Castles, Cowardly Choices & Dangerous Opinions

These days, I just can’t be bothered.

Can’t be bothered to read your bro-marketey tweet.
Can’t be bothered to smile pleasantly when you’re a moron.
Can’t be bothered to make a bunch of meaningless videos.
Can’t be bothered to read books that are mediocre.
Can’t be bothered to indulge clients who are painful.
Can’t be bothered to do work I don’t care about.
Can’t be bothered to “hustle” for the wrong goals I had in my twenties.
Can’t be bothered to guilt myself into replying to strangers.
Can’t be bothered to fake it for you.
Can’t be bothered to prioritize you.
Can’t be bothered to placate you.
Can’t be bothered to keep up with a life I don’t actually want.

(Though, I can always be bothered to pause abruptly while walking through the streets of Europe to photograph eighty angles of one old building while C taps his foot a half a block ahead and threatens to duck into a pub without me—which, he knows, will always move things along. 😂)

Ah, no—you see, I am no longer interested in anything that doesn’t bring bring me joy, pleasure, or the thrill of good, old-fashioned hard work.

Good, old-fashioned hard work is a thrill of its own. I don’t necessarily mean toiling in the sun over a shovel, though that’s lovely, too. (WORMS! DIRT! SIMPLE PLEASURES!) But, I mean committing to something. Something you’ll bleed for. What means that much to you? Do you have something? Or has the cheapness of the culture infected your sense of obligation to yourself? Do you spend most of your days placating other people with meaningless tasks, trying—begging—endlessly to seem like you are relevant, when in reality, the person who has to beg for it could never be relevant, anyway?

Real relevance is timeless, because real relevance isn’t about being cool; it’s about being good. If you are good at what you do—the kind of good that feels like a sturdy, solid, hand-crafted dining room table that sits self-assuredly in a 16th century castle in Scotland overlooking the sea as the bluebells poke up in May—you will always be relevant, because you will always be shining, because you simply cannot help it.

Perhaps, then, we should not focus so much on being impressive, but on doing things that impress. There’s a difference.

One focuses on being flashy—the other focuses on being so good, the flash follows you.

You have impressed upon people.

When we talk about marketing, this is where we begin. The best marketing isn’t an activity; it’s a backbone. And the biggest ingredient?

Fiery, irrational, madman obsession that cannot be tamed.

What runs hot though my bones—and do I have the courage to pursue it???

We make cowardly choices, and then wonder why we struggle to market our work; to get anyone on board with us and our cowardly choices. Well, people can sense when you’re trying to cover up a lack of passion with false enthusiasm, and you’re creating things out of obligation, rather than a grand, dazzling love affair.

We want the bold.
We want the glorious.
We want the person with the hip-swaying attitude, the white-hot opinion that feels just a little too dangerous.
We want oceans.
And skies.
And entire universes inside of the people we follow.
We want them to lead us somewhere magnificent.
We want them to give us strength, and inspire us to our own grand aspirations—even if they have been placed in a drawer in the very back, behind the old cloth handkerchiefs, for far too long.

We want them to touch us with their magic.

And, that’s a magic that can only come from an incandescent belief in what you are doing.

This is where you start. If you’re contemplating how to become more nomadic this year; how to build a nomadic business that will support your travels; how to go dance atop one of those damn castle dining room tables with a kilt and a Macallan’s and not the silliest care in the world, the very first question you must ask is not, “how do I market myself” it’s:

How do I become so fearfully good, the world screams?

It starts with an obsession.

Your obsession is your marketing—because the people who are captivated by their craft? Captivate everyone else.

And then you become the sky.