JUSTIN ROGERS

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Difficulty

Where does this lead?

March 14, 2026

An uncomfortable question to ask yourself: Where does this lead?

It’s pretty pointy. And it can elicit some pretty uncomfortable truths. We can ask this question in all aspects of our lives and get some useful feedback.

Maybe you find yourself flying by the seat of your pants at work, never really putting in the preemptive work to be really great at what you do. You find you can ‘get by’ pretty well this way, no one notices and your work is ‘good enough’.

Where does this lead?

We can fall into the trap of thinking that ‘one day’ we’ll do better, but really what’s better than deferring to ‘one day’ is focussing on ‘day one’- and that brings us right to today.

Asking “where does this lead” forces us to face what is all to easy to ignore.

The next question of course is, where do I want to go? and what if this was ‘day one’ on the journey there?

Now we’re getting somewhere.

Prompts

March 11, 2026

People prompt Ai… why not prompt yourself?

We do it every day with the questions we ask: “Why is this so hard” tends to be a common one for people who have a difficult time with things.

“I wonder what will happen next” is a common prompt for the adventurous humans.

And the most creative? Well, It’s pretty straight forward; “What can I create out of this?”

Don’t leave the prompts for the robots- we are capable of far more than we think.

It’s all relative.

March 4, 2026

Your worst day could be someone else’s best day. An ‘average’ win for you now was once life changing.

What was once a dream may well now be your reality.

It’s all relative to our perspective. So with that being the case, we’d do well to pick a perspective that empowers us, right?

Ouch, growing!

February 28, 2026

Isn’t it a wonderful trick of the universe that growth requires resistance?

For a muscle to grow, it needs to meet something that is too heavy.

As teachers, the hardest days are the ones that form us.

As actors, the hardest audiences make us the strongest.

It’s easy to say this, of course. But it really counts when you’re in it. And if you’re in it. Know that you are growing.

Quality Time

February 24, 2026

Quality time is time spent on good things.

Quality time could be 5 minutes.

Quality time is also turning ordinary time into durations that feel more productive. I find that an hour of uninterrupted work can feel hellishly unproductive. But if, in the middle of the hour, I go for a 5 minute walk or have a stretch break, the time (which is now shorter) feels much better,

We can transform the feeling of time with what we surround it with.

How do you turn ordinary time into extraordinary time?

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.

Where does confidence come from?

February 4, 2026

Well it might be the wrong question. There’s only efficiently achieving an outcome or not.

A better question might be what should I focus on and how can I use my resources to achieve it?

When I feel nervous in front of an audience, my focus is inevitably on trying to be liked by them. That is a focus that is pretty guaranteed to dull someone’s confidence.

A more effective focus? To help these people understand what I’m talking about. Or to listen intently to the people in the room.

Confidence is a by product of placing your focus elsewhere.

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.

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