Long term

Make the action match the goal

September 1, 2025

If you want to be a guitar player don’t go out and buy a ukulele.

Sure, it looks like a guitar- but it’s not.

You might say “But Justin! It’s a mini guitar, isn’t it a good place to start?”

Maybe- but I think if you want to be a guitar player, go and get a guitar.

Make the action match the goal.

If you want to be a novelist, don’t write once a month and wonder why it’s not happening for you.

A novelist writes every day, reads, researches, ideates, moulds, drafts, publishes… you get the point.

Make the action match the goal.

Where do you want to be? Don’t shortchange yourself by playing small. There’s already a fair distance between where you are and where you’re going.

Don’t increase the distance by getting a ukulele.

Get the guitar. Play full out. Act as if you’re there now. You’ll be immediately closer.

The unsubscribe reframe

August 26, 2025

Yesterday the Youtube channel I use to post my daily films reached 100 subscribers! Yay!

I screenshotted it and everything.

Then today I went on and there was 99 subscribers, meaning ONE of my subscribers removed themselves.

Ouch.

I wondered why this might have happened. Are my videos not flashy enough? Don’t they think I’m funny or clever? Is a video a day too often for them?

The truth is it could have been all of these things- and none of them matter. Or all of them matter depending on how you look at it.

My videos are the way they are because I make them that way and they come out daily because that’s what I do.

This person unsubscribed because it’s not for them.

I realised immediately that them unsubscribing is actually preserving an equilibrium in the universe.

They don’t want what I’m cooking and I don’t wanna cook what they want!

Thank GOD they unsubscribed, we can each get on with the journeys we are on.

With each unsubscribe, you are closer to where you actually want to be.

Always measure

July 31, 2025

Not in the measure twice cut once way (though I think that’s a pretty good suggestion too)

If I’m at the gym and I don’t make a proper note of the weight and the reps (or even the exact incline of the machine) it sends a signal to my brain that this doesn’t matter.

No matter what the numbers say (sometimes they may dishearten you) it’s important to measure always. It’s better to have the certainty of where you truly are and have your brain feel that satisfaction of ‘being on the path’ than to remain ignorant because it’s easier.

Don’t sell yourself short. Measure always.

Don’t look up

July 24, 2025

(not the movie, your life)

It’s our job to find something worth mastering. Something of value to others (whatever the scale may be)

We must practice it. Over and over again, don’t ask for anything from the world in return. Merely serve. Keep your head down for a long time.

100 days, maybe even one thousand.

But…

Don’t.

Look.

Up.

Practicing is enough, you don’t need to.

It’s not just Bruno

July 23, 2025

There are other things you shouldn’t talk about (like mostly).

Your goals.

Or at least be very selective. You don’t want to accidentally get the feeling of reward in the brain and body because you told a whole lot of people. You want to keep that hunger and save the reward for when you get there.

The final thing

July 12, 2025

Before I started making daily videos to share online I ummed and aah’d about what I should make and what the ‘final thing’ would be. I didn’t want to start without a big master plan of exactly what the videos would be, and how they would culminate to create this idea of a perfect body of work.

It’s quite funny to me, nearly 200 videos in, and I still don’t know what I’m making.

This is the inevitable journey of creativity; we follow hunches but its not our business what is ends up as. And it’s certainly not our business to try and mould some sort of premeditated trajectory.

Bodies of work and careers come together in retrospect- it’s not for us to curate. Make something now that you’re interested in and use influences that inspire you. Do your best, ship it and then move on.

I’m a little closer to knowing what I’m making, but only a little closer. And that’s only after 193 videos made and shared. So my advice is to start as soon as possible.

Then enjoy the not knowing.

Over night

July 11, 2025

I was creating some automated email responders for my business and I thought I had some pretty good subject lines.

Like many things, I felt the strong desire to just be done with it. There! I worked on this for a few hours, that’s it I can move on.

Unsure of whether I was hitting the right tone with the subject lines, I decided to leave it. I came back the next day and it was clear to me what they needed to be (less playful and more clear about what the email had in it).

If there isn’t a great rush for micro decisions like this, I think giving it a night will make it clear.

Everything is something

June 30, 2025

There’s my best version of a zen mantra I suppose- but it’s true I find.

This morning I watched an episode of Grand Designs, my favourite TV show. During the commercial break there was an ad for some furniture company and I remember loving the stylish full-wall shelf they showed in the ad. I happily watched the rest of the show and forgot about the shelf.

Later, I was working next to the giant shelf in the den of the house I’m staying in at the moment. I glanced up from my laptop and saw the big hunk of wood and books and an idea landed on my forehead.

Chuckling to myself (it’s always a good sign) I got up and acted out a scene of a guy who is showing someone around his newly built home and suggests there is a secret passage behind the case but can’t seem to find the secret lever book.

The idea tickled me enough to make this:

It didn’t occur to me until much later that the idea for this sketch could have come from the book shelf I admired on the ad as well as the general subject of home design and build from Grand Designs.

I realised I have to love and respect all aspects of my experience. You simply never know what will feed what and in what capacity or indeed when.

Everything is ( or has the potential to be) something.

Fishing

June 23, 2025

They say the fishing is best where there’s less fishermen. Sure there’s many fish in some ponds but there’s also many fishermen.

How can you be in your own category at what you do?

Maybe it’s not the amount of fish you should be counting but the ratio of fish to rods.

The right horse

June 12, 2025

If you worry too long about picking the right horse, you mightn’t ever enter the race.

At the same time, if you’re going to commit to betting on a horse over and over again to let it compound, you want it to be a good one…

I think the answer is to try your best with what you have right now to pick the right thing, then course correct on the way.

The best horse to pick is the one you commit to.

JUSTIN ROGERS

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