JUSTIN ROGERS

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Target practice

April 23, 2026

When I was 23 I was tasked with teaching 30 adults how to act- I felt completely out of my depth.

It was a weekly class; two hours each Thursday night. I was only a couple of years out of drama school but the thing that really got me was that the oldest of my ‘students’ was 45.

I felt completely unqualified to teach this class. Despite my three years of actor training, I didn’t think I had any wisdom to share with these people- I was hardly an expert! And besides that, I felt like a kid compared to the people I’d be teaching who had full on careers and families.

My mentor from drama school was the one that changed my whole perspective. He told me I didn’t need to be some zen master of acting to run this class. He said “You know a lot of acting exercises, right?”

I said “yeah”.

He said “And you know the learning embedded in the exercises, right?”

I said “Of course”

“Then that’s all you need. You don’t need to be the best at archery, you just need to bring a bow, some arrows and a target. Then you can all do target practice together”

This changed everything. I realised I didn’t need to be an expert. I just had to bring what I did know and we could all explore the learning together.

The weight lifted off my shoulders and I walked into that class with confidence. And the confidence didn’t come from knowing everything, it came from knowing enough and having a willingness to learn more.

That’s all we ever need. I take this same mentality into every environment where I teach or learn.

Does making learning fun trivialise the learning?

March 7, 2026

There’s a belief I’ve battled with in the past that if we make learning fun, it undercuts the seriousness of the subject.

Whenever I have an internal conflict like this I always come back to outcome. What is this really about? What are we trying to do?

Well with the learning I deliver, my big bold outcome is to bring it to life for the kids. Words can also betray us a bit here, because you hear a word like ‘fun’ and that might conjure images of a hectic classroom, a ball bouncing off a window and no one listening to each other.

So maybe the word ‘fun’ isn’t the right word.

What I’m really looking for is life.

There is life in a kid’s eye when they are transfixed by a giant digger doing construction next door. There is life in their eye when they notice an adult is in a bad mood. And there is indeed life when they are learning something they love.

The only thing that can trivialise learning is a trivial intention.

If you’re looking to make ‘fun’ of something, yeah you’re probably going to be a bit disrespectful.

If you’re looking to bring something to life, though? Well now you’re playing a game I like. And there are a million and one ways to bring something to life. There are quiet ways, big ways, busy ways and gentle ways.

Let’s take seriously our job to create vibrant, living connections to the learning we share.

That sounds fun to me

Monday Move

February 13, 2026

What is a Monday Move?

A Monday Move is how your Saturday morning dreaming is put into action.

You’re out to coffee with your friend on a Saturday and you are both dreaming of that big amazing goal. It’s easy to picture it, the details fill themselves in and you have a glistening masterpiece in your head.

The trick is turning that vision into a Monday Move.

What do you do on Monday?

Why “Monday”? Well Monday has strong “back to work” connotations in the culture. It implies getting to reality.

Why “moves”? Well like a chess move, a really good move isn’t random. It’s calculated. It’s a step toward. It’s also just a move. Not a whole dance.

Monday Moves are there to remind us to to bring the glistening dream to the reality of Monday and do something about it.

What’s your Monday Move?

The action

February 9, 2026

People talk about the importance of the journey as opposed to the destination.

As actors we’re encouraged not to play a result but to play action instead. What comes as a result of that is not our business.

It’s a hard one to grapple. But I think there is a lot of peace we can all gain by attaching ourselves to and falling in love with the action and not the result.

Fall in love with providing outstanding educational opportunities for your students.

Fall in love with creating amazing value for your clients.

Fall in love with being the most alive and attentive parent.

The action is the thing we can control. The result is not… so it’s not worth the heartache.

Fall in love with the action. Then you may get some pleasant surprises along the way.

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.

Is it alive?

February 5, 2026

A director I worked with gave me a key question that I use to guide all of my work.

It was after a show and he’d given us all a few pages of notes for things to focus on and improve in the show. A collection of ultra specific tweaks.

He turned to us, knowing that hitting all these in one show was a long shot. He acknowledged this and said simply “All I’m looking for is the life. All these notes are there just to support that. So all your job is is to search for the life.”

“{Is it alive?”

That’s it. We have tonnes of technical moments to hit, emotional beats to play, connection to each other, the material, the audience- one million things that culminate in a single outcome; life.

When I act I come back to the question.

When I rehearse. When I create. When I teach. When I converse. When I collaborate. When I build. When I help. It’s all in service of the same question:

Is it alive?

Where does magic come from?

November 20, 2025

I think we all encounter magic now and then. It’s that spark we feel when we completely fall in love with something, when what we’re working on ‘clicks’ or when we are held spell bound by something.

Magic can happen with people, with the art we consume or create, in random encounters in the world or in the work we do in the world. And a million other places.

If magic is the ephemeral and abstract, what is it’s predecessor?

Thankfully, the genesis of magic is concrete (well, some parts anyway). Here’s a few ingredients.

Generous.

Magic comes from a generous act. When the intention behind an action is a generous one. Magic is magic because it increases the level of joy in the world, and generosity is directly aimed at that.

Possibility.

Magic arrives when we invite something that didn’t exist before. We must release the need for certainty and open up to what could be. Just because something hasn’t happened before doesn’t mean it can’t. It just means it hasn’t happened before.

Presence.

Magic is alive to what’s happening now. It’s alive and it’s listening intently. Magic requires you to forget what you thought you knew and be with only what is.

Magic is mysterious but it’s downstream from these beautiful pillars.

Care to make magic?

Congruence

November 19, 2025

Things are better when they line up.

My least favourite phrase people say is “Do as I say, not as I do”. Why should I do what you say if you hold yourself to a different standard?

To lead, we have to be trusted and to be trusted we have to be congruent. And to be congruent we have to be clear. Clear on our values, standards and boundaries.

The leaders I admire most walk the talk.

Their actions match their words, their words match their beliefs and their beliefs match their values.

It all lines up.

Not only do we trust these people more, but they have more leverage to make things happen in the world.

Why?

Alignment is strong. Congruence is king.

Titles and highlights

November 18, 2025

Time has a funny way of getting on, doesn’t it?

Often I’ll meet Monday with the best of intentions only to find it’s suddenly Monday again and I can’t quite remember what I actually did during the week that past.

Here’s two strategies I use to prevent time slipping through my fingers and actively perceive the weeks as they pass:

1)Title your week.

    Any self respecting Google doc has a title so your week deserves one too. Think of what you want your week to be about. Is it major progress on a project? Spending quality time with your family? Having an adventure with your colleagues? Giving your week a title sets it up to be different from any other week. What we want to avoid is each week blurring into the next. You probably remember how you spent that glorious week around Christmas last year- without you knowing, it was titled “Do nothing but swim and eat for a week”- yup, that’s memorable! Name every week to tell yourself why it’s special.

    2) Highlight the moments

      To continue with the stationary/ office theme, I like to think back and highlight moments in the week that was. What cracked me up? What surprised me? When did someone go beyond the call of duty? When did I live into my desired identity? Highlight all these things, they happened during that week! And when you highlight them, not only does it feel good, but it also helps to idividualise the days and weeks. That’s the goal!

      Letting your weeks go by as an anonymous procession is letting your life go by without you seeing it.

      Title it. Highlight things.

      Don’t miss a moment.

      Belief thief

      November 17, 2025

      Here’s a fun game.

      Pick someone who inspires you. Some well known person who you would love to emulate and who’s ‘awesomeness’ seems unattainable to you.

      Got one? Great! Now go and find a long form interview with them. Now, don’t listen for entertainment, listen like a detective.

      Listen to their story and the answers to the questions and dig beneath what they are saying. You are looking for key beliefs.

      What do they beleive about themselves?

      How do they see the world?

      How do they talk about life? Is it a game, a challenge, a battle or a work of art?

      How do they talk about themselves?

      How do they view work?

      What do they believe about productivity?

      What is the most important thing to them in their work?

      What are they hunting for?

      Most often, they won’t overtly answer these, but you can infer the answers based on what they do say and how they say it. Sift through and find the gold.

      You are deconstructing the belief structures that make them who they are and allow them to get the results they get.

      Here’s the interesting part. Ask yourself this:

      Where do my beliefs differ? What belief do they hold that yI do not? Is it one that is a cornerstone to their success?

      Perhaps you see life as a battle, something to be survived. Perhaps they see life as a dance floor to be tangoed through.

      Are you willing to try on new beliefs? Are you willing to adopt the structures that support them?

      The pathway is laid out for you.

      Be a belief thief.

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