, let them accumulate and check them only twice a day.

So I check my email at 12pm and 4pm. That’s it.

The amazing thing is, when I go to my inbox with the singular focus of processing what’s there- it takes all of 15 minutes. Its because I’m a lot clearer on my own priorities and can cut through them quickly. I’m also not kidding myself thinking I will split focus between what I’m doing and the emails as they come in- I am focussed solely on the inbox during these chunks.

The unexpected thing was I found it hard to wait! I had become so used to the magical task-giving inbox that I almost needed it.

“Oh! I wonder what emails I have!”

It became a discipline of it’s own not to check it outside of my allocated times.

I had become addicted to having an instant task someone gives me with a finite end!

When I feel productivity waining, I can pretty much guarantee it’s because this habit has slipped.

When I want to reconnect again to powerful focus on what actually moves the needle on the work that really matters to me, I go back to 12 and 4.

When in doubt, 12pm and 4pm.

Rhyming with people

September 30, 2025

We can be speaking a different language as someone but both be speaking English.

Our favourite people are those that are either like us or are the way we aspire be to be.

The saying goes: “People tend to like people like themselves”

I like to think of people who get dogs that look like them as well- I find it’s hilarious when that happens and often wonder if it’s because the dog reminds them of themselves…

ANYWAY-

Here’s simple implication of this idea I use all the time.

“Language Reflection”

What are the key words you hear someone use over and over and how can you authentically incorporate them into your speech?

Kids especially have a certain vernacular- I’m definitely NOT encouraging people to awkwardly slip words in that feel uncomfortable or unnatural.

“That’s ‘rad’ man”

But it is figuring out the point of view those words come from; the family of ideas they relate to. It’s not just cut and pasting a word, but reflecting a thought rhythm and rhyming with that language style.

There’s an art to matching someones speech to align more with them.

In the past, I could understand how people feel a bit funny about doing things like this- that it’s a bit tricky or something.

But I’ve come to value helping people achieve their own potential as one of my highest priorities- so if shifting the way I speak removes a barrier and let’s them connect with me in a deeper way, then I’m okay with it.

Find their map of language and reflect it back to help them get where they want to go.

Giving an ‘A’

September 25, 2025

What if you give an ‘A’ grade before someone ‘deserves’ it?

Benjamin Zander has a concept in his amazing book, The Art of Possibility called “giving an A”.

It’s named after the a grade he gives his students at the beginning of the semester BEFORE they have turned in any work.

He stands before the class at the start of the term and congratulates them all on their A grade. He asks them to write a letter to him, as if from the future, explaining all the reasons they deserved the A grade they had received.

I absolutely love this idea.

Ben encourages us to ‘give an A’ to people in all aspects of our life. Someone cut you off in traffic? The barista is rude to you? Your boss is short with you?

What would giving an A to these people look like?

It’s making the most generous assumption of them. It’s not asking “Why do they hate me!?”

But asking a much more generous question like “I wonder what difficulty they’re facing right now?”

A couple of things might happen.

Number 1, you stop the loop of negativity because you have a generous belief about them. They may well be snapped out of the pattern they’re in. Of course this isn’t guaranteed, but it opens the possibility for them to live into the best version of themselves.

Number 2 (and this one is pretty certain) you will feel much better about the interaction if you’ve given the person an ‘A’. If you generously assume that something awful and truly difficult must be going on for them to be like this, you have a lot more peace in your day. You may even get some of the lovely side effects of a ‘metta’ type meditation- loving kindness.

There’s zero downside to giving an A and infinite upside.

It’s my favourite thing.

No substitute

August 25, 2025

This evening I’ve enjoyed watching Dragon’s Den UK- this has been a favourite of mine since I was a kid.

It’s quite funny watching some of the pitches and the strange and unusual business structures of these offers.

One thing stands out to me: there is no substitute for value.

Nothing beats a straight up excellent product- most of the pitches I saw tonight were not that.

There’s no shortcuts, how can your thing just be really really (really) good?

I know it sounds simplistic but there really is no substitute.

Useful, inspiring and cool things

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