JUSTIN ROGERS

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Long term

The right time

June 6, 2025

Sometimes the right thing can come to us at the wrong time. It doesn’t mean it’s the wrong thing, it’s just the wrong time.

At first, I couldn’t get through episode one of Ozark. Years later I devoured the whole series in a few weeks.

Life happens in seasons and sometimes things need to align in a certain way for us to be ready for things.

I think about this with books I want to read or things I want to learn- it might just not be in the right part of your sequence yet. Be patient and try again later.

Things happen at the perfect time.

What’s it connected to?

May 7, 2025

I just did one of those work late into the night and forget what time it is ones.

It was easy. Why? The hours melted into what felt like a second because I wasn’t thinking about the actual work I was doing- I was connected directly to the vision.

What is this labour connected to?

Hook your work trailer onto the tail of a MUSCLE car called your vision and you’ll be pulled along on those late nights. And this will all be a story one day. When you slogged through the desert because you saw the promised land.

The heroic act vs. the system

April 16, 2025

Seth Godin makes a great distinction in his book This is Strategy.

We often attribute success to some heroic act; a big push or a giant piece of work done all in one night! We like this because it’s kind of obvious; we can imagine summoning all our strength and doing a big difficult thing once.

What’s much harder to perceive is the systematic whittling away day after day: progress is hard to see, it’s easy to succumb to giving up and the eventual result can seem like a universe away.

But committing to a system that works is the best way to get solid results.

Don’t put time into trying to do a giant difficult thing once,

Instead, focus of overcoming the daily resistance to do the seemingly boring thing again and again.

That’s the invisible Hercules.

Bricks in the grand canyon

March 28, 2025

I heard the analogy that creating content for the internet is like throwing bricks into the grand canyon.

It takes a while to fill it up.

It reminds me of Youtuber who puts four videos up and wonders why she hasn’t got 1 million subscribers after a week.

You can’t fill the grand canyon with one brick. A thousand won’t do it. I don’t even think think one hundred million would do it (I have no idea)

But you keep chucking them in.

That’s the job. Be patient and do your work.

Ai prompt: a photo of the grand canyon filled to the brim with pink bricks and a man throwing in the last one.

Stack Value

March 27, 2025

It can be helpful to group output activities that take your time two ways:

Quick burn activities.

This is treading water. Putting out a social media post about your lunch or the latest trend. Sending a helpful ‘tid bit’ to your followers or clients. Completing a report that’s due or completing some ephemeral admin.

These tasks feel good; it’s busy-work that appears to be taking you places. Sadly these tasks won’t take you anywhere long term- it’s a bit like eating a complex carb; it burns quick and makes you sweat.

There is another category of tasks that don’t feel as satiating in the moment, but it’s the long arc they create over time that gives them the value.

Compounding activities.

This is creating content that contributes to your over all artistic voice. Outlining a book you will write. Creating a bible or guide that dictates how you complete a report. Creating a system to complete the admin that will come in over the years. These activities can be spotted easily because their results will last and remain relevant in perpetuity.

Don’t shovel your time into a black hole of fast burning activities.

Spend your time wisely on the tasks that stack over time.

Contribute to your over all arc. Create systems. Add a brick to your wall and build it to last. Write a word of your narrative.

AI prompt: make a line drawing picture of a man planting a forest of seeds in rows, we see him planting one and as they stretch further into the distance they get taller into trees. The closer to him they are, they are mounds, then sprouts, then little trees until far away they are massive

GPS

March 13, 2025

This is a great idea from Ali Abdaal.

He suggests we think of goals in terms of ‘G.P.S’.

Goal

Process

System

It also provides a helpful metaphor for something of a GPS device to get us to our desired destination.

Ali says goals can be a unhelpful if they’re a little too lofty or ambiguous. The GPS frame allows us to break it down in the the parts and honour the processes required to get there. The idea being that processes are actionable and on a given day we can look to GPS and have certainty that the thing we do that day takes us toward our action.

GOAL: The outcome, what are we working toward? The example Ali gives is his current goal to be in the greatest shape of his life.

PROCESS: What will we do to get there? How have other people done this? What are your best ideas to get there? Ali’s example: lift heavy things often, eat the right food and move his body.

SYSTEM: This is how you implement this every day. What will you actually do consistently to get there? Ali’s main systems was to eat 160 grams of protein a day, have a gym session with a trainer and get 10 thousand steps. Each morning he asks in his journal how will I get 160 grams protein, when will I work out and when will I get the steps in?

What I love about the the system is it can be easily repeatable and if you select the right processes either though trial and error or modeling success, you don’t have to think about the goal all that much; it’ll just be a by-product of your excellent systems.

Start small

March 11, 2025

The brothers began their movie making dream by taking the films they made one cinema at a time up and down the east coast.

This ‘one dollar’ solution to distribution was a perfect place to start for them.

People liked watching their movies and they soon needed a place to make their pictures. A couple of warehouses, a aircraft hanger and a water tower later; Warner Brothers Studios was born.

The rest is history.

To get big, start small.

Passive vs Leverage

February 17, 2025

I spent some time in the past trying to chase this idea of passive income- that is not needing to work for money. It sounds tempting right? Making money and then just doing what ever you want.

I mean yeah everyone needs a holiday.

But I’m not interested in doing nothing. I want to help. I think we all do. Providing something of value for people who care is one of the meanings of life, I think.

I don’t think we should be chasing some ‘passive’ form of income. I agree that we shouldn’t make bad trades for our time. Selling time for a low dollar amount and doing that over and over again is very limiting (being stuck in this frame probably drives the interest in the opposite, which is doing nothing at all for money).

Instead we should be looking for leverage.

Leverage means the time you put in has a further reach. It has long term value. Over time and across location.

It’s the difference between teaching a lesson to one person live in a coffee shop one morning, and recording yourself delivering the same content and creating lessons notes, a worksheet and flash cards along side it.

The latter can deliver value on your behalf without the time it would take to do it each time.

Makes sense, right?

That’s leverage. So next time you need to teach the person the thing, it’s a two minute email with a link rather than organising the coffee date, revising the content for yourself and delivering the goods- hours of work.

The value is no less (taking out the in-person aspect which I agree has some value), but the time is WAY less. That’s leverage.

Focus on investing your time on high leverage action items.

How can this have a life beyond the time I’m taking now? How can it be this way by design?

How can the work I put into this compound over time?

In what ways will this buy me back time in the future?

Don’t hunt for shortcuts to passive income- be very active in your pursuit of providing massive value for people in a way that is repeatable and with the largest lever possible.

Because when you have a big lever, you can help even more people even faster. And that’s the real goal.

And sure have a holiday now and then. And your leverage will most likely allow you to be paid while you do it.

The type of person who

February 11, 2025

When dreaming into the future and setting goals, it’s easy to be seduced by the desire to win awards or competitions.

I think it’s totally fine to desire this; excellence should be rewarded! The tricky thing is, whether we win something or not is really not up to us. There are so many variables and if we hinge all our hopes on some arbitrary award, we could be setting ourselves up for dissapointment.

I’ve heard actors I know talk about wanting to win an Oscar, for instance. Again- there’s nothing wrong with this, give it a go!

I’m suggesting a slight shift in focus that allows us to win no matter what. It’s like with marathons, they say by the time you hit the start line on race day, you’ve actually already got what you came for. It’s the training that led up to that moment. It’s the culminated effort- it’s the distinctions made and learnings along the way that are the real gold medal.

And no, this isn’t ‘loser talk’. The real win is who you become in pursuit of any goal.

Don’t aim to be the person who wins the Oscar, aim to be the type of person who could win the Oscar.

The type of person who could win the gold medal.

The type of person who could write a Pulitzer winner.

Can you see the difference? One is in your control and one isn’t.

The pursuit of being the type of person who could achieve the things you want puts the responsibility and possibility of achieving the thing squarely on your shoulders.

And better still, if you never win an award in your life, you’ll still have the character, identity, beliefs, capabilities and actions of the type of person you want to me. And you’ll have the respect of the only person whose respect you ever need:

You.

What would you need to believe about yourself to be that person?

What would you need to believe about your work to be that person?

What would you need to do on a daily basis?

What skills would you need?

What resources do you already have access to?

All these questions and answers are completely in your control. Cool, aye?

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