In my younger days, I was a keen tennis player. Not pro or anything, but pretty good for an amateur.

I was good enough to know the truth in this:

When an experienced player tosses the ball in the air – like they do as part of the serve – then their perceptions change. Their minds speed up and time seems to slow.

This makes sense. As the ball floats there above you, you have to meet it in a precise way. You need the serve to be fast, accurate and tricky with spin. It takes hours of practice to get any one of those. Stringing them all together reliably requires your brain to change.

Time slows down for you.

It’s not just tennis players that do this, of course. Racecar drivers have a fascinating relationship to time when they get behind the wheel. And let’s not forget martial artists of every discipline.

I could go on, listing every field where mastery shifts you into this still, serene and sublime altered state where time stretches and nerves sizzle.

Or I could ask you a more interesting question:

How would you like some of that for yourself?

It’s not just useful in sports. This heightened state, at the right moment, can make you better at just about anything. Sales, therapy, creativity – feeling time stretch and your consciousness expand to fill the space comes in handy.

If you want to excel, this could be a key tool on your belt.

Or not. You could get by without it and see how you go.

But if this intrigues you, then this could be one of the things we work on together. See, my coaching isn’t just you telling me your goals and me telling you to go get ‘em, lion. I’m an expert at working with the mind – everything from habits to motivation to strange experiences like tennis pros experience on the regular.

If you want to change, this is how – from the level of your perception upwards.

You won’t see the world the same way after.

If that interests you, sign up:

Note: this offer is only available to email subscribers.

Your mindset rules your fate.

I’m not the first to say that. Earl Nightingale – author, speaker and deep thinker – pointed out decades ago that he wasn’t the first person to say that.

It’s one of the few things that philosophers across time and cultures agree on. Ancient China, the Bible, Stoicism and Shamanism all agree that the quality of your thoughts influences the quality of your life.

That’s not the only factor. Only someone profoundly neurotic would say that positive thinking alone will solve every problem.

But it’s still essential.

So… how many opportunities did you miss this last week?

It doesn’t matter what you’re going after. If you’re breathing, then there are chances to achieve your goals everywhere.

If you’re not seeing them, then it’s because – on some level – you choose not to.

That’s a scary thought. It means the platinum opportunity could reveal itself with a flourish and you’d miss it.

It’s also a beautiful thought. No matter who you are or what your circumstances are, you can always do better. It doesn’t take a fortune or elite connections. Those help, but they’re not essential.

Fix your mindset, learn to spot opportunities, then worry about your resources.

Ho hum, right? So far, I haven’t said much that’s new.

Fair enough. Let’s go somewhere novel, then.

It’s easy to talk about changing your mindset. How do you do it, though? Set ambitious goals? Use mantras or affirmations? Eat right?

Those could sort it out for you.

But the potent play here is to go in for coaching. Finding the right person to guide you can make all the difference.

A few weeks of coaching can stick with you for decades.

I won’t sell you on me specifically. You can know my style through my writing. If you think we might be a good fit, then great. If not, then I hope you find someone who is.

Either way, you win.

If you want to win with me, then sign up here:

Note: this offer is only available to email subscribers.

I came across this interesting take on gender dynamics recently:

Women have men pursuing them – hitting on them, asking them out, trying to woo and seduce them.

Few men get the same experience from women. They need to pursue if they want a relationship.

Sure, times have changed. More women ask guys out than they used to. The basic calculus is still the same, though – when someone is courting someone else, it’s most likely to be a man approaching a woman.

This means women can afford to close themselves off. They can be hostile, cruel and misandrist to the point of calling for genocide against men. It’ll repel men, which is probably the point. And if she drops the attitude for just a moment then, like barbarians probing a city wall for weaknesses, a man can enter her life.

I’m oversimplifying, but still – I’ve seen this pattern play out before.

But it doesn’t go both ways here. If men close themselves off and are hostile to women, then they’ll be alone. Dropping the misogyny every so often isn’t going to help. After all, it’s a numbers game for men.

I bring this up because I see it often on social media. Go on TikTok and there’s endless abuse, shaming and hatred of men from women. Weak men then respond in kind, not realising the costs aren’t the same.

Women can get away with it. I’m not saying this attitude doesn’t cost them, but it doesn’t hurt their dating prospects as much. Their story can still have a happy ending if they remember to dial it back when the right guy comes along.

With so many men approaching them, women can afford to repulse them.

With so few women approaching men, men have to do everything they can to attract them. Repulsing women is a flawed strategy.

It also rots your soul to wallow in such generalisations, hatred and blaming, too. Let’s not forget that.

Anyway, if you’re a guy who’s slid from MGTOW and monk mode into complaining about 304s online, then you might want to listen up.

Maybe you can turn your attitude around on your own. Remember, your attitude is more than your actions. You can simply log off social media if you want. But will that help you if, unconsciously, you seethe at the sight of a woman being ridiculous?

Maybe you can figure out how to fully let go of your anger and everything holding you back.

Then again, maybe you’ll remember that the only growth that happens in a vacuum leads to bleeding through the skin.

Coaching is great for this sort of thing.

After all, I bet this same pattern plays out all across your life. Do you also blame your employers for your lack of fulfilling career? Or your friends for not being there for you when you want them to be?

Such patterns tend to run deep.

That means resolving them can change everything. You let this go and suddenly every domain of your life gets a little bit better.

It also means it’s hard to get there on your own. It takes skill and insight to go that deep.

If you’re ready for that, then sign up here:

Note: this offer is only available to email subscribers.

Yesterday, I was mean to Gen Z.

Let me make it up to them real quick.

A recent trend has involved poking fun at Zoomers. Some of them are freaking out and having crises from entering the workplace.

They’re six months into a crushing office job and seeing another 50 years of this ahead of them.

The typical reaction is to point and laugh. Look at the lazy, delusional young people!

I can’t join in on that. After all, the Zoomers are right to worry. I’m 36, so I’ve been in the workforce for a while. Even so, I have vivid memories of doing the same thing as the Zoomers. My first year in the office was tedious, stressful, demoralising and exhausting. And that was just one year – the first of many.

I couldn’t see a way out either – just an endless expanse of monotony from them until when I was old and grey. The only difference is I wasn’t dumb enough to blab about it on social media.

Now, yeah, I mock anyone who’s lazy or thinking they’re entitled to a life free of work. Griping about having to work at all is childish and weak. Griping over spending half a century of drudgery isn’t great, exactly, but it’s a more reasonable concern. Mocking them for it isn’t great.

If you’re a Zoomer, I have good news: things get better.

Part of that is just getting used to the work environment. Only part of it, though. It’s not like you’re going completely numb to the horror and pasting an ignorant smile on your face here. That only partly why it gets better.

Because a real game changer is the nature of your work improves over time. As you gather experience, you do less mindless drudgery and more interesting tasks.

You also get a feel for what you enjoy. If you’re capable, you can pursue more of that.

Another way it gets easier?

The more experienced you become, the more options open up. I know the dream of many young folks is to work for themselves, designed around an ideal lifestyle. That’s possible. It’s even more possible with a few years under your belt, especially if you learn well and focus on what you want.

With experience, you can move into jobs and even industries that aren’t open to newcomers.

There are better jobs out there than yours – especially if you make it yourself.

Of course, all of this is easier with coaching.

Whether you want to outgrow the tedious tasks, start your own business or find new options, coaching can clarify your vision, unlock your resources and overcome your internal resistance.

That last point, more than anything, will help.

So if you want to escape the soul-sucking horror of the workplace then, no matter your age, you should look into coaching:

Note: this offer is only available to email subscribers.

I follow a gaming blog run by Zoomers.

(Yes, young folks still write blogs. The written word isn’t dead yet.)

I got into this blog because they have quirky takes on things. You know me – I like quirky.

Still, it’s cringe AF to read – no cap, fr fr.

No, okay, they don’t pepper it with new slang like that. And only some of the writers have short attention spans, burping up a couple of short paragraphs and calling that a post, or going on wild, irrelevant tangents out of nowhere.

My issue is with the endless emotional handholding.

There’s a series talking about a violent video game. It has violence in the title. Is adding a trigger warning for violence at the start of the series politeness? Maybe, but I sure wouldn’t. You’re an adult on the internet – a detailed exploration of Blooddeath 2: The Disembowelment will likely contain talk of violence. You should know that through your own reasoning.

But, okay, maybe a quick note at the start of the series is good manners these days.

Starting every entry in the series with a trigger warning, though…?

At least that’s just an easily skippable paragraph. It gets rough when the social commentary shows up in the article. The game alludes to slavery, so of course we need to spend seven paragraphs talking about how slavery is wrong and how it hurt people in subtle ways and how we need to balance explorations of the topic in fiction with nuance, respect and realism.

Oh, okay, your take is slavery is bad, got it.

Honestly, it must be exhausting to traumatise yourself over and over like this. Every little thing needs to be extracted from its context and analysed for its real-world problematic microaggressions.

Urgh, spare me.

If you feel the need to explore this – and I do say if – then a simple paragraph once in the series will do:

“This game depicts some dark practices from our own history. Many characters in the game see these things as good or at least normal. This can be challenging to a modern audience – but the fact it’s challenging is promising because it means we don’t still believe this. Now, back to the video game…”

That one paragraph covers every –ism, every –phobia and every historical practice we’ve long-since banished.

Done. We’ve paid due respect to those who’ve suffered, given we’re talking about a piece of escapist fiction. Can we move on?

Hmm?

Oh, we can’t move on? Because since the trauma still persists in modern generations, we need to point out how traumatic it is every time – just so no one is confused how miserable they should feel?

The question in the subject line was a leading one. This isn’t emotional intelligence, sensitivity or respect – it’s emotional cowardice. It’s people pretending to face ongoing issues, but doing this isn’t facing anything. It’s a refusal to grapple with it.

“I acknowledge and respect your pain.” That’s better than disrespecting it, but less useful than helping folks heal from it. Wallowing in it isn’t healing. Exploring the pain is useful, but only when you return to normalcy on the regular.

You don’t ignore a wound, but you don’t pick at it either. You clean it, bandage it and then get back to your life as best you can.

I say all this to deter – nay, piss off – a certain sort of person.

If you enjoy wallowing in pain – yours or others’ – while playing the victim Olympics, then my coaching won’t help you.

I assume you have a goal, you have at least some drive but you’re stuck. We’ve all been there. In fact, the more ambitious you are, the more you come against your own limits.

If that describes you, then you’ll get a lot out of my coaching program – whether you’re a Zoomer or not. In fact, one of my coaches is from Gen Z, so you can’t accuse me of ageism here. Besides, it’s not as if plenty of people across the generations haven’t loved to make excuses and retreat from their dreams.

If all this sickens you, then you might find coaching useful.

In that case, here’s how you sign up:

Note: this offer is only available to email subscribers.

A few content creators I follow have talked about therapy recently.

They weren’t exactly flattering. They described it as a flawed undertaking where the therapist – knowingly or by accident – makes the client feel both empowered and a victim.

How do you do both at once? Easier than you might think. “Your friends and family are narcissists, throttling your growth because they’re too intimidated by your potential!”

It’s an addictive cocktail. There’s the rush of feeling so proud and powerful, followed by a need for more therapy after you blow up every relationship in your life.

Other therapists (they say) move glacially, spending months to maybe resolve a simple issue.

Are these criticisms right?

I don’t know. Honestly, I’ve only done therapy a few times and, yeah, I was less than impressed. That’s probably not everyone’s experience – I’m sure thousands of folks found therapy life-changing.

So I can’t really comment on therapy as an entire industry.

Except that, even from the outside, it’s easy to spot a wonky business model.

Why do therapists move so slowly? Why do they try to get you dependent on them? When you charge by the hour, there’s a real incentive there. Even if a therapist has pure intentions, they should want a business model that aligns with those intentions.

Therapy doesn’t.

Now, I’m not saying you should or shouldn’t see a therapist. I’m not qualified to offer any advice like that.

All I can say is my coaching programs work differently.

Each program lasts for four weeks. You come to me with a specific challenge you want to overcome, then we work together to resolve it.

The incentive to me is to overdeliver. I want you to walk away happy and changed. If I decide your issue needs six weeks to resolve it rather than four, then you’ve already paid for the program so I’m paying for those extra weeks out of my time.

That probably won’t happen. I like speed. I want to smash your problems to pieces and build you armour out of them. Then you can go until you come back with a new problem for us to conquer.

(That last step only happens after I do well with the first challenge.)

My coaching programs live and die based on their results. I can’t keep you on the hook for months, years, even decades in some cases. I don’t want to – that would drive me mad from boredom.

If you’re doing fine but want to crush it, then you need a performance coach.

And if you want to crush it fast, then you need a coach who craves speed.

Register for my lightning coaching here:

Note: this offer is only available to email subscribers.

Obsessiveness is a curse and a superpower.

It’s great when you fixate on something you want – like how I spend so much of my time thinking up new products and services for folks like you. And how I’m able to write so many emails, books and courses.

But it’s not so great when you fixate on things you don’t want.

Like a tendency to reach for booze or babes when you need a distraction.

And some days half of the hypnosis subreddit is guys begging hypnotists to make them forget their ex-girlfriends.

Yeah, I can relate. I’ve struggled with vices all my life, I’ve become obsessed with the wrong things and as for failing to move on from exes? Yeah, I can relate.

I’m a lot better now than I was. That’s not a high bar, I guess, but it was still difficult.

You can’t distract yourself from a fixation – it’s always there in the back of your mind. You can’t get over an ex by dating someone new. If nothing else, the new person doesn’t deserve that – and that’s assuming you can attract anyone while pining over what you lost.

Moving past a fixation requires going deep.

But the cool thing is that you can replace fixation with flexibility.

Let’s say you – like me – have a fondness for YouTube. A fixation means spending hours a day mindlessly hearing about Raid: Shadow Legends sponsorships. Flexibility, though, means having the choice.

You can choose to unwind with a video or two.

Or you could do something better with your time.

Another example:

It’s common for folks who smoke to quit for a while. Maybe a week, maybe six months. Then, in a moment of weakness, they have a cigarette. Nothing wrong with that. But then they decide that, since they did that, they’re a smoker again.

That’s not how it works. I could inhale a cigarette right down to the filter and not “be a smoker”. That’s because I’m flexible. I can smoke if I want, or not.

There’s no danger in a relapse when one isolated experience doesn’t mean anything.

Anyway, this all comes down to my broken laser protocol. It’s great at scrambling anything where you feel stuck, replacing it with the choice. Your choice. That’s what self-mastery is – the ability to be as weak or strong as you want in the moment.

I wouldn’t use it for anything medical, like a serious drug addiction.

But if you’re reading this, your challenges are closer to bad habits and limiting beliefs.

For those?

It works brilliantly.

See the broken laser protocol for yourself when you sign up:

Note – this offer is only available to email subscribers. Sign up to my email list here:

Given my background, I can – and do – have a range of ways of adding value to the world.

If nothing else, you know I can write.

But I chose coaching as one of them.

Why?

Because coaching isn’t something I do for the money. No, I have two motivations instead:

One, it’s an amazing way of uplifting us out of the muck and quagmire of our own stale thinking. My life now is completely different to how it used to be – and most of that is from changing how I think. I know how powerful coaching is and I’m excited to pay that forward.

Two?

I enjoy it.

If I were the last human alive, I’d find a possum or rat and coach it.

I enjoy finding out what’s really holding someone back and spinning that until it pops.

That’s good news for you. I mean, do you want coaching from someone who’s just going through the motions – who has one eye on the clock and half their mind on how this will help them pay their mortgage?

An artist who paints for fun will create original pieces – and faster, too.

A programmer who codes on the weekend will know their craft backwards.

Ask a child about the periodic table and they’ll probably struggle. Ask them about Pokemon cards and they’ll list off memorised statistics and strategies for hours.

Now, sure, you don’t want someone who’s only in it for kicks. You still want someone with real skills who can get real results.

Like someone who can help you learn, harness your instincts, balance order and chaos, dismantle bad habits and cultivate powerful mental states.

That’s the difference between a hobbyist and an enthusiast. I love what I do well enough to have a suite of awesome skills – a suite I’m refining all the time.

To see what I mean, snag a coaching slot here:

Note – this offer is only available to email subscribers. Sign up to my email list here:

 The classic marketing move would be to put a deadline on my offers.

You know what I mean. “12 hours left to get 50% off!!!” or something like that. Leverage that scarcity!

But I’m not going to do that.

For one thing, discounts devalue what you’re offering. I’m not saying to never do it. I’m not ruling it out myself, but I have no plans to have discounts on things.

Why would I? The benefits of my coaching program will stick with you for decades. By any measure, it’s already excellent value.

That and…

… well…

… who needs to add a deadline to anything?

It’s right there in the name. Seek your glory or don’t – either way, death approaches.

There might be a ticking clock over civilisation – in which case, you don’t have time to wait. If civilisation is doomed, then you need to leverage it while it lasts to become strong enough to defend it. Or help rebuild it. Or at least survive what’s coming.

If civilisation is fine, though?

Well, you’re still dying every day.

And that’s fine. Since it’s outside your control, you can either accept it or cry about it. And crying will only make it worse.

Is this email bleak?

I don’t think so. It’s only bleak if you wallow in the finite and fleeting nature of existence… and make no changes to your life.

It’s inspiring, though, if you let it inspire you.

Take action, grow stronger and learn to defend what’s good, pure and precious.

That will require a lot from you.

It’ll take more than just coaching – but coaching will be a key part of it. After all, how strong can you really get if you’re stuck on your own bad habits, lack of resilience and failures of imagination?

Something to think about.

In the meantime, take the first step towards striding into your real power:

Note – this offer is only available to email subscribers. Sign up to my email list here:

Has Hollywood always been so certifiable?

You might remember Don’t Look Up­ – that flash in the pan, forgettable flick made as an answer to Hollywood’s cultural enemies.

“The hesitant” and “the sceptics”.

Except the plot of the movie involved flawed research, scientific corruption, a fake consensus bought by politicians and tycoons, and cancelled, shunned scientists who were the only ones who were right.

You know – hesitant/sceptic talking points.

Then there’s Barbie – a “feminist” vision of a dysfunctional world run by women, where all pretences of equality buckle under a rabid desire to oppress and punish men. Toxic positivity seeps from the very architecture. Talking about anything weird, real or different gets you shunned. There’s no tolerance here, only crushing conformity.

And consider that this feminist utopia was so hollow and meaningless that Stereotypical Barbie fled it. She chose to live and die in our world rather than endure that paradise.

Right now, Disney is trying to promote their new Snow White movie to women – the same demographic who devour romcoms and Jane Austin.

Their strategy?

“There’s no love or romance in this movie. Those things are so outdated! It’s about her being the leader she always should have been!”

As if women dream about fancy titles more than true love.

I could go on. Hollywood isn’t just stupid – it’s wilfully delusional.

But before ye raise thy finger in mockery…

In how many ways are you the same?

Do you want to get fit, only to give up on your workouts after less than a month?

Are you dreaming of crushing it at business, only to play it safe, waste time at work and follow shallow trends?

Do you dream of true love while outsourcing the search to dating apps?

In how many ways are you working against your goals?

Maybe it’s not so easy to mock Hollywood after all…

But you don’t have to settle for that.

My threshold coaching protocol works brilliantly for anyone who’s on the verge of starting something great, only to find themselves struggling to move forward.

The broken laser protocol takes any stuck habits or stagnant thinking, and blasts it wide open.

And if you don’t know what to do with your life – but you know it should be more than this – then I can help with that, too.

Only if you sign up for my coaching program below.

It’s not a huge commitment of time – chalk that up to how efficient these protocols are. That means I’m not the cheapest around, but then I’m sure you know how you either pay with money or with time.

At least money is easier to create more of.

If you can recognise this chance for what it is, sign up:

Note – this offer is only available to email subscribers. Sign up to my email list here: