Three years ago I handed a journal to a friend on a whim. A last-second decision on my way out the door. I forgot about it almost immediately.

He didn’t.

He wrote in it daily. Committed himself to the practice. And a few weeks ago, out of nowhere, he posted a video celebrating the moment he finished it — thanking me for something I’d stopped thinking about years earlier.

I got that message at exactly the right time.

Life had been doing what life does. Work, pressure, commitments stacking up until the things that keep me upright had quietly slid off the edge of the desk. My creative work. My expression. My own gratitude practice, of all things.

His video brought me back.

It reminded me that the thing I made is still worth sharing.

Five years of practice

My gratitude practice started about five years ago.

I fell in love with the process almost immediately. Writing down what I’d noticed. Intentionally directing energy toward it rather than letting it pass by unexamined.

It changed how I moved through the world.

Not overnight, and not dramatically — but steadily, the way real things change.

I started creating content about it. Talking about it constantly and embodying its life-altering energy.

I loved it enough to build a journal around it. Designed it, found a printer in China and ordered three hundred of them.

Then I went quiet.

Some fear. Some laziness. A lot of other priorities. I never talked about it long enough or loud enough for anyone to actually hear me.

Kwazi’s video cut through that.

So I’m doing something about it.

Introducing The Gratitude Dojo

A new page. One purpose.

Delivering the gift of gratitude, consistently, to anyone who wants it — and building something I’m proud to put my name on.

Dojo — pronounced “doh-joh” — is the Japanese word for a place where you practise a discipline. A room you return to. A place of peace and power where the work of transformation happens, slowly, through repetition.

Plenty of people have walked into a dojo weak and undisciplined and walked out something else entirely.

That’s what I want this to be.

The creed

To me, gratitude has always been a discipline, a practice, a tool.

It is not something you have.
Or feel, or gain.

It’s something you earn.

You earn it through repetition.
Daily honing of the muscle fibres and neural pathways inside your body until you reach an eternally grateful state of being.

But even then the work is not done.

There will always be challenges, for life is a cunning adversary.

And when we are challenged, when we face hardship, we revert to our training.

We practice.
Then practice.
And practice some more.

Because we know the work is never done.

Gratitude is not a destination; it is a daily choice.

We choose to be like the alchemist who takes all of life’s hardships and smelts them down into something new.

We choose a reaction, a thought, a word differently to others.

Not because we are better than they are.

Because we have trained for this.

Our only goal is improvement.

Small wins, daily, repeated for a lifetime.

Bruce Lee once said:

“I fear not the man who has practised 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practised one kick 10,000 times.”

So we practice one kick, every day.

With no end in sight.

We practice.

Final thoughts

For the first time in a little while, I feel emboldened.

Ready to put myself out there again and begin sharing. This creation of mine and these gifts are made for sharing.

The Gratitude Dojo is live. Come train with me.

You can check out the Instagram page here. And if you are interested in grabbing one of the journals, you can find that here.

That’s it from me this week, gang.

With gratitude,

SAV

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Every week I show up and write the truth about the practice—gratitude, discipline, and the work that never really finishes.

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Where the team is at, what’s working and what requires attention. It eats a big chunk of my weekend—finding and collating the data, building the slides, thoughtfully arranging things, then sitting with the information long enough to understand what story the numbers are telling me.

This week, a coworker offered to get it done ahead of time.

We sat down. Collected the necessary data, and then thirty minutes later it was done.

I thought I’d got my weekend back.

I was wrong.

Half-baked

Friday night I arrived home.

Just before bed, I opened the slides to see the amazing work that was done and to marvel at the amount of time I had just reclaimed.

The slides were done, but not done right.

Massive chunks were missing; some slides had wrong information and an incorrect layout, and overall the design was poor and lacked polish.

They were finished.

But not to my standard.

While I analysed the gaps, I started to think about the time that I now had to find to get them right. I also started thinking about the concepts underlying this moment.

1. Valuing yourself

2. Making yourself proud

3. How much is too much effort

4. What it means to do good work

5. Doing the right thing because it’s right

All these ideas are inherently rooted in Stoic commitment to doing good, simply because it is good.

No posturing or pandering. Just good work.

The reward being the quality and the satisfaction of not lying to yourself.

It’s something I have tried to stay true to since coming to Stoicism in 2020, and it reminded me of something a good friend used to say…

Make yourself proud

She would always talk about it in relation to how she was showing up in the world and how she wanted to live her life.

I think it applies to everything we do.

Making yourself proud is not about being fast or best. It doesn’t mean you are the wealthiest or most successful.

It simply means that you did something you’re happy to be attached to.

A half-baked presentation was not something I was prepared to be attached to, and as a result, I knew that my work-free weekend would not come to fruition.

Proud over pride

Over the last few years, I have made my friend’s saying one of my mantras.

I have used it in so many situations.

• Gym

• Music

• Career

• Friendship

• Relationships

Every time I have thought about cutting corners or phoning it in, I stop and ask myself:

“Are you making yourself proud?”

Making yourself proud is purely about internal validation.

Did I quit?

Did I actually try?

Do I want to be known for this?

And there are a couple of reasons why it’s make yourself proud, and not do it with pride.

The latter suggests cultivating an energy before the task.

That’s all well and good, but the question becomes: will you finish the task with the same energy and optimism?

Pride also has negative connotations.

Some people will allow their pride to get in the way of the task at hand.

They will let their assumptions and predispositions cloud their thinking and guide their actions. Pride allows the ego to take the reins, and instead of doing what’s good and right, they will do what looks good (for them).

When you make yourself proud, however, the task is complete.

You are now sitting back, observing your work and soaking in the wholehearted commitment to a result that you could now celebrate.

You emptied the tank, put it all on the line, left no stone unturned.

That’s what it means to make yourself proud.

It means the job is done.

Winning ain’t everything

Four years ago I had my first and only fight.

An amateur boxing event in which I lost after the fight was waved off late in the third round. The result did not go my way, but I had made myself proud.

Making yourself proud doesn’t always mean success.

It doesn’t mean that it all goes your way.

Throughout this boxing experience, very little went my way. I got beat up in sparring; I was broke from spending money to enter the fight and giving up work to make room for training; I eventually went on to lose the fight in front of hundreds of people, as well as friends and family who had travelled interstate.

But at no point during or since did I regret how things transpired.

I gave absolutely everything to this fight. I prepared and trained like this would be my only opportunity to step in the ring. I committed to this moment like there would not be another.

And I was right; there wasn’t.

But when the dust settled, I had an opportunity to reflect; I was able to sit back and say that I was proud of how I showed up.

Your source of truth

Your guiding light should always come from within.

Relying on external validation will leave you stranded. You might get the desired outcome once or twice, but will it be consistent?

• Societies are volatile

• Motivation is fleeting

• Humans are emotional

• Markets are unpredictable

Placing faith in any of these to understand the work you have put in and account for all of the context is a recipe for impending disaster.

You need something sustainable.

Reliable.

You need to rely on you.

Your instincts, your taste, your commitment to the work. Your effort, your assessment, iterations and progress. You need to become your own source of truth for all matters relating to how seriously your work is taken.

If you put your best foot forward and the work is not appreciated, that’s fine.

You can sleep well knowing that you made yourself proud.

Final thoughts

On Saturday, I sat down to finish the job.

Not because the help wasn’t appreciated—it was. But because the work wasn’t finished, and I’m going to have my name attached to this whether I like it or not.

That’s the whole point.

Finished is not the same as done. Speed doesn’t always mean better. Getting it off your plate isn’t the same as getting it right. And the only person who can judge the difference is you, because you’re the only one who knows what you’re capable of.

Nobody else is keeping tabs on whether you fudged it. Most of the time, nobody even cares.

But you should. You will notice.

You’ll carry it around all week, knowing you could have done better and you chose not to. That weight is far more expensive to your self-worth than the extra couple of hours it would’ve taken to get it right.

So start with the end in mind. Do the work properly.

Not for your boss, not for the crowd or the applause, not for the gratification or a particular result—none of that is guaranteed.

Do it because it matters to you.

Do it so that when the dust settles and the moment to show it off arrives, you can sit back, look at it honestly and say: yeah, I’m proud of that.

That’s the only scoreboard that doesn’t lie.

Your own.

That’s it from me this week, champs!

With gratitude,

SAV

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Every week I show up and write the truth about the work — the standards, the slog, and doing it right when no one’s watching.

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You wake to a new day.

The day is new, but the feeling in every part of your body is old.

A deep, ingrained thirst to feel okay. You’ve known this feeling intimately for a long time, and logic tells you it’s temporary. A simple cup of water should fix it.

The logic checks out—water = no thirst.

You head to the kitchen and check the cupboard. No cup.

Expected, but still distressing.

So you apply the resourcefulness you’ve built over a lifetime of knowing this feeling. You’ll use your hands, cup the water and sip from there.

You turn on the tap.

Nothing comes out.

Not surprising; maybe the bill isn’t paid.

You check the fridge for something bottled. Nothing there either.

You try the bathroom, thinking maybe the kitchen was an anomaly. You turn the handle.

No water. Makes sense.

The desperation starts rising. Anxiety starts building inside of you.

Another day this thirsty is not an option. You need relief, and you need it now.

Then, in the distance, a sound.

It’s raining.

That same resourcefulness kicks in and sends you running. Out the door, into the front yard, head tilted back, mouth open to the sky.

A few drops hit your lips.

Not enough. Never enough.

You’re trying, and you’re still failing.

Exhausted, you decide sleeping the rest of the day might be the only way to conserve what energy you have left.

So you go back to bed. Maybe tomorrow will be different.

The next day arrives.

Same feeling. Same thirst.

But you can hear the rain belting down outside, heavier than yesterday, and something like hope flickers in you.

You skip the kitchen. Skip the bathroom. Not worth the disappointment (again).

You burst through the front door with your head back and start moving frantically, trying to catch what’s falling.

Some drops graze your face. Some hit your lips.

The vast majority miss.

Hope starts waning. You start oscillating side to side, more desperate with every pass, and the more you move, the more you miss.

How? How can it be this hard to quench this thirst?

You’re about to give up again.

And then, as you turn to go inside, you see him.

A man across the street. A neighbour you’d never noticed before.

Standing in his yard, in the same rain.

But something is different.

He looks calm. Content. At peace.

You’re confused, then curious, then incredibly intrigued. You need to know how anyone could be standing in all this and not be falling apart.

What am I missing? you think to yourself.

As you get closer, you see he’s holding something.

A cup.

It’s full, and he’s sipping from it, easily, like it’s the most ordinary thing in the world. No thirst. No distress. No frantic clutching for comfort. Just standing, and sipping.

“Where’d you get that cup?”

“I made it myself.”

“You can do that?” you ask in shock.

“Of course.”

He looks at your empty hands, and his face softens.

“I used to be like you. Waking up desperate. Thinking one day the thirst would just stop on its own. I tried everything.”

“Nothing lasted. Not for any amount of time that mattered.”

“So I made my own cup.”

“Took a while. The first few attempts had holes in them. But eventually I worked out a design that held up.”

He lifts the cup to show you its contents, and gestures for you to take it.

“Here, take a sip; I have plenty.”

You accept the cup with both hands, put it to your lips, trying not to spill any. Then gently pull the cup closer as you tilt your head back.

The water hits your lips and slides down your throat.

Beaming with excitement and possibility, you hand it back.

Satiated, for now.

“Thank you,” you say sheepishly to someone who owed you nothing, yet was more than happy to share this precious gift with you.

“You’re more than welcome.”

“Learning that it is possible to make your own cup is one thing, but actually making it is an entirely different prospect. After years of trial and error, I finally found a design that worked for me. Now I take it everywhere.”

“And now I don’t go a day without filling it.”

Moral of the story

Alright, so here’s the lowdown…

The rain (love, rest, kindness, support) was always falling. It comes to everyone equally, all the time. Love is abundant, if you are looking in the right places.

The problem was never supply.

The problem was that you had nothing to catch it in.

And that, well, that is what self-love actually is. Self-love is not bubble baths, skin care routines, affirmations and shopping sprees. It’s the slow, methodical work of building a version of you that is worth loving and who is capable of receiving the gifts that life gives us.

Self-love is erecting boundaries that hold.

A sense of worth that doesn’t leak.

The ability to receive a compliment or affection without deflecting it.

Most of us go through life, either too lazy or too busy to actually build something that can hold the love. Instead, we spend our lives running around with our mouths wide open, hoping that the right job, right partner, new gadget, fun hobby, exciting city or obsession will finally be the thing that quenches it.

It never is—because you never built anything to hold it.

On sharing the cup

Circling back to your neighbour…

Notice that he wasn’t hoarding the water.

He wasn’t rationing or guarding it. He wasn’t gatekeeping the secret to himself. He was generous.

He shared the gift, and the path to get to it.

He could only do that because his cup was full.

You see, a thirsty person has nothing to offer anyone because they’re too busy surviving. A thirsty person is frantically trying to wet their lips. Anxiously running around, attempting to catch water in their mouth, too busy to notice you doing the same.

That’s scarcity. It’ll make you very selfish, very quickly.

The abundant person, however, is generous with their time and resources.

And that’s the point.

We look at self-love as this overly indulgent act. This selfish thing that people do instead of being there for you.

The reality is that self-love, friendship and love are the opposite.

Have you ever tried to pour from an empty cup?

Yeah, not very efficient.

If your cup is not full, how can you possibly share anything with friends and family? Even more importantly, if you don’t have a method for collecting and storing water, how will you even see the desperation in others?

You won’t. You will be too focused on your own thirst.

Desperation makes the world shrink, and it puts you at the centre of that world.

Your selfishness and desire to be satiated become paramount. The needs and desires of those around you bear no meaning.

Every person you love is actually relying on you to build the cup.

Your family needs you to share some water when life takes one of those tragic turns.

Your mate needs you to have one so that you have something to give at 2 am when they call you and confess that they have lost theirs.

Your partner needs you to be able to hydrate yourself so that you’re not constantly draining their supply. Your child needs you to have a cup so that one day you can show them what it looks like and how to make their own.

Build your own cup.

Not because you deserve it, even though you do.

Build it because you are surrounded by people standing in the same rain, desperately trying to find a way to hydrate themselves, and one day they are going to walk across the road and ask you where you got the cup.

And you’re going to tell them.

That’s it from me this week, gang.

With gratitude,

SAV

If this one landed, subscribe below.

Every week I show up and write the truth about the work — building yourself, holding the line, and having something left to give.

Subscribe now

PS. A few people recently asked about my gratitude journal, so if you would like to check out the journal, do so by clicking 👉 here

G’day champs.

Apologies for the delay on the weekly newsletter; my girl and I took a do-not-disturb weekend away, and I was unable to get the email out on Sunday.

I did, however, have a lovely interaction that really resonated with me.

That moment, the experience and learnings from it, will be the subject of last week’s (late) newsletter—infectious energy, being present and what it means to be good.

Enjoy!

My partner and I decided to take a weekend trip to the Mornington Peninsula.

As if taking the weekend off wasn’t crazy enough, I decided to also request annual leave for Friday to extend the relaxation by an extra day—wild scenes! For a bloke who can count his work-free Saturdays and sick days over two years on one hand, that’s close to a religious event.

The plan was simple: relax and go slow.

Bev’s plan had nine items on it with timestamps.

This is a story about a weekend away, nice food, thermal springs, a very wet Saturday and a plan we abandoned by mid-afternoon. But the real reason I’m writing it has nothing to do with any of that.

The real reason is a shop assistant named Kim, and the thing that she gave us that went beyond the products we bought.

Here’s what happened:

Contrasting plans

My goal (pure relaxation and no expectations) was somewhat in contrast to how Bev usually likes to tackle adventures and road trips.

Bev likes to do all the things, because she is constantly finding inspiration—looking at reviews, watching vlogs or studying viral trends like she’s in training to become a local tour guide.

She will research the local attractions, food spots and sights, then diligently concoct a plan of attack to make sure every one is tried.

I reckon I could blindly put my finger on a map of Australia and she would be able to rattle off the top restaurant, cafe, tourist drawcard and natural attraction in that town without skipping a beat.

Our main attack day, according to her plan, was going to be the Saturday.

The plan looked something like this:

• 8 am - wake up

• 915 am - leave for Alba Springs (a popular thermal hot springs spot)

• 930 am - have a pre-paid brunch at Alba

• 1030 am - make our way into the springs

• 1230 pm - head home to get changed

• 1 pm - make our way to Sorrento and the famous Vanilla Slice Cafe

• 3 pm - check out some well-known farms (including a lavender farm)

• 5 pm - head home to get changed

• 7 pm - make our way to Red Hill Estate (winery) for a fine dining experience

• 9 pm - go home and get into bed

I know what you’re thinking… not exactly in line with our goal of ‘relax and go slow’.

The trip begins

We made our way down to Rosebud at around 2 pm on Friday.

Arrived and settled into our motel at around 4 pm. It had been a relatively exhausting and fast-paced start to the day, so we snuck a nap in. After the nap, we headed out to grab some good food at a lovely local pizza place (Papis in Rye, amazing) before getting in an early night.

The next day started as planned. We woke up at around 8 am and got ready to head to Alba. We made it there by 930 am, checked in, then got changed into our robes and made our way up for brunch.

Once we changed into our robes and locked our phones away in our lockers, my energy changed, and hers did too.

We both started soaking in the ambience and serenity.

The brunch was basic, but did the job; I had a mimosa as well to really sink into relaxation mode. Once brunch was done, we made our way out into the springs.

The weather had been fairly unkind for a couple of days heading into that morning, and the rain did not let up. We spent our entire time at the springs scurrying between the warm pools, whilst being pelted by cold, hard rain.

In the end, the rain added to the relaxation as we were forced to embrace the elements.

We made our way through the springs, trying every pool.

We hit the steam and sauna rooms as well.

The entire place was simply magical, and we allowed ourselves to relax and go slow. Three hours passed in no time at all. We were fully embracing the zen.

After the springs, we made our way back to accommodation and into warmer clothes.

On the way back, I had a sudden urge, so I shared it with Bev…

“I reckon we should do face masks tonight, like those moisturising sheets.”

We giggled at how fun that could be, but no action was decided.

The trip continues

The morning had been slow, spent doing nothing but giggling, chatting, and being present with one another. It was exactly what we needed, but I felt like we could definitely use more of this pace. I had no idea what the day was going to look like from there, but with the weather doing its thing and zen coursing through my body, I knew my girl’s plan of hitting every spot was not going to be the play.

We got changed, with food on our minds we made our way over to Sorrento.

I had heard a lot about Sorrento, but this was my first time visiting. The town centre was so lovely and well maintained, a true beach town with gorgeous white buildings lining the main street.

We found a nice little bakery called Pie Pantry to sit down and grab some baked goods. I went with beef, cheese and pepper while Bev grabbed a vegan lentil pie.

After that, we continued perusing the shops, checking out the local art and fashion.

The pies had gone down a treat, but now it was time for something sweet, so we cruised on over to the Vanilla Slice Cafe (this one could stay on the itinerary).

This place was apparently well-known for its chocolate croissants…

Jokes, of course; we got the vanilla slice and a coffee.

It was exquisite.

An unplanned detour

By this time it was around 330 pm.

We finished our shared slice, and with no real plan of how the rest of the day was going to look, we casually continued strolling through the town and looking at the shops on our way back to the car.

We were about to walk past a fancy girly store, one that was empty of customers but filled with scents and smells and all the things that I generally have ZERO interest in. I had a hunch that she was interested in checking it out, so I stopped and gestured for us to go back. Bev was intrigued, but due to the store being empty, she was a lil intimidated by being in a small empty store by herself with a single sales assistant.

I could tell that she wanted to go check it out, so I offered to accompany her in to join in some perusing and smelling.

The assistant greeted us on entry—we could feel her energy immediately.

“Hey, welcome to Ikou. Have you been here before?”

We both shook our heads.

“No, first time; we’re just in town for the weekend.”

Then, without hesitation and with supreme confidence, she began explaining the brand and what it represented. It was a great spiel and built a lot of value in the brand.

• Cruelty-free

• Chemical-free

• Vegan-friendly

• Balance and renewal

• Natural Australian botanicals

These buzzwords are not things I usually consider when buying anything, but the delivery and conviction got me interested, and Bev was immediately captivated.

The assistant (Kim) started showing us around and explaining their philosophy.

“These products help with nervous system reset… these products help with energising in the morning… these treatments help with relaxation, etc.”

We smelled some things and tried some things.

Then she offered to take us through one of their treatments, asking which one we were intrigued by.

I responded:

“Well, I have been working a lot, and my nervous system has been overloaded, so I feel like the nervous system reset/calming stuff is a good place to start.”

Bev agreed.

We had some delightful berry tea as the basin filled with warm water.

Kim then grabbed out the hand scrub and a tub of body calming soufflé. We dipped our hands in the warm water, applied the scrub to our hands and got scrubbing—instant satisfaction!

We washed and dried our hands, then Kim grabbed a tub of the cream and asked us if we were okay with a hand massage.

We nodded in unison.

She grabbed my hand and a dab of the cream and began working the cream through my fingers, palms and forearm with an effortless gentleness. She continued rattling off the products and history of the company without any interruption to the insane hand experience that was taking place. It was incredibly soothing.

Bev then stepped up for her hand massage, and by the time it finished, we were both convinced that something was being purchased; it just had to happen.

Once we finished and were about to decide on where to allocate our funds, I mentioned to Kim the goal of our weekend and how we had been speaking earlier that day about a face mask kinda evening.

“Good news”, she said.

“We are running a little promotion this weekend: spend $99 and you get three of our new facemask range to take home.”

Say less!

The only real decision we needed to make now was how to get to $99 most effectively. In the end, it was no decision at all. The hand scrub and body calming soufflé that she trialled on us smelled and felt delightful; they also conveniently tallied to $109.

It was unanimous.

We purchased our products, scored our face masks, thanked Kim for her time and expertise, then made our way back to the car in a state of pure peace.

Go with the flow

The energy and pace of our evening had changed.

Without even properly discussing it, we both knew that leaning into this feeling was going to be the play.

We found another nice local pizza and pasta joint (Noras in Rye, highly recommended), had a slow and relaxing meal together and made a plan of attack for the evening—body scrub, calming music, face masks, calming body cream and massages.

Just me, my girl, our tiny motel room and a space for us to unwind and connect.

And that’s what we did.

Far from her jam-packed plan for that evening, but closer to what we actually needed, we found the kind of peace that you usually have to search for in an otherwise non-stop world.

We got to sleep sometime before midnight.

The next day brought better weather and an opportunity to go and hit the farms that we had planned to tackle the day before. They were also delightful: lavender scones and lavender ice cream, famous chips and fresh farm vegetables.

In the end, we did most of the things, just in a slightly different order and without the weight of expectation.

My takeaways

We live in an incredibly fast-paced and on-demand world.

Everything needs to be done yesterday, and there is little to no space for peace and presence. Sometimes you have to force it, so we did.

We saw an opening, an invite from the universe to slow down, and we took it.

Our instinct to walk into that store and engage in conversation with a lovely, well-informed and energetic sales assistant was genuine and grounding and inevitably brought us to exactly where we needed to be.

Although Kim was just doing her job, she did it with such class and commitment that we felt a sense of responsibility to go on the journey with her.

We hung on every word and sank into the power of the here and now.

She won our trust through her passion and took us to a place we never intended to, but ultimately were glad to go. In the end, we walked away with more than just hand scrub and body cream; we walked away with a gift.

The gift of pause.

The restorative ritual that she had introduced us to would also become a place for Bev and me to connect and slow down. A place for us to put the world on pause and simply be in each other’s presence.

Life is full of people trying to teach us something.

It’s full of moments that will deepen our connection to the world and the people we love. Every single day, in every one of those moments, we get two choices: accept the lesson or ignore it.

Try to do more of the first one.

Final thoughts

That’s it from me this week, gang. Back to regular programming this Sunday — one email closer to my goal of writing a newsletter every week for the whole year.

Twelve more newsletters for me to get there—craaazzyyyy!

I hope this one gave you a reason to pay closer attention. To trust that little voice when it says “slow down, it’s safe.”

With gratitude,

SAV

A few people asked about the journal from last week’s newsletter, so if you would like to check out the journal, do so by clicking 👉 here

Also, if this one landed, subscribe below.

Every week I show up and write the truth about slowing down, speeding up, and figuring out the difference.

Subscribe now

No coffee. No breakfast. No phone. My mind is formless at that hour, and resistance hasn’t woken up yet, so I write.

But I’m human, and some mornings the phone wins.

On one of those mornings a few weeks back, I opened Instagram to a video I’d been tagged in—four and a half minutes later I was crying at my desk.

This is the story of Kwazi Darko and the gift of gratitude.

Covid connection

We met in late 2020 at the height of lockdown in Melbourne.

A fire alarm in the apartment building we both inhabited sent us out onto the footpath on a frosty winter night. While we huddled around, trying to stay warm as the firefighters inspected the building, our partners at the time got chatting.

Our groups exchanged pleasantries as we fought back shivering dread at all the insanity that the moment in time presented us.

Against the law, but in line with our desire for connection, we invited these strangers from down the hall to join us back in our apartment for drinks and food once we had got the all clear from the firies.

They went back to their apartment to collect some goodies.

Then, when the coast had cleared, they snuck back down, gently knocked on the door and made their way in for a night of celebration.

That night was something remarkable.

The world was falling apart, and we were told not to connect. The law prevented us from visiting people and bonding, but we needed it. We all needed it.

A friendship is born

Eventually our relationships ended, but our friendship blossomed.

Kwazi and I shared a deep respect for so many things that made this existence worth living—art, philosophy, resilience, intellect, hustle, creativity.

We didn’t hang out often, but he quickly became someone I could trust.

Someone I wanted around as often as possible.

One of those friends you could not hear from for twelve months, ask them to be somewhere, and, without even thinking about it, know they're there.

He attended our first headline show in Melbourne, at Laundry Bar in 2021.

He watched my one-and-only boxing fight in late 2022.

And of course, he was always up for a late night and a beverage whenever some bro time was required.

The gift of gratitude

In late 2022, after some deliberation, I designed and ordered 300 of my own gratitude journals. They arrived on the 18th of April in 2023.

A few days after they arrived, I received a voice message from Kwazi…

He invited me down to a photo shoot for his fashion brand—my response was short and sharp:

As I was heading out to meet him for the shoot, I made a last-second decision to bring one of my new journals as a gift.

The next day, he sent me a text, thanking me for the journal.

The grass ain’t greener (or is it?)

Over the next couple of years, our lives diverged.

I spent 2023/24 chasing creativity and artistry. Working casually at a cafe whilst recording music, making podcasts, writing newsletters, playing shows and immersing myself in Melbourne’s world of creatives.

He spent this time building his network, net worth and career in the finance game.

Subtly, we both desired what the other had.

I wanted the security and consistency that came with a salary and a 9-5. He wanted the freedom and depth that came with a life spent creating.

Eventually the pull became too great.

I found a job in sales and started working my way into the security that I had desired, and he threw caution to the wind to pursue the arts.

I finally got to return the favour and watch my guy in his element in May 2025 as he took the stage for one of his first roles in a theatre production. Just like he didn’t have to announce himself at my fight night, I secretly made my way to the venue, sat in the front row, and watched him shine.

Since then, it’s been all gas, no brakes for both of us.

I’ve been climbing the corporate ladder in sales, falling in love and building a life for myself. Kwazi has been going hard in the creative community—acting, modelling, attending events and expressing himself like never before.

I can’t speak for him, but I know that this side of the fence has its benefits, but it also has its challenges, and that’s ok.

The grass isn’t necessarily greener, but we both had to know what it looked like.

(All this waffling about our unique timeline will make sense shortly, I promise!)

Paths converging

So, we come to the more recent past.

As I said at the top of the newsletter—it’s a weekday morning before work, and I decide to open my phone instead of getting stuck into some writing.

I see that I am tagged in an Instagram reel. I open it up and begin watching.

It’s Kwazi… and he’s holding the journal.

“Little gratitude book… huh… he doesn’t even know that I’m making this video.”

He pauses, creating tension, and stares straight down the barrel of the camera like he knew that I was just on the other side of the lens.

“Sav, I finished it.”

The video went for four and a half minutes; it’s a testimonial of sorts. A testimony for the power of gratitude, the power of belief, the value of good friends and the overwhelming relief that one gets when they live authentically.

Kwazi said that he was proud of himself for finishing the book.

I am also so proud of him.

For finishing the book, for believing in himself and for chasing his dreams.

I say paths converging because when I opened my phone to watch this video, I was really struggling with being on this side of the fence. The stress and responsibility of management had really been weighing on me, and due to time constraints, I haven’t been able to create the things necessary to act as a counterbalance.

Leading to a feeling of burnout from the life I had built for myself.

I was feeling a little stuck. A little helpless. Then I opened my phone, and he was there.

Once again, Kwazi had found a way to whisper through the noisy world and remind me of what is important, at a time when I had seemingly forgotten.

The gift that keeps on giving

I cried while watching the video.

Despite all the antidepressants coursing through my system, the emotions were so strong that a couple of drops found their way out.

The video was special in so many ways.

One way that I don’t think Kwazi intended is that it got me thinking about my impact on the world and my own creations again. He probably didn’t know that my creations and expression had mostly taken a back seat for the past 18 months, and that this video and moment of vulnerability were the reminder I really needed.

I had been so caught up in trying to find stability that I almost traded in my sanity as well. Kwazi stopped me before it was too late.

Once upon a time, I handed the gift of gratitude to a friend—and at a time when I needed it more than ever, he handed it back. Perhaps unknowingly, but either way, it was handed back to remind me of what gratitude can bring to people’s lives.

This practice is sacred, and it can truly help.

I feel as though the gift was returned to me so that I could continue giving it to others who may be in need of its healing properties.

Final thoughts

It’s a crazy business, this life stuff.

I gave that journal away on a whim. A last-second decision on my way out the door. I didn’t think about it again for three years.

On the exact morning I needed it, it came back.

Not the journal. The reminder, the lesson. That the energy you put into the world keeps moving long after you’ve forgotten it. That the person you show up as matters, and the things you created three years ago are still out there doing work for you.

I’ve spent eighteen months chasing stability and slowly drifting away from the things I need to survive. Creativity and expression. They are my oxygen.

They give me stability when everything else is falling, and yet I forgot about them.

Kwazi had no idea about any of the above. He just made a video.

And that my friends is how this shit works. You give the thing away freely, not because you expect something later, but because it is right.

You don’t get to choose what it becomes or if it will ever return.

But you do it anyway, because you have to.

So, if you’re holding onto a gift, let it go.

Give it away!

The compliment, the gratitude, the risk, the encouragement, the little book you bought a lot of (too many of) on a hunch. Hand the gift to someone and then forget about it.

One day, when you’re running on empty and can’t remember why you started, it’ll find its way back to you.

If you wish to watch Kwazi’s gift of gratitude, you can do so here.

To Kwazi—thank you, big mahn! I see you shining, I see you grinning, I see you exploring this life in the realest form, and I am so proud of you.

That’s it from me, gang!

With gratitude,

SAV

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School. Friends. The whole brutal business of being fourteen.

We got onto mental health, and one thing kept coming up—bed. Getting out of it. Making the journey from warm and safe to a schoolyard full of kids who feel like they’re judging every breath you take.

I know that feeling. I know it too well.

For most of my twenties, depression kept me bedridden for huge chunks of the day. Not lazy. Not tired. Trapped.

I couldn’t hold down work. I flopped in and out of relationships. My friendships had no substance, and my confidence bottomed out.

That fight raged well into my early thirties before I found any weapons worth using.

One of the first came from James Clear’s Atomic Habits. It’s simple, it’s a little sneaky, and it’s still one of the most useful things I know.

“Make it easy”

Clear’s third law of behaviour change is three words: make it easy.

Reduce the friction.

Shrink the task until your brain can’t find a reason to say no.

His example is the morning workout.

The goal shouldn’t be “exercise in the morning.” That’s daunting. Your brain looks at it and immediately starts negotiating.

The goal should be: wake up and put your exercise clothes on.

That’s it.

You don’t have to go to the gym. You don’t have to stretch. You don’t have to finish a session—just the clothes.

And if you put them on and crawl back into bed? Fine. Tomorrow you try again.

The trick is that once the clothes are on, the gym is suddenly a much shorter walk than it was from under the doona. You’ve tipped the odds without ever telling your brain a fight was coming.

Your brain is not on your side (yet)

Our brains evolved to keep us alive, not to make us great.

They want warmth. Safety. The known.

They do not want to leave a nice bed on a cold weekday morning for a yard full of teenage dirtbags primed to poke every insecurity you’ve got. To your brain, that’s not school. That’s a threat.

So it does what it’s built to do. It keeps you in bed.

But what if the brain is wrong?

What if those hard mornings are exactly what builds the foundation you’ll stand on for the rest of your life?

Epictetus got there two thousand years before Atomic Habits:

If that’s true, then the job isn’t to wait for your brain to feel ready. It never will.

The job is to trick it.

1. Collect data

You can’t run a play without knowing the field.

Where are the traps? What sets you off? What do you avoid without even noticing you’re avoiding it?

In a podcast I recorded with mental health coach Nadia, she talked about having conversations with yourself to learn who you actually are.

The best tool I’ve found for that is a pen and a page. Journaling. Marcus Aurelius ran an empire and still made time to write to himself every day. Meditations is just a bloke collecting data on his own head.

Learn yourself:

• Triggers, flaws, fears

• Values, passions, dreams

• Standards, principles

• Non-negotiables

You’ll be surprised how much of the fog lifts once it’s written down.

2. Pick a target

Start small. Painfully small.

Sift through what you’ve written and find one thing. Not five. One.

• What do people keep calling you out on?

• What keeps getting you in trouble?

• What’s the one thing you know is holding you back?

Pick one habit, fear, reaction or ritual you can actually move on this week.

You want early momentum, not a grand plan. Grand plans are where good intentions go to die.

3. Deploy the trick

Now you do the old switcheroo on yourself.

Your brain needs to feel rewarded for doing the thing it doesn’t want to do, over and over, until it forgets it ever objected. You are playing the long game.

Back to my young mate.

You don’t want to get up and go to school? Fine. Don’t.

When the alarm goes off, just get up and walk to the bottom of the stairs.

That’s the whole task. If you want to go back to bed after that, go.

But you’ve done something. And we can build from there.

Some other tricks I’ve used:

• Low-level anxiety every morning: don’t sleep with your phone. Put it on the desk or outside the room.

• Want to build resilience: do one more. One more push-up, one more sales call, one more edit.

• Struggling to read: stack an audiobook onto your walk.

• Not present: close your eyes, breathe in slow, open them as you exhale.

• Need more empathy: send genuine gratitude toward every experience, good or bad.

• Want to be happier: expect less.

I’ve got dozens of these. Every problem has a workaround if you’re willing to look for it.

Final thoughts

Your brain is going to keep trying to protect you. That’s its job. It’s going to reach for comfort every single time.

Don’t let it call the shots.

Seneca wrote: “We suffer more in imagination than in reality.” The schoolyard, the gym, the sales call, the blank page. They’re all far scarier from under the covers than they are once you’re standing in them.

Your job is to get to the bottom of the stairs.

Put the clothes on. Do one more.

Tiny tricks. Stacked daily. That’s how you take the wheel back.

So, is your brain tricking you? Reckon it’s time to trick it back?

Hit reply and let me know what you’re working on. I read every one.

That’s it from me this week, gang.

With gratitude,

SAV

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Two years ago I was broke, single, basically unemployed, virtually homeless and carrying a mountain of debt.

I wrote a post about it. Ten reasons I still felt rich.

That post found a lot of people in the same hole, trying to climb out. It became something bigger than a birthday note.

So here I am again, two years on. A lot has changed. The gratitude hasn’t.

Here are ten things I’m grateful for every single day:

1. Life

The odds of being born are insane.

Like, just to be sitting here and writing this post is insane.

We are born to live. Not just exist. We only have this one opportunity to experience all of the beauty this world affords us before we pass on.

This truth is not lost on me, ever. Not even for one day.

I spent the majority of my life in darkness: late nights, drug-fuelled benders, gambling binges, depression cycles. I did things that tainted my soul: cheating, lying, stealing, but the most damaging was the hate I had for myself.

Now, regardless of where I go or what I do, I try my best to remain in the light.

2. Body

Despite some battles with my health over the past couple of years, I am still so grateful for a body that has not fully given out.

My body still does everything it needs to:

• Tie my laces

• Walk up stairs

• Type and write

• Listen and speak

• Carry heavy things

Chronic injuries have plagued my ability to stay consistent with my training, and it has felt frustrating at times. When you can’t train to maintain your physical and mental health, depression can set in.

A doctor visit I had very recently reminded me of how much more I have to give.

Doc told me, “Biologically, you’re heading into the prime of your life”.

Not sure if that’s just cope (because he’s my age), but I like it and need to take responsibility for achieving that feeling of being in my prime. Thank the lord that I have a body that can still get there.

3. Family

My family is big, loud and crazy.

And I love them with all of my heart.

My parents (Paul & Pauline) are lifelong creatives and musicians. Dad is quiet and Stoic; Mum is loud and empathetic.

Until recently, I didn’t really know where my desire to be creative had come from. I had this urge inside of me to make stuff. To constantly be creating and turning my thoughts and ideas into pieces of content or art.

With the benefit of age and experience, I see clearly now that I come from a creative family. My parents have always been this way, and they have given that gift to us.

My siblings are all creative in their own ways—they also have very deep minds and big hearts.

My best mates, who I can share anything with.

They mean everything to me.

4. Partner

I met a girl in early 2024. We got together in early 2025, and she has fundamentally changed my world.

We live together and are slowly building a life of our own.

She’s kind and has so much love to give.

She’s also thoughtful, intellectual, funny and creative.

The relationship is healthy and dynamic. We challenge each other to be better versions of ourselves every day.

Love is great, but finding someone to share this life with is so rewarding.

We laugh at the small things and explore the big things.

We experiment, learn and grow together.

She’s my best friend.

5. Community

The little pocket of the world I live in has become my home, and it is filled with like-minded souls trying to find their way.

My community is full of dreamers who seek life’s truths.

We dream together.

We motivate each other.

We talk deeply about life.

We challenge one another.

We come from all different walks of life.

But one commonality is our energy. We know we are capable of bending our worlds to meet our will. So, together we try.

6. Job

In late 2024 (just after writing the original post), I returned to Melbourne and was almost immediately both jobless and homeless.

After a chance interaction, I was given an opportunity to start at a company.

I knew nothing about the company, industry, or role.

I put my head down and worked hard.

So grateful I was for the opportunity, I made sure to leave no stone unturned.

I became one of the most reliable people in the company and was eventually promoted to campaign manager.

This company has given me confidence, consistency and a place to call home at a time when nobody wanted me.

I will never forget that.

7. Creation

I get to make stuff every day.

This post, for example... I’m writing this on my laptop at 6 in the morning before my Sunday begins.

Without creation, I would not feel like myself; it is a part of me.

Over the last two years I have done a lot of it:

1. Last year I released an EP called CHAMP CAMP

2. I have written on Substack every Sunday this year (37 newsletters so far)

3. Recorded a bunch of podcasts

4. Released music videos for Tainted, ATG and HOP THE 12

5. Played shows, made carousels, and created a tonne of short-form content

I love it all.

Creating used to be for others. Something I did because I wanted to be famous or look cool.

Now I create for me.

I create because I need to. Because I wouldn’t be me without it.

I create each and every day because it's my goal to put it into the world and die empty. If I inspire others along the way, great. If all I did was make it easier for my soul then that is also ok.

8. Melbourne

Woy Woy is where I grew up (mostly), but Melbourne is now my home.

I finally feel like I belong, like I have a community to call my own.

This city really is something special.

It’s big enough to be inspiring but small enough to not be overwhelming.

The people are friendly and interesting.

The sporting and arts communities are bustling. It’s the kind of place that can inspire you every day (if you let it).

It’s vast, dynamic, inclusive and bursting with culture.

Truly remarkable.

9. Access

The amount of access I have each day is still crazy to me.

Public transport that runs consistently to all parts of the city.

A health care system that has treated me amazingly well over the course of the last two years.

Food. Art. Sport. Business. Anything you can dream of!

I live in one of the most accessible suburbs in one of the most accessible cities in one of the most accessible countries.

Surrounded by the Yarra River, on the doorstep of the city, around the corner from the MCG, and two tram stops from the hospitality-dense North Side suburbs of Fitzroy, Collingwood and Carlton.

Access is one’s ability to take part in the system. To absorb the benefits of a country and government that cares for its citizens.

Access is a privilege, and I do not take it for granted.

10. Stoicism

Last year (2025), I spent Christmas with my family on the Central Coast.

We agreed to all participate in Secret Santa—a game where you randomly select a person to give a gift to. Our version was split up into 6 couples.

On top of Secret Santa, though, I wanted to do something for everyone individually.

I pondered…

Unique presents? Gift cards? Socks and undies?

I decided to go with something different… something sacred to me, something a little selfish (if I’m being honest).

I decided to get everyone their own unique version of Meditations.

I purchased seven copies of the most important Stoic text by Marcus Aurelius because I knew that someday, somehow, these gifts would make a return on the investment.

Everything else would have been considered rubbish after a week.

My Stoic practice has come a long way in 2 years.

I turn to it every single day, in all situations.

Stoicism kept me focused when the world was trying to shut me out. It kept me motivated where none was to be found. It kept me calm when pressure and responsibility mounted.

Without Stoicism, I really don’t know where I would be.

I am living the good life.

Not because I have stuff or things, but because I am present and aware. The good life is not conditional. It’s a state of being.

It’s my truth.

Final Thoughts

Two years ago I had nothing and felt rich.

Today I have more, and I feel exactly the same.

That’s the whole point. The good life was never conditional. It’s not something you arrive at when the bank balance or the relationship or the job lines up. It’s a state of being. A practice.

Stoicism taught me that, and I’ve tried to live it every day since.

Grateful to be here. Grateful you’re reading.

Happy birthday to me. And if it’s not your birthday—happy unbirthday, gang.

With gratitude,

SAV

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In sport, in business, in life. We idolise the ones who show courage we’re sure we don’t have.

But the truth is, we’re all one bad moment away from finding out.

I found out on a bus at 2 AM in the outer suburbs of Sydney, fifteen years ago. Terrified, twenty years old and about to lose my job.

I’ve tried not to forget it since.

When I was in my very early twenties, I got a job at Star Casino in Sydney.

It was a dream come true. Living in the big city, going through training with my best mate, dealing poker and making pretty good money for a twenty-year-old with no qualifications or higher education.

The first three months were brutal—I was stuck on the graveyard shift.

Starting at 4 AM and working through to midday every day was taking a devastating toll on my body. To make the change more tolerable, I was staying with my buddy in an outer suburb in Sydney’s North called Thornleigh.

Thornleigh was closer than my hometown of Woy Woy, but still far enough away to make life difficult.

I had to be up at 1:30 AM in the morning to catch a 2 AM nightrider bus into the city.

That bus trip was a solid 60-75 minutes depending on stops.

From there, I would get the tram to the Casino from Central Station and arrive at around 3:30 AM. Enough time to have some food and get changed for my 4 AM start. I was late to work a couple of times during my probation and had been warned that my employment could be at risk if it continued.

My stop was one of the first, and Central Station was the last stop, so I could usually afford to sleep on the back seat throughout the journey.

One morning, I was woken by a commotion.

As I sat up, I could hear the bus driver shouting for help. Two eshays (lads/hoodlums), donned in the finest streetwear and sporting luscious rat tails and shiny new Nike TNs, were assaulting the bus driver.

Punching him, provoking him and attempting to take whatever cash was on hand.

I gently appealed from the back of the bus, “Guys, please stop.”

They replied, “Shut the fuck up, or we’ll come down there next!”

I put my head down and recoiled into my shell and the safety of the backseat. My attempt did nothing to slow the assault, as the bus driver’s pleas grew louder.

I surveyed the landscape—from the back of the bus I could see everything.

“Who’s going to stand up and do something about this?” I pondered to myself as a barrage of punches and insults rained down on the helpless bus driver.

I looked around.

Four people, all my age or younger: one small Asian man, three small women (big student population in Sydney’s Northern suburbs). None of them had shown any sign of acting, and I didn’t blame them.

I desperately wanted someone else to take ownership.

Up until this point in my life, I had never had any sort of physical altercation. I didn’t know how to take a punch or hurt another human being.

I was a terrified little boy, but I was the only one capable of making this stop.

There was no hero to be seen.

“Fuck it. I’ll have to be him.”

Knowing that my employment was on the line if I was late again, and with the awareness that no one else was coming to the rescue, I stood up and slowly made my way to the front of the bus.

I sheepishly approached the two assailants.

My plan was simple: gently approach the savages and calmly beg them to leave the bus whilst pleading the seriousness of my employment situation.

Assailant one (Dumb) was busy punching the bus driver, whilst assailant two (Dumber) was attempting to grab the cash. I moved within their line of sight and began to beg for mercy.

“Guys, please stop. I am going to be late for…”

Before I could finish the sentence, I was hurled backward by a blow to the face—sucker punch! Completely stunned and disoriented, I looked up to see that Dumber had turned his attention to me.

In a totally surreal moment that genuinely felt like I had embodied Sherlock Holmes, I gathered myself and began plotting my response.

You see, even though I lacked fight experience, I had done a bit of training (like a very tiny amount).

My Uncle Tommy had lived with us on and off throughout my mid-teens, as he had spent the majority of his life in and out of prison. In his youth, Uncle Tom was a champion boxer who transferred his physical stature and boxing credentials to a life of crime. He loved getting my brother and me together to go through boxing fundamentals whenever he was in town.

Uncle Tom only taught us the basics, but those basics were all I needed.

Boxing stance, high guard, the jab, the cross. We would drill the one-two regularly.

I was stunned, but the training subconsciously kicked in…

I shaped up.

Locking my gaze on my attacker, I lunged forward and stuck the jab—popping his head back and buying myself a moment of reprieve.

While discombobulated, I took my opportunity to tackle Dumb through the open bus door and onto the sidewalk. Sprawling out onto the pavement, I rolled to a stop and found myself face down with my oversized hoodie obscuring my vision.

I knew I couldn’t stay here long.

These guys were dogs, and I was only moments away from having my head stomped into the concrete.

Forcing myself to get up, I stumbled for a few metres as I frantically tried to regain my balance and clear the hoodie from my face. I finally found my feet, then turned to see Dumb & Dumber waiting for me.

So here we are…

Me, two wannabe thugs, an empty Sydney bus stop at 2 AM on a weekday morning.

They wanted more, and I was chosen by the Gods to give it to them.

I assumed my stance, distributed my weight, raised my high guard and began marching forward.

They ran at me, one after another, throwing wild haymakers like any typical brawler.

Dumber threw a wild overhand right.

I kept my cool, raised my guard and absorbed the blow, immediately returning with a stiff jab on the same side.

Time stood still.

Confidence surged inside of me as I realised that not only could I handle myself in this situation, but that I could beat these guys, dominate and win.

I turned to Dumb, who now attempted an overhand of his own.

Same result.

They tried again, and once more I repelled the attack. It felt like an eternity out in the night cold, and my thoughts started turning to the shift that I was running late for, but the job was not done.

Once more, I shaped up against my opponents, but something had changed.

They were hesitant.

Outside of one unsuspecting sucker punch, they hadn’t landed any clean blows, and they were now considering their decision to engage me.

In the midst of their hesitation, I turned back to see the bus had now cleared.

All five people from the bus were now standing behind me.

Like a scene from Temu Avengers, we stood united and began marching toward them—individually scared for our lives, together we were strong and presented the harsh reality that this night was not going to end well for these two troublemakers.

They looked at each other, considered a retreat and then turned to cower into the darkness that they had emerged from only moments earlier.

We taunted them as they made their escape.

Relieved, but still beaming from adrenaline, I then turned to head toward the bus and was surrounded by the driver and other passengers who showered me with praise and pats on the back.

I briefly soaked in the moment before urging everyone to return to the bus.

With a busted lip and a blood-stained (brand new) hoodie, I returned to the back of the bus and assumed my sleeping position once again.

The rest of the trip went as planned. I arrived at work with seconds to spare. Got changed and was ready to start my shift right on the 4 AM handover.

It was hard to hide the reality of what had just happened.

Working in a customer-facing role as a croupier for eight hours with a scuffed face and split lip made the story hard to avoid.

So I told it… probably fifteen times throughout the day.

I returned to regular programming and kept my job for a few more months before I finally gave in to the extreme hours.

A few months later, I was living at home when I received an unexpected phone call.

It was the owner of the bus company.

He said that he had seen the footage, heard the reports and wanted to call and thank me for my bravery. He was eternally grateful for my actions and asked if I required anything as compensation for my effort. I quickly said no; I was just happy that it was over and that nothing really bad had happened to anyone.

It was nice to get that call and be reminded of the courage I displayed—knowing that I had done the right thing was enough of a reward.

In the years since, I have tried to remain that person.

Choosing as often as possible to run toward the fire, instead of away from it. In every difficult situation, we have a choice: courage or cowardice.

To be clear, I do not consider any of the passengers on that bus cowards. They were too small and powerless to do anything. The only person who was big enough or capable enough to do anything was me; the responsibility fell to me, and I chose to own that responsibility.

In reality, it felt like I had no choice. But I did. We always do.

I had no idea that I was capable of courage.

Until that morning, it wasn’t something I’d ever shown or even knew I had. I was a scared kid trying to survive my own demons.

But when the moment came, I stood up. Not because I was brave. Because no one else could.

They say not all heroes wear capes.

And some don’t even know they’re heroes until the moment arrives.

That was me. Unsuspecting, unwilling, but ultimately unfazed when the rubber met the road.

Didn’t know I was a hero til I had to play the part.

With gratitude,

SAV

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And if everyone were successful, then success wouldn’t really feel like success. It would feel like the baseline, the equilibrium.

Therefore, success needs to be hard to obtain.

It needs to feel special.

You need to know deep down that it was earned, not given. Otherwise it feels, well… insignificant.

In order to earn it, you have to give everything.

You have to be unrelenting.

You need to be willing to leave no stone unturned…

Let’s Define Success

Firstly, I just want to be clear—success is not necessarily a number.

It’s not necessarily an action or a goal.

It’s a feeling.

It’s the knowledge deep down that you walked a path that no one else was willing to walk to get something that no one else was willing to try for.

Too often, our society rewards mediocrity, concedes to privilege or bends to the chorus of voices exclaiming that they are deserving when, in reality, they are just louder than those around them.

This is not success.

This is not you.

You know that you have been successful whether you achieve the goal or not because you can peer into your soul and breathe a sigh of relief that you stood tall in the face of adversity.

That is success.

The unwavering truth that you are him.

It’s something that can never, ever, be taken away from you.

And these five rules will help get you there:

1. Don’t Concede

This one seems pretty straightforward, but I promise you it is not.

For most of us, the idea of success is not achieved simply because we gave up.

Don’t let that be you.

The finish line is there to will you toward the end, not to encourage you to rest on what you have achieved.

Everything worth having feels the hardest right before it ends.

Think about lifting weights… the first two reps are easy, the next eight become progressively harder, the second-to-last one is tough, and if you’re doing it right, the last rep feels like death.

That last rep is arguably the most important.

You are pushing the limitations of your muscles and expanding their capacity.

The job is not done at reps one to eleven. It’s done at rep twelve.

2. Don’t Assume

“What’s the point of doing X when I’ve already tried Y?”

I don’t know, but neither do you.

When you are pushing yourself to succeed, never make assumptions about the right course of action.

That’s fear talking.

Trying to succeed requires non-linear thinking. You are not doing the ordinary. You are going to a place that you have never been before, so, logically, you are entering uncharted territory.

There’s no rulebook.

Make a decision > act > assess > iterate > try again.

Don’t let fear rule you. Be brave, march forward into the unknown and dare to be brilliant.

3. Don’t Cut Corners

Success doesn’t come with any actual rules (except the ones you hold for yourself).

Never compromise your values or standards to attain a goal or a number; you are only lying to yourself.

That is not success.

Think about the great names that have cut corners to gain success:

• Lance Armstrong—Tour De France king who was stripped of his wins and internationally shamed for taking performance-enhancing drugs throughout the peak of his career.

• Sam Bankman-Fried—FTX founder and crypto entrepreneur who was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for fraud and the loss of $8-10 billion USD worth of investments.

• Elizabeth Holmes—the disgraced founder of health tech startup Theranos, whose self-aggrandising built a web of lies and deceit to account for her astronomical valuations and investments, and was eventually sentenced to eleven years in prison.

• Marion Jones—Olympic sprinter and athletics pin-up girl from the early 2000s who was eventually stripped of three gold and two bronze medals from the Sydney Olympic Games after confessing to doping in 2007.

It might feel good in the moment, but the truth will always come out.

All of the people listed above were already brilliant in their own right. All they had to do was stay the course, not cut corners and be comfortable with where the chips would eventually fall.

If you cut corners, you open the door for history to tell a very different story of your efforts.

4. Don’t Complain

Let me reiterate… success is not for everyone.

Some are comfortable with mediocrity, with coasting, with taking the easy route. Leave the complaining to them.

That is not you.

If you have chosen to chase success, don’t complain about outcomes.

Complaining about things outside of your control is something that the Stoics often wrote about. We control our inputs, our actions. Not the outcomes or reactions. Those are for fate (or the gods) to administer.

If you are chasing something that you have chosen, do it with honour.

Do it with your chest out.

Every hurdle you fall over is just data for your future attempts. You knew the risks when you signed up, so tackle the work with a calm and confident demeanour until it is complete.

5. Don’t Regret

If you didn’t concede.

If you made no assumptions.

If you cut no corners and held true to yourself.

If you weren’t heard complaining while you did the work.

If you left no stone unturned—went to sleep proud of your effort—and still came up short.

Then take a deep breath and let it go. No time for regret; that is wasted energy.

Whether you like to admit it or not, you are successful.

This is what success looks like.

In the words of Marcus…

“Accept humbly: let go easily.”

That’s it from me this week, champs.

With gratitude,

SAV

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After eighteen months on the sidelines due to a back surgery—he walked into the cage against one of the most dangerous men in Australian MMA and walked out the Welterweight king.

Five rounds of war. A packed Geelong crowd. Redemption.

The build-up was excellent, the fight was insane, the win was special, and the scenes were epic, but it was Sam’s post-fight interview that really caught my attention.

And it really got me thinking… what does it mean to be a champion?

The story of Sam and me

Sam Marles is a mixed martial artist fighting out of Absolute MMA in Melbourne, Australia.

I first met Sam in late 2022 when I signed up for an amateur fight night at a local boxing gym. Sam was a part-time coach at the gym who was slowly building his reputation in the Australian MMA ranks.

He coached me through an 8-week fight camp that culminated in my first and only fight, and although I didn’t get the win on the night, I uncovered self-belief and strength through that period that changed the trajectory of my life.

That experience led me to The People’s Champ mentality that I later turned into a music project and have since made a part of my identity.

Since then, Sam and I have shared many deep conversations, both recorded and at the end of a big night.

In our first podcast chat in 2023, the theme was finding your obsession.

Our podcast in 2024 touched on developing the mental side of the game and working with a performance coach.

In our most recent conversation (2026), Sam explored the lessons he had taken from his last two fights and how he had learned the value of removing expectations and simply trusting the process.

I’ve seen Sam grow into a complete fighter and mature as a human being. He’s an outstanding and passionate coach who I am glad to call a friend.

The Rise of Sam Marles

Sam has always been a pure striker.

His golf game was good enough to take him to the pro ranks until he hung up the clubs to turn to a different form of striking in his late teens/early twenties, and after getting a taste of martial arts, he hasn’t looked back.

Fighting out of one of the most respected combat sports gyms in Australia (Absolute MMA), Sam has been surrounded by greatness from the outset—with highly decorated athletes like Lachlan Giles, Jack Jenkins (UFC), Kaan Ofli (UFC), Lisa Kyriacou, Joe Luciano and Connor Evans all playing a role in his development.

Sam’s amateur journey finished with a 5-2 record before going pro in 2023.

His first two professional wins came with a certain level of ease, setting him up for a showdown with fellow surging welterweight contender Max Kelly in mid-2024.

The fight started strong, with Sam winning the first and seemingly dominating the second. Then something changed. A few moments didn’t go his way, and the pressure started mounting as expectations diverged from reality.

In the blink of an eye, the fight changed, and the dominant start was rendered worthless as he tapped to a rear-naked choke.

That loss hurt, but Sam credits the lessons learned for a change in his approach:

• Trusting the process

• Learning to remove expectations

• Taking the pressure off during camps

• Going deeper on the mindset of a champion

• Putting the love of art back into mixed martial arts

The changes instantly paid off as he earned himself a fight of the year victory over a precision striker in Nate Law at Eternal 95 last year.

What was so special about the win was that the fight wasn’t going Sam’s way. He was dropped badly in round one and seemed to be behind early, but he dug deep, changed the range and started taking over until a colossal right hand ended the fight midway through the third round.

Sam’s reaction said everything about what that moment meant for him.

He dropped to his knees and allowed the emotion to pour out of him. He made the necessary adjustments and got the reward. The reward was not the victory; it was the knowledge that his will was not broken and that his mentality held.

That win put him right back in the mix.

The Championship Moment

Although he spent the rest of 2025 and early 2026 recovering from back surgery, the win over Law, movement in the division and his constant presence in the MMA community kept him top of mind for promoters.

A few months ago, he was announced to fight Loni Filimoehala in Geelong for the Welterweight title at Eternal 109.

Sam is a Geelong boy, and he knew he would be headlining in front of a packed home arena, but he welcomed the moment, and in front of his friends and family, he delivered in what ended up being a five-round war with Loni.

It was an insane back-and-forth affair that was genuinely hard to judge.

Sam had the crowd behind him, but Loni had a dog in him that not many in Australian MMA could match. Loni fed off the jeers from the opposing fans and continued to do damage to Sam’s face as well as have success in the grappling exchanges.

Sam’s work on Loni’s calf was evident early, forcing the Tongan warrior to fight out of his non-dominant stance for big portions of the first three rounds.

With no knowledge of how the judges had scored the first three, Sam turned to the hands, pouring on a slick display of boxing in rounds four and five as Loni’s compromised leg made it increasingly more difficult to evade the combinations.

After 25 minutes of war, both men were battered and bruised—a fight truly fitting for the headline slot.

The Geelong stadium erupted as Sam was announced the new Welterweight king.

In front of his family. In front of a packed hometown arena, with the entire Aussie MMA world watching on in anticipation, Sam stood tall, showed his superstar credentials and claimed his title.

He had done it—redemption!

Spoken Like a Champ

This is all well and good; of course it’s nice to see your friends succeed… my partner especially was grateful to hear the fight finish after listening to me scream at my laptop for 25 minutes from the next room.

The fight was good, the victory was special, but the moment that stood tall for me was Sam’s post-fight interview with Australian MMA.

In the brief chat, Sam revealed the depth of his championship qualities.

He started the conversation by talking about how big the moment was for him and his self-belief:

Going on to talk about how he wanted this experience.

How he needed this experience, this pressure, to be put in front of the bright lights to see what he was really made of:

Throughout the chat, you can feel the poise, the assuredness—he knew what work he had done, and he was rewarded for it.

That doesn’t always happen.

We don’t always get rewarded for our work. Sometimes the only reward is the work itself, the commitment to our craft and the person we become in the process.

He did show up.

Win, lose or draw, Sam knew that he had given everything and was prepared to accept whatever result was handed down.

That’s what a champion does: they do the work that no one else wants to do, and they don’t let the outcomes define them. They know that they cannot control outcomes, only themselves.

If you do that often enough over a lifetime, you are more likely to succeed.

Final Thoughts

Sam has always had the athleticism. He has been surrounded by winners from day one, and his skills in martial arts have always been present; he just had to get out of his own way and remove the expectations that come from being a talented athlete.

Those expectations were not his; they belonged to everyone else.

Falling in love with the process and becoming obsessed with improvement (not victory) is what separates the good from the great.

Sam’s figured it out.

This version of Sam Marles is something special. If he can match his crisp striking, championship mentality and world-class training environment with an injury-free run and a bit of luck, the sky is the limit for Marlito.

I’m proud of the fighter he is. I’m prouder of the champion—inside the cage and out—that he’s become.

That’s it for me this week, champs.

With gratitude,

SAV

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I fell in love with it—fast.

Every part of the craft had its place, and I enjoyed it all. The spiel, the silence, the cadence, dialling without expectation, the art of handling a no without letting it dent you. All of it.

But there was one part I quickly gained respect for…

The line in the sand ask.

It’s a part of sales that separates the high achievers from the mediocre.

But it’s more than a concept in sales; it’s a strategy for how to approach life, how to manage people and how to value yourself.

Ask For The Sale

To make a sale, you have to ask for the sale.

Pretty straightforward, right?

Well, not for everyone.

Surprisingly, a lot of people can’t/won’t do it. I couldn’t at first. You spend all this time solving a problem for someone only to get to the edge and flinch.

Eventually you build up the courage and confidence to ask.

Then you are met with another challenge, as the prospect meets you with one of four responses:

1. Hard yes

2. Hard no

3. Objection

4. Weak yes

The hard yes we like; that’s a sale. The hard no we also like; that’s someone who is not going to waste our time. They are clean conversations that have an obvious outcome.

An objection is fine as well. They are not always clean, but we have systems for managing them. Objections are typically automated responses to an underlying fear or question that hasn’t been answered.

It’s the weak yes that you should be terrified of.

The “let me think about it.”

“Oh, it sounds good, but I’m not quite sure.”

The person who won’t commit and won’t walk away.

You want the sale, and they are too polite to walk away, so it now becomes your job to help them make the decision.

You need to draw the line.

Drawing A Line

If you do your job (ie. gone through pitch and asked for the sale) and the prospect doesn’t seem sold, you have to pivot quickly.

Do not deliberate or beg.

Handle any objections, work the value back in, tie the value to the initial motivation and soothe any concerns.

If they are still floating, pondering, stalling, then it’s on you to act.

Now is the time to draw a line in the sand…

“No stress either way, but is it a yes or a no?”

Now you go quiet, let the silence do the work. Allow space for the dots to connect, sit back and let them choose—and you make peace with whatever they pick.

Once they have made the decision, you thank them and move on.

See, when I first started out, I thought this concept was about winning. I thought it was designed to help me get more sales or power.

But it’s not. It’s about respect.

A decision, any decision is the goal for a salesperson. Not a sale.

When you don’t manufacture a decision, it’s not because you’re being kind or respectful; it’s generally because you’re being weak. You’re afraid of putting on pressure and not being liked, so you avoid it.

I say "weak" because the indecision is what slowly kills us.

It kills our time, our motivation, and our momentum.

I’ve spent the last two years watching this play out. In myself first, then in others as I moved into leading a team. It’s always the same story. The moment someone goes soft on the ask, it’s never about the other person. It’s the salesperson (you, me, everyone) wanting to protect themselves from the answer.

The kindest thing you can do is make the choice binary and then get out of the way.

Application To Life

Over time, I have come to see the line in the sand ask as a metaphor for how to conduct myself with other human beings.

You see indecision everywhere:

• Putting off event invites

• Not hanging out with friends

• Failure to act on an opportunity

• Going too far down the wrong path

• Overstaying welcomes in relationships

• Forcing yourself to show up to a job you hate

People don’t know what they want, so they struggle to speak freely. They don’t know how to communicate what they feel. They’ll dance around a decision for weeks because staying undecided feels safer than committing to being wrong.

Most people are secretly hoping someone else makes the hard call for them.

Be the one who draws the line. Not to corner them. To free them.

It’s not about owning someone, or getting what you want. It’s about getting a decision that allows both of you to move on.

No does not equal a loss. No = progress.

It’s simply data collection.

We don’t control people, events, situations. Only how we react to them. You control the ask, the effort, the standard you hold yourself to… the answer, though, was never yours to begin with.

Getting bitter about a no is about as useful as tits on a bull.

Remember, good friend, that many more dreams have died from procrastination than from failure. Failure at least hands you something to work with. Indecision bleeds you of your most precious resource, time.

So, love the decision. Whatever it is.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve done your job:

1. Presented the idea

2. Built the trust

3. Made the case

4. Handled the pushback

5. Sat in the discomfort

And you still don’t have an answer—draw the line!

Don’t get bitter, or annoyed, or frustrated.

Because if you do, it’s probably a truer reflection of yourself and your inability to manage expectations.

Whether in life or in sales, people are going to stall. Your job is not to get your way; it’s not to get a yes. Your job is to get a decision. That reframe buys you back a whole heap of time and energy—trust me.

If it’s a no, then it’s a no. And that’s completely fine.

Make the ask. Get the decision. Be grateful for it. Move on.

Your job is done.

That’s it from me this week, gang.

With gratitude,

SAV

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Not in terms of engagement or audience growth.

But in simply posting the bloody things.

I trialled a few workarounds and used some apps before eventually saying ‘eff it’ and building my own scheduling tool in Claude Code… only for my go-to scheduling tool, Typefully, to ship a Substack Notes update just days later 🤦‍♂️.

It was a bittersweet moment.

The sense of accomplishment wrestled with my own feeling of frustration that I had waited so long and the simultaneous relief that the problem had been solved.

That moment taught me some beautiful lessons.

Some ancient, some not so, but all increasingly more relevant.

Context

I have been writing newsletters and posting short-form content for years.

Since 2022, I have written 150+ newsletters, 100ish long-form posts (threads etc) and close to 1000 pieces of short-form writing (tweets, single ideas).

I love it.

This is my way of working through ideas, expressing my thoughts and hopefully sharing some knowledge and insight for those just behind me.

Most of that writing has been done on X and through newsletter platforms like Kit, but over the last 12 months I have made a genuine effort to write consistently and potentially even grow my Substack audience.

This year alone I have written 44 newsletters!

I knew that posting notes and engaging with the Substack community would help my efforts, so I tried to do more.

But kept getting stuck.

For some time, Substack made it difficult to schedule short-form content.

Working full time and creating any content is tricky enough, but having to post lots of content throughout the week without the time to do it every day was proving very, very difficult.

My tool of choice for posting to X/Threads was Typefully, but they had not built out a Notes feature. So I was stuck trialling different workarounds.

• First, I tried writing them all in my Apple Notes once a week and then manually posting each day.

• Then I tried a popular tool called Writestack, which was great, but I couldn’t justify the spend on something that was not earning anything.

• In March this year, Substack rolled out native Notes scheduling, which was solid but not the best in terms of UX.

Then, after some great interactions and conversations with a colleague at work, I finally decided to pull the trigger.

Solution

One morning a week or so ago, I sat down with my coffee and said ‘enough is enough’.

Despite my reservations (none of which had any grounding in reality), I dove headfirst into Claude Code and started tinkering away on my own solution.

Two things were happening concurrently to force this action:

1. I got my first paid subscriber on Substack and wanted to go harder on my writing.

2. My new role as a campaign manager was chewing up more and more time.

I needed to build something that would make the process easier.

So I did.

Claude and I went back and forth, and in a few short hours, I was done.

A simple scheduling tool that I was able to launch from Claude Code, schedule all of my Notes for the week and then carry on with life’s more pressing demands.

Super straightforward, with all of the key features I needed:

1. Easy deletion

2. Week vs month view

3. Drag & drop rescheduling

4. Simple note creation button

5. No bells and/or whistles to be found

It’s not perfect, but I made it, and I am proud of that fact.

I had a problem, and I solved it.

Typefully Update

A few days later (literally 3 days), my favourite scheduling tool decided to release an update featuring Substack Notes scheduling.

I have been using Typefully on and off for 2-3 years.

Simple. Elegant. No fluff.

The main writing page is something I have genuinely enjoyed using to create.

Typefully was/is great, but the lack of Substack Notes was something that had brought up some resistance inside of me.

Not just to Typefully, but to Substack and the whole idea of going all-in.

It’s the resistance that Steven Pressfield talks about.

That gnawing feeling that you could/should be doing more, but continually find ways to delay your potential, as it is easier to compensate with the excuse that everything is just too difficult etc.

Blah blah blah!

I let resistance stop me from finding a solution, until I didn’t, but by then the goalposts had moved.

And here are my abstract takeaways from this experience…

Takeaways

1. No One Is Coming to Save You

For months I let the resistance win.

It lingered inside of me as I patiently waited for someone to solve my problem, but no one was coming.

And that’s the thing—they never are…

Every time we feel resistance, whether financially, mentally, emotionally, creatively or physically, we must meet it. We need to meet it head-on, acknowledge it and find a way through.

You can’t be complacent.

You can’t let it win, especially not now.

2. Act Now, Build Fast

Part of not letting the resistance win is taking action.

In this scenario, I had ample time to take massive action, build something, iterate and then build something better.

Instead of delaying for months, wasting time and opportunity, I could’ve been creating.

All it would’ve taken was to build something ie. to act.

The reason is twofold:

1. Act = action creates energy, and energy builds momentum.

2. Fast = implies adherence to the rules of the game, the game being the one we all play every day… life—a life that is increasingly governed by AI proficiency.

You’re always going to have great ideas; don’t wait on them.

Don’t delay because the timing isn’t right.

Do the thing. Act now. Build fast, and if you must, build some more.

3. Create Workflows, Not Tools

One thing I had seen floating around in AI content was the idea of building workflows over the tools.

Basically, don’t waste time on a new app that is just a UX wrapper for an LLM.

The reason…

This space and technology are moving too quickly. Your idea is likely to become obsolete in months or weeks.

The solution…

Build the workflows with ready-available tools.

But why?

Because things are moving insanely fast and you’re only one update or one failed math class away from someone building the exact same thing with slightly more features at a slightly lower price point.

On the other hand, with the right workflows/agents and systems, you become infinitely more powerful and much harder to replace.

Tools and software will come and go.

But having a fundamental understanding of systems, structure, workflows and how everything fits together requires taste, logic and perseverance. All of which are much harder to replicate.

4. Be Proud of What You Achieve (But Always Expect More)

Despite the tsunami of emotions that this adventure caused, I was grateful for it.

Knowing that I had the potential to solve my own problem, but delaying the actions required before finally doing the work to solve the problem, and then having it made redundant in a matter of moments, has been humbling to say the least.

I did eventually overcome the resistance and do the thing. I’m proud of that.

I’m aware that this is likely to happen again. I will be ready.

In combat sports, coaches and experts will talk about ‘taking the space’. Basically, it means to press forward into the vacant space in front of you in order to press an advantage or manipulate the momentum of a fight.

Throughout this experience, I didn’t take the space.

I played too defensively, missed an opportunity and had to adjust. Life, like combat sports, requires you to march forward, take and protect your advantage.

It’s much harder to perform well on the back foot.

Final Thoughts

I don’t really have anything too profound, just that it was a funny sequence of events that I wanted to share. Comical even.

I spose the main takeaway is to remember your own power.

You can do anything… if you really want to.

Whatever you are resisting right now, find a way to confront and overcome it.

Resistance told me that building my own tool was too hard, too technical, something that other people do. Resistance was wrong—like it always is.

So, next time the space opens up in front of me, I’m taking it.

No hesitation. No waiting.

No one’s coming to save me; thank the AI overlords for that!!

That’s it from me.

With gratitude,

SAV

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It also took my dream. I was going to be a club pro. Golf was my whole identity—and in one moment, it was gone.

Eventually I grew up, moved to Melbourne, and sold my clubs.

I thought I had left the game for good.

Last Saturday, for the first time in four years, I picked up a club again.

And it taught me four things I didn’t see coming (pun most certainly intended).

Introduction

Over the last 18 months, I have worked a lot.

Late nights, early mornings, taking call-backs on Sundays. I worked almost every Saturday (outside of funerals and holidays), as well as plenty of unpaid overtime every single night.

I could genuinely count the Saturdays I have had off on one hand.

Over the weekend, I reached a new milestone—my first Saturday with no work, by choice!

I took a Saturday off to play golf. A whole Saturday where I did not look at my work laptop at all. Probably the first time since starting at this company in December 2024.

This version of me was unfathomable for the majority of my life.

No, really.

I spent so long cutting corners and doing the least, simply cruising through life. But in these last 2 years, I have let go of that person. I found a job that I liked and that I was good at, and I spent every spare second improving my skills, working hard and most importantly, pushing myself to hit my sales number every month.

This effort and dedication seemed a little extreme to anyone watching from the outside, but I knew that it was a crucial ingredient to set myself apart. I also knew that this workload was only temporary.

The most interesting part is that I was invited (essentially forced) to take the day off by my boss!

Through accepting this invitation, I was reminded of some very important lessons.

Context

I used to be an obsessed golfer—like, obsessed obsessed!

Back in 2004/05, golf was my entire identity. I had visions of practicing every day and training up to become a club pro on the Gold Coast. I would play every day and night. Before school, after school and for the entire weekend.

A sudden and traumatic accident crushed my momentum.

I was struck in the eye with a golf ball at point-blank range. The ball was very close to taking my life (and my eye). Thankfully, I kept both, but I developed a fear of the game that severely hampered my ability to practice freely.

My dreams were cut short before they could begin.

After a small hiatus, I restarted the obsession in my late teens. Now in a different town, with a fresh start, I was able to play freely.

My love for the game returned, and I got pretty good (playing off a 3 handicap), but something was missing. Before the accident, my golf obsession had a purpose. It had direction. I had a goal pulling me forward.

I had great clubs, an awesome club where I honed my craft every day, but I felt lost.

Slowly, life got in the way. I moved to Melbourne in search of a new start, sold my clubs and left golf behind, possibly forever.

The Invitation

The head of sales training and my manager were talking about playing golf.

I mentioned I used to play a bit.

When I told them what handicap I played off, they were in disbelief at first, and then excitement. They asked me to join them for a game.

I said that I hadn’t played in four years, and more importantly, I had to work.

They immediately (but carefully) pushed back.

“You don’t have to work Saturdays, you know… come join us, take the day off, it’ll be fun”

I hesitated.

Two of the more senior people in the company are insisting I take the day off. This is not something I had really considered an option.

Since joining my current company, I’ve moved roles/campaigns four times.

Throughout this time, however, the person managing me has been constant. Whether by coincidence, luck or design, I have had the same manager the whole time, as he has also changed role/campaign several times.

He’s seen how hard I have worked. He’s seen my dedication and was a big factor in me being considered and eventually accepted as a campaign manager.

So when he insisted I take the day off to play, it was a really nice moment for me.

My hard work had been recognised and seen.

It was ok to enjoy the fruits of my labour.

So I said yes.

The Lessons

As you guys know by now, I’m always looking for the lessons.

What is an event or situation trying to teach me?

This golf game and moment to be enjoyed has come after a few years of really hard work, and I think 4 lessons stand out:

1. Work Hard Without Expectation

My effort over the last two years has been unmatched.

As I mentioned earlier, working hard simply because it is what I wanted to do was the decision I made and kept making. Doing the hard yards that no one else was willing to do is the brand I have created for myself.

I did all of that and will continue to do that without any expectation.

My motto was simple: work hard and trust the process.

For most of my life, I was the epitome of stop/start. Perpetually taking two steps forward and one step backward.

Now it’s different; I’m different.

I want to work hard. I want to be seen as reliable and dedicated. I never planned to take any time away from work, not until I had properly earned my stripes…

And over the weekend, that moment arrived.

2. Love Is Complicated

I used to love golf. I lost that love.

I struggled with the idea of returning to a game that I had given so much to. A game that I would never be as good at ever again.

Knowing what I was once capable of, and what I could now muster, is tormenting.

But that’s what love does…

It has the potential to torment with endless possibilities.

What could’ve and should’ve been. What it currently is. The distance between these things will always create doubt, but that doubt can just as easily be replaced by love.

Love can be unconditional.

Love can have no expectations or boundaries.

And with that in mind, I try to love the game for what it is. Not what it was or what it could be, but what it offers me here and now.

3. Stop And Smell The Roses

One thing that I especially wanted to focus on in the back half of 2026 is my social life.

I have worked hard to earn my spot at this company, but it was time to get out, start socialising, and enjoy life a little more.

A friend recently brought this to my attention. It also came up in my mid-year audit.

This game, this invitation, this experience were an opportunity to do that.

So I accepted the invite.

Despite that little voice in my head telling me to say no, spend the day indoors, catching up on work, I said yes.

I took a chance, played a game and strengthened my work relationships.

And have zero regrets.

4. Nature Heals All

We had planned to hire motorised carts; when we arrived, they were all taken.

That left us needing to hire pull buggies, load our bags onto them, and drag our clubs around on foot for the day.

We played 18 holes in roughly 4 hours (pretty solid time).

It was great for the body, being able to get steps in and traverse the terrain, but the opportunity to soak up the sun and enjoy being bathed in nature was a huge win that cannot be overstated.

Being in nature is gorgeous. The wind, the tree lines, and the sun all added to an already great experience.

It’s easy to forget how powerful something so simple can be.

I traded a dark home office for a sun-soaked natural playground and recharged my mind and body in a powerful way that I had not accounted for.

Final Thoughts

I shot a 91.

Not great. Not bad for a bloke who hadn’t swung a club in four years. The power and striking were still there—the finesse wasn’t. They say touch is the last thing to come back. The finesse always takes the longest.

Honestly, that feels pretty accurate for most things in life.

The day was great. The course was really nice, and the company was outstanding. We laughed, talked shit and really got to bond. It was perfect.

I returned home, exhausted but fulfilled.

I don’t know if I’ll play again anytime soon. But that’s not really the point.

The point is I took the day. I said yes. I let myself enjoy something I’d earned, and that felt pretty bloody good!

Alright gang, that’s it from me…

Catch ya next week!!!

With gratitude,

SAV

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I still haven’t answered them.

I spose that I thought I didn’t need them, but a part of me was worried about what might come up if I did. One question in particular had a kernel of truth inside of it that I had been avoiding for 20 years.

It’s time to face the music…

A little over a year ago, I sparked up a conversation with a bloke at the gym.

That conversation turned into a friendship that’s blossomed nicely. Our personalities and interests were very aligned, but I also started to see him as a bit of a role model.

Only marginally older than me, but with all the indicators of a life I was still working toward:

• A strong/healthy body

• A successful business owner

• A long-term, committed, loving relationship

But most importantly, I knew he had seen some shit.

I knew, like me, that he’d overcome battles no one knew about. That he’d gone to war with his internal self and come out victorious. Regardless of his success, this made him relatable and someone I could trust.

He had an intimate relationship with the shadow realm, and knowledge of how to escape it.

So when we sat down a few months back to catch up and talk about my persistent struggles, and he presented these questions, I was all ears.

Then I sat on them.

Maybe I thought I was beyond the questions. That their relevance had worn off and I’d be fine if I didn’t answer them. Maybe I was scared of what would come out of me if I really sat down to think.

I’ve concluded that these questions are partly for me, but mostly for someone else.

Some quick context

At 16, I was obsessed with golf.

I genuinely thought I could and would turn pro. Then in 2004, after a freak accident on the driving range almost cost me my life, the dream was over before it began.

My parents sued the golf club. In 2008, we settled out of court.

I was awarded a $90k payout as a 19-year-old fresh out of high school. I moved to the big city, got a job at Star Casino and managed to convince my parents I needed the money to start playing poker full time.

I probably lasted 6 months before I’d gambled every cent and didn’t even have enough to cover rent.

Moved back in with my parents. Started a 10-year cycle of depression, gambling, drinking, partying, late nights and escapism.

Around 2016, I went to uni, found drugs and took the escapism in a different direction.

Up until 2022, I mostly continued the same behaviours on a loop. Partying, avoidance, lying, cheating, anger, depression, heavy drinking, no consistency, no responsibility. No concern for who I hurt along the way.

Then I found Marcus, Stoicism, gratitude and self-help content.

I started to see who I truly was, how I’d behaved and what I could do to change it all. When I finally decided to start again for the last time, I was 32.

Now I’m 37, in love, have a job I’m passionate about and create daily.

My life has arrived at a place I never thought possible. The love and happiness I feel every single day is immense.

I still feel the gnawing of the shadow realm. Not as regularly. But it’s still there.

These questions are partly a way to hold me accountable to myself and the life I’ve created. An attempt to stave off regression and the descent back into the darkness.

But they’re also for someone who might still be in the thick of it. Fighting skirmishes daily with their intrusive thoughts and their lower self.

So here they are.

1. What feeling am I trying to medicate?

Hard to really pinpoint, but I’ll give it a crack.

The feeling is most likely a deep-rooted self-loathing. Almost like I don’t believe I deserve to be happy and have a good life, so I turn to risk-taking behaviour to distract and numb me from those thoughts.

I want to be free from the shame of who I am.

Blowing things up, destroying my life and giving people a reason to be ashamed of me is easier than confronting the shame I already feel inside.

2. When did I first feel this?

There are a few things that could be the starting point.

• Fear of my own mortality

• Constant movement and disruption as a kid

• The death of my dream to be a professional golfer

But the one that stands out most is a moment at a house party in 2006, when I was 17.

I grew up in a Catholic household. Church every Sunday. Committed Christian with a very active role in youth groups and volunteering outfits.

When I was 12, I took a vow of chastity and signed a card with my commitment, which I kept in my wallet everywhere I went. I’d vowed to God I would save my virginity until marriage, only then giving it to the person I’d spend the rest of my life with.

Of course it was an easy promise to make as a pre-pubescent child. But I wore it like a badge of honour through my early high-school years.

While everyone else was being thrown off course by the wonders of sex in grade eight, nine and ten, I remained steady.

I felt like an individual. I was proud of my commitment and my resilience.

Thankfully, my willpower wasn’t tested too often, but regardless, it was intact and formed a big part of my identity.

That was until the party.

Just before it, I’d moved schools. My new friends had all lost their virginities and didn’t particularly like that I wielded my celibacy card with such pride. They thought it was stupid. Or maybe it made them feel stupid. Either way, they wanted me to be like them.

So they hatched a plan.

In the lead-up to the party, they gave a task to a girl. She was one of the more promiscuous in our year group, and the task was simple: take my virginity.

At the party, the guys helped get me super drunk. Although I didn’t need too much help with that. They assumed correctly that the lubrication would loosen my standards.

Then they shoved me in a room where the girl was waiting, turned the lights off and held the door closed from the other side. Stuck in a room with a girl in a skimpy outfit making advances while I sheepishly sat there full of cheap wine and hormones—I didn’t stand a chance.

The next morning I strolled out into the lounge room where the hungover brigade had gathered to share war stories from the night before.

They turned their attention to me. Anticipating my reaction.

I stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by these ‘friends’ of mine, and without a word pulled my wallet from my pocket. I removed the chastity card, held it up, and in an act of acceptance and surrender, tore it in half.

They applauded me. Bellowed cheers of approval. Gathered around to pat me on the back and reinforce the confusion and shame that had just spawned inside of me.

If I had to put the feeling down to one single thing, it’s that moment.

I betrayed God. But more importantly, I betrayed myself.

3. What do I want to do to act out?

Acting out has taken many shapes and sizes over the years.

• Two-day gambling binges

• Spending every last cent at the roulette table

• Drinking excessively and avoiding important tasks

• Going out 5 nights in a row and foregoing responsibilities

• Blowing up large sums of cash because I can’t emotionally regulate

• Taking more party supplies than necessary and staying up until I pass out

Most of these I have a firm grip on. The ones that still plague me from time to time are gambling and alcohol.

Previously, my acting out would be complete blow-ups. Total devastation of friendships, relationships and finances. Quitting jobs. Losing partners. Not being able to pay rent.

Proper degenerate behaviour.

Nowadays it comes in the form of 4 pints of Balter XPA and a $200 whirl on the brickie’s laptop.

I have far more control than I ever have, because the stakes are so much higher now. But I want to get to a place where these minor regressions have no place in my life whatsoever.

The itch won’t ever feel thoroughly scratched until I address the root cause.

4. What are some healthy alternatives?

A few things have helped me build healthier behaviours, but I’m always searching for more, because the journey isn’t over.

1. Creating — podcasts, writing, music

2. Exercise — boxing, gym and MMA have helped a lot

3. Learning — gaining knowledge and perspective by studying content

4. Responsibility — taking on a new role, pushing myself to evolve and work hard

5. Love — being in love and finding someone to commit to wholeheartedly gives me a steadiness that makes everything easier

These all keep me sane and on track. But I think I need something more specific. Something that ties directly to the behaviour and redirects it until new neural pathways are built.

For a long time the answer was the gym.

Even after a long day. Even if I’d already been that day. When I felt the gnawing, the itch asking to be scratched, I’d just go to the gym. Regardless of the time or how long I stayed.

Sweating, endorphins pumping, moving the body. Very healthy alternative.

But there’s another one I probably haven’t given enough credit to.

Naming it.

Actually stopping. Feeling the feeling. Writing it down. Diarising when I felt it, what the circumstances were, how long it lasted. Creating some data. Picking up on trends I could preempt next time.

And as I write this out, I reckon this is the solution.

For a long time I’ve gotten really good at reflecting (acting out, then reviewing after the fact) and not good at all at writing in the moment, while the feeling is still raw.

That’s it!!

Feel it in the moment and get it down on paper and out of my body.

1. What is the feeling?

2. What are the circumstances present?

3. What would be the consequences of acting on the feeling?

4. How can I use the energy from that feeling to do something positive?

Simple. Elegant. Powerful (hopefully).

Would you look at that, I just effed around and wrote my way to an answer I’ve been avoiding for months.

Wild!

Anyway, I think that’s it from me.

If you’re still in the thick of it, answer these four questions and see what comes up.

Take them, own them and answer them honestly. After all, they are not mine. They were handed to me by a mate who was on the other side of his own internal war, but I’m so grateful that they were gifted to me.

Because now I am gifting them to you.

LFG!!!

With gratitude,

SAV

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After a five-year layoff, many inside the UFC orbit were excited about the return of the former 2-division champion (who had a rapid rise to fame between 2015-2020).

But not everyone was excited…

Conor had made some incredibly poor decisions during the height of his career and throughout his hiatus, inciting a lot of disgust in the broader community for his continued poor behaviour. His ego grew so large that he acted with impunity, causing harm and polarising people everywhere he went.

After spending years as the UFC’s poster child, Conor very quickly descended from inspirational to insane.

Someone who MMA fighters and fans alike credit for their introduction to the sport had now become one of the most unlikeable characters in the world. His ego and antics transcended martial arts both as an icon and as a villain.

The fight at UFC 329 against Max Holloway ended quickly.

Conor blew his knee out attempting a jumping switch kick in his very first movement. Once the knee was compromised, he was a sitting duck against the speed of Holloway, with the fight being called off after just 70 seconds.

And just like that, the comeback was over.

Everyone on planet Earth has had something to say about this man in the days following… disappointment, hate, indifference, etc.

Whatever your take, this moment is very illustrative of the responsibility we all have to our current and future selves, as well as what is possible when we shirk that responsibility.

So, here’s mine:

The Tumultuous Rise

Throughout the mid-late 2010s, Conor McGregor became synonymous with 2 things: mixed martial arts & ego.

To be a professional athlete, you need to be confident in your abilities, but to become a world-class mixed martial artist… you need to possess the kind of confidence, resilience and single-mindedness that most people cannot comprehend.

Conor broke the mould.

His ability to manifest and manufacture his destiny was like nothing my generation had ever seen before.

The same way that Eminem had inspired millions to put pen to pad in the early 2000s, Conor gave hope to kids across the world who were looking for a better life, showing them what was possible through martial arts.

However, his rise, fame and celebrity were always in question due to his inability to restrain the ego.

His constant indiscretions presented a picture of a man whose superpower and kryptonite were in coexistence. Conor had spent all of his life converting the body into a weapon and the mind into a fortress, but almost no time attempting to heal the heart or cleanse the soul.

The infractions ranged from lighthearted to abhorrent, but no less consistent:

1. Racism and homophobia (2017) — Accused of racist remarks toward Mayweather ("dance for me, boy"); caught using a slur at a UFC Glasgow event.

2. Nikita Hand assault (2018 → verdict 2024) — Civil jury found he assaulted and raped her in a Dublin hotel.

3. Khabib feud (2018) — Attacked a bus, injuring two and pleaded guilty. Attacked Khabib’s father, religion, and nationality; brawl, suspension and fine.

4. Fan’s phone smashed, Miami (2019) — Grabbed and stomped a fan’s phone and kept it. Charged with robbery; charges dropped after a settlement.

5. Dublin pub punch (2019) — Punched a 50-year-old man who refused a free whiskey. Caught on CCTV, pleaded guilty to assault, fined €1,000.

6. Sexual assault (2020) — Detained in Corsica over alleged indecent exposure and sexual assault; case dropped for insufficient evidence.

7. Altercation with Machine Gun Kelly (2021) — Lunged and threw a drink at MGK during the VMA’s.

8. Dangerous driving, Dublin (2022) — Charged with dangerous driving; five-month suspended sentence and two-year driving ban.

9. Sexual assault (2022) — Woman alleged assault on his yacht in Ibiza (including a broken arm claim); she dropped the civil suit a month later.

10. Sexual assault (2023) — Civil suit filed alleging sexual assault in a bathroom during the NBA Finals; Florida case is ongoing.

In many of the instances across his life, Conor has maintained innocence and in a lot of them, had the cases/suits dropped due to lack of evidence, but the pattern is undeniable.

A man consumed by his own mythology, dancing with the devil over and over again without fear of consequence or retribution.

Important Note: Conor has been in a long-term relationship with Dee Devlin throughout all of this; meeting in 2008, having four children between 2017 and 2023 and eventually marrying in 2025.

Clash of Character

There could not have been a more stark contrast in the personal lives of the two combatants of the UFC 329 main event.

After their initial meeting in 2013 (a fight that Conor won), the pair took very different paths in the thirteen-year gap. McGregor went on to become the first-ever two-division champion and one of the all-time greats, but was constantly embroiled in controversy before taking an indefinite leave from the sport in 2021 to pursue fame and money.

Holloway found his way to the featherweight title in 2017 and became one of the greats in his own right. Showing world-class striking and eventually captivating the world of sport with a brutal last-second KO at UFC 300. All the way, remaining committed to the sport and avoiding the limelight as much as possible.

Throughout this time, Max maintained a commitment to his family, martial arts and his homeland of Hawaii. He embodied what a true martial artist should look like.

Conor, by contrast, took the rockstar route. Flirting with all the seductive traps that life as a celebrity can present. Rubbing shoulders with Donald Trump and other polarising figures, engaging with in-vogue right-wing rhetoric and displaying a lack of commitment to any sort of moral code.

Their matchup was not simply MMA athlete versus MMA athlete; it was humility versus ego; purist versus opportunist.

The result was shocking, but not surprising.

The Work is The Work

I tend to look at most things through a Stoic lens.

The work of a man is never done. Conor believed his was. He believed that the years of grinding in the gym would be enough to lean on for the rest of his life.

Marcus Aurelius was a man with all the excuses in the world to not live by principles.

He was the most powerful person in the entire world, the head of the most powerful empire in human history, yet he resisted the pull of distraction, reminding himself constantly that “if you do the job in a principled way, with diligence, energy and patience, if you keep yourself free of distractions… then your life will be happy. No one can prevent that.”

He never stopped working.

Despite the power and fame that came with his appointment, Marcus believed that the only responsibilities he had were to his own principles and to the collective consciousness (ie. the wider community).

Marcus didn’t succumb to the power of gods and men, and he never put himself on a pedestal.

Conor shares no such beliefs.

Like many powerful men before him, he believed his standards superseded all others and that his view of the world was the only view.

The refusal to continue working, acknowledge your indiscretions and change course are all signs of a weak man, not a strong one. For too long, we have celebrated this version of masculinity as desirable and almost always are found to have been very far from the mark.

Strong men don’t abuse women. Strong men control their emotions. Strong men raise up their communities and lead by example.

Protecting Your Future Self

One of the more interesting takeaways from this saga is McGregor’s recent embrace of his Christian faith.

The timing of his public commitment to God syncing up unusually well with other maligned public figures on the vibes-based political right, like Russell Brand and Donald Trump.

Too little, too late, some might say.

Although I do believe in redemption, I also believe in believing people’s actions over their words.

This is where protecting your future self becomes supremely important and cannot be overstated in all of our lives. We will all face crossroads and hardship, and we will all find ourselves in situations that challenge our values and principles—but how will we act?

Do we choose the path of least resistance, acting from a place of selfishness and self-absorption with no fear of consequence?

Or do we do the hard thing simply because it is the right thing?

Conor’s dedication to the sport of MMA has only been matched by his subservience to his own self-interest. At no point in his decorated career has he been concerned about his soul, his highest self and the ramifications of his poor judgment.

Choosing only to serve the ego and impulses of the flesh.

Protecting your future self means acting from a place of power and humility because one day you may have to answer for your actions.

Final Thoughts

This story is nothing new.

Powerful men have abused their power, become intoxicated by ego and torched their legacies since the beginning of time, but never have I seen such a visceral depiction of this energy culminate in a single action (jumping switch kick) while the world watched.

Conor will go down as one of the greatest entertainers the world has ever seen.

His ability to overcome adversity and dominate the globe as a mixed martial artist will always remain a source of inspiration for young fighters/athletes; it should also provide a cautionary tale of what can happen if the ego goes unchecked.

Great art or athletic prowess will never be a substitute for great character.

Our society rewards greatness. We prioritise a skill set over a set of principles, but your deeds and actions will always catch up.

Just make sure you’re ready when they do.

Thanks for reading!

With gratitude,

SAV

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When we (rūku and I) first began immersing ourselves in the Melbourne music scene in 2019, Riverine was one of the first people we truly connected with.

He played at our Dutch Boys launch party at Laundry Bar in Fitzroy as a solo act and soon after appeared as one of my first music guests on the Slap Happy podcast, which you can watch here.

In mid 2025, we finally reconnected to cook up the CHAMP CAMP EP.

Then, at the end of 2025, he decided to go dark mode to cook up a new album. No calls, clients, bookings, texts or socials… just a burner phone for emergencies.

Some people called it extreme, I found it fascinating and truly inspiring.

In a single month, he completed 12 songs from start to finish:

• Writing

• Recording

• Production

• Instrumentation

• Mixing and mastering

• Booking a listening party

• Creating the content & planning the rollout

For anyone who has ever created music, this is impressive… but the quality of the music is what makes it really, really impressive.

What makes it more impressive is the mountain he had to climb to get to that place.

Four years ago, Riverine packed up his life and moved to Mexico. The dream move. The big swing. It fell apart in months. He came home to his parents’ place in Brisbane with nothing in the bank. Had to borrow money from them just to buy a car.

A year later, he was in Perth, playing for YNG Martyr on a run of festivals. Although he was on a stage in front of thousands of people, the $2 Hungry Jacks brekkie he bought that morning was a gentle reminder of how far away he was from ‘making it’.

Through the grind of independent artist life, he kept a promise to himself—that one day, when secure enough, he would take an entire month off just to make music without the anxiety of covering bills or the fear of missing out.

Then last year his royalties finally ticked up.

And instead of seeking more and doing what most people would do (eg. quietly move the goalposts and keep grinding), he sat himself down and asked the hard question:

“You’ve wanted to get to this point for so long. You’re here now. Are you going to follow through, or are you just going to keep chasing more?”

Then in a moment of clarity, he found the answer…

So, he blocked out October. Told his clients weeks in advance. Turned the phone off. Kept his word.

We sat down at the beginning of the year to chat about his experience.

Here are 6 things I took from a conversation with Riverine:

1. More never comes

More is an illusion.

And typically, it never arrives. The search for more money creates the eternal race for more money (ie. the rat race). The search for more efficiency creates a tiring pursuit of 1% improvements (ie. Brian Johnson).

More is never enough.

Riverine told me about mates of his who said, “I’ll just do this corporate job I hate for six months, save up for the EP, then quit and chase the dream.”

Seven years later. No EP.

The finish line you’re waiting for doesn’t define itself. That’s your job. You have to call it. He got to the moment he’d fantasised about for nine years, and the only thing left to do was follow through.

Most people don’t. He did.

2. You can do everything by the book and still eat shit

Before the album, Riverine spent months doing everything the music marketing gurus on YouTube tell you to do. Single every month. Gaming the algorithm. Pigeonholing himself into the version of his music people found easiest to swallow.

It felt empty. And it didn’t even work.

So when it came time to release this album, his logic was simple:

“I can do everything textbook and still eat shit and get no results. I may as well make this album and release it exactly how I want to, because I can eat shit regardless.”

So he did it his way.

All the intention, weird stuff and wholeheartedness that he knew were most aligned with his true self. And, the reality is that the weirdest choices on that album—the ambient tracks, the metal breakdowns, the stuff no marketing guide would ever sign off on—that’s what people responded to most.

As he put it:

“The most idiosyncratic, unique things about you are what you need to lean into the most to make anything worth checking out at all.”

You might as well do it with your chest out. And if you eat shit anyway, at least it tastes better that way.

Not 100% sure about the science behind that, but it feels right to me.

3. The well isn’t bottomless—your community fills it

His little stint in Mexico was a brutal reminder of the importance of community.

He’d always seen himself as disciplined and motivated. Then he landed in a country where he knew nobody, on the opposite time zone to everyone he loved, and the well he’d been drawing from for years just... wasn’t there.

There was no escaping the reality of what the community gave him.

Discipline is one ingredient in the making of the ‘independent artist’ burger. The burger isn’t complete without a bunch of other goodies: studio drop-ins, gigs, sessions, and mates.

Now, Riverine is one of the most committed people to the scene that I know.

His support of and commitment to his fellow creatives are unmatched.

The community, the lifestyle and the friends you make along the journey are more important than we give them credit for.

Sometimes you have to go halfway around the world to find out.

4. Trust creates speed

Riverine produced my CHAMP CAMP EP, and those sessions were some of the most fun I’ve had making anything. We moved fast. Not because we rushed, but because we trusted each other.

This is an idea I first heard from Patrick Bet-David a few years back on a podcast.

If you trust someone, you don’t have to second-guess. They make a suggestion, you action it because their taste and quality have already been battle tested.

CHAMP CAMP came together in pretty quick time because I trusted Riverine.

He said a thing, I did a thing, and vice versa.

On the podcast, he told me the flip side of that as a producer. He stated that the least confident artists are the hardest to work with. They micromanage. Forty-eight notes on one song. They self-attack their songs the same way they self-attack themselves, hacking at every little piece, chasing a perfection that doesn’t exist.

All of that finessing just leaves you with a “sterile turd”, he said.

If you’re insecure, you grab for control. If you back yourself, you can let go. And letting go is where the speed and the magic live.

5. Celebrate the moment while you still can

Neither of us did a big launch show. We both did listening parties instead. Just a few homies in a small room, a couple of beers and the full projects played front to back.

I personally loved my listening party and wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Riverine echoed my sentiment…

“Even if I did nothing else, that listening party was enough.”

And then he went further:

“If it’s just moments like that over and over again until I die, I’m happy.”

You don’t have to be perfect; you just have to be present. Celebrate the things that matter, while they still matter and while you still can.

Sometimes that is enough.

6. We confuse fame with skill—but at what cost?

Riverine had some great insight into the idea of fame.

And the pitfalls of being famous.

Every artist you’ve ever loved only reached you because they had some degree of fame. Their music found your feed, your mate’s playlist, your radio. So without realising it, you conflate the thing you love (the music) with the thing that delivered it (the fame).

“The odds of your favourite album of your entire life being from an artist with 60 monthly listeners are pretty low.”

Then you start creating, and slowly the hunger shifts. It stops being about making the thing and starts being about being seen making the thing. Riverine has seen this compromise artists and mates over and over again.

Fame usually equals money, or the idea of having lots of stuff—Riverine had a very pointed thought on that:

“If we just want to make money, go into literally any other industry.”

Make the music. Do the listening party with your mates. Be happy with that. If more comes, great. If it doesn’t, you still made the world a bit better.

Final Thoughts

He signed off the podcast with an absolute zinger…

Every year, he said, he tries to get a little more honest with himself. A little deeper. A little scarier. Because that’s where the good work is, and that’s how you sleep at night knowing you did this thing properly.

If you want to watch the full chat with Riverine, you can do so below.

Also, go check out his album like the birds do.

That’s it from me this week, gang.

With gratitude,

SAV

If this landed, subscribe below. Every week I show up and tell the truth about the work—the hard bits, the slow bits and the bits that make it worth it.

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That’s where we are, people and boy, hasn’t it flown!

It feels like yesterday that I was hopping off a plane from Hong Kong after just visiting my girlfriend’s family for two weeks… and quicker than I could say “holy fucking shit it’s July”, the financial year has ended, and I am now forced to sit and reflect on how I have actually done.

Most folks wanna wait until December to take stock—if they do it at all.

The year speeds by, the reflection happens on New Year’s Eve with a drink in hand and dart in mouth, with a vague feeling that things could’ve/should’ve been better.

Me… I’d rather look now, while there’s still time to make haste.

So I’m rolling out the Wheel of Life again (pun intended)—same exercise I used at the end of 2025. Eight categories. A score out of ten. All the best bits put under a microscope.

Let’s dive in, shall we?

Friends

Score: 5/10

Summary: My social life has not really blossomed this year as I thought it might. The reality is that I am going through a transitional phase of life, lots of growth, and sometimes it is hard to prioritise everything all at once. With that said, I definitely need to start making small but impactful efforts here.

Adjustments to make: Regular calls/check-ins with my most loved ones, make the effort you want to see in others, do the thing that others may not. Where there is distance, close it. If you commit, stick to it. You don’t need to be an ultra-social butterfly, but you do have to make some effort.

Career

Score: 9/10

Summary: My career has really been on the move. In late April, I was promoted to Campaign Manager within my company, and although that asks for a lot more responsibility and work, I am happy to take on the challenge. So far, the money is not stacking up to the input, and the hours are demanding to stay on top of everything, but I am loving it. The team is full of different problems and personalities. It is forcing me to evolve and become a better problem solver.

Adjustments to make: Work/life balance will become a factor shortly if I do not improve efficiencies in my workflows and learn to get things done a little quicker. Diarising, time-blocking, tackling the hard tasks, and being better with my communication will all help.

Finance

Score: 6/10

Summary: My money habits are still not great, but there are small improvements being made around how and what I spend my money on. Slightly less reckless habits and more willingness to add to savings. Having a bit more job security and consistency with the promotion will help, but also my partner (being quite frugal and good at saving) is playing a big role and forcing me to evolve. I no longer need to rely on my commission to get through the month and pay down debts/bills, which is useful.

Adjustments to make: Cut right down to a weekly budget for ad hoc spending. It is essentially unlimited at the moment, and there is still too much leakage. I have started saving, but need to dial this up over the next 6 months if I am to hit the goal I have set out.

Health

Score: 6/10

Summary: This is the area that has probably seen the greatest improvements. At the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026, my health was really frustrating me. I was in constant pain due to a chronic neck injury, eating poorly, not exercising enough due to pain and indulging in too many poisons (vaping/drinking/other). Moving in with my girl has had a huge impact on this. She loves to cook amazing and nutritious meals, as well as shop weekly for groceries—she trains 4 times a week and doesn’t drink. Her commitment to her health is helping pull me away from my poor habits. On top of that, a massage therapist I’ve been seeing has played a huge part in helping me recover from the neck pain. I also engaged a personal trainer to help me get some consistency back into my training and to focus on flexibility and mobility (which had been waning). I’m back training multiple times a week, enjoying saunas and overall eating much better.

Adjustments to make: There is still some work to do around snacking, random beers and vaping, but for the first time in 18 months, I am feeling confident and happy about my body and health. Subtracting the vaping/snacking/random drinking, in addition to everything mentioned above, will have me back at optimal fitness by year’s end.

Family

Score: 9/10

Summary: Not much has changed here. I love my family; they are everything to me. My Nan's passing away a couple of weeks back was a huge blow to my family, especially my Mum, who really took it hard, but the experience galvanised my family even further and proved how good we have it to be in each other’s lives.

Adjustments to make: I think scheduling time in my calendar for my family is going to make a difference. At the moment, our interactions are based on proximity or motivation, but I think we can do better than that (or at least I know that I can). Scheduling a weekly or bi-weekly check-in with everyone will make sure I get to them and continue to strengthen our bonds.

Romance

Score: 10/10

Summary: Things have been evolving really naturally and smoothly. We moved into a beautiful apartment in a great building in our favourite area in late May, and it has been a dream. Cooking together, helping each other with chores, spending quality time and going on little adventures. The more time I spend with her, the better I become as a man and as a human.

Adjustments to make: Buy a car and start going on little trips away to further out suburbs or out of town to increase novelty and fun.

Personal Growth

Score: 6/10

Summary: In the first 6 months, I have had to do a lot of hard things. The growth I have gained from these experiences has been solid, but I wouldn’t say much more than what I already knew. Although there has been a positive step forward from where I finished last year, there is always more that can be done. Between my relationship, deaths, work and creation, I have been asked to stay steady, and I have done that… but I feel like there is a lot of growth to be done.

Adjustments to make: Get back to reading and hunting for big ideas. Writing weekly is good to explore an idea, but that is one idea, once a week. I need to be on the hunt daily. Reading Marcus, studying Pressfield, unpacking great creators and digging into my own previous thoughts and creations to see what I am missing.

Hobbies

Score: 6/10

Summary: In one sense, the hobbies and creations have been great, but in so many others, it has been inconsistent and lacking. So far this year, I have managed to stay on track for my one and only real goal for 2026—to write a newsletter every week (the one you are reading). I have shipped 27 newsletters, and to be honest, I am quite proud of that, but the music creation and podcasting have mostly taken a backseat as I tried to wade through some pressure-filled periods. Thankfully, this won’t be for much longer, as I have already started batch recording podcasts and with this new role feel a little more space to create. I have also started writing my follow-up to CHAMP CAMP EP, which I will begin production on in the coming weeks (more on that later).

Adjustments to make: I have a solid foundation of knowing that a newsletter will get shipped every week, regardless of what else is going on, but I think it is time to start planning. Rather than write them weekly, maybe batch and schedule them so that I can free up some space to fire the podcast engine back up, or start recording the album.

Final Thoughts

Still not perfect. Never will be.

But if you’d asked me in January whether I’d take this position, I’d have said yes without hesitation.

Let’s take a quick look at the comparison:

You can see that most things are trending upwards.

Finance and health were a big priority this year, and those are two that are seeing the most change. The ones that have gone down are having to contend with me being hypercritical of myself, so take them with a grain of salt.

Overall, I am happier, healthier, and slowly pulling the pieces together for the life that I want.

I have a family that loves me. A partner who makes me better. A roof over my head, a career that’s moving and a body that’s healing.

Life is good. And there’s still six months left to make it better.

If you want to run the exercise yourself, I put together a free template—link below.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Anyway, that’s it from me this week, gang!

With gratitude,

SAV

If this gave you ideas, subscribe below. Every week I show up, do the honest work and share what I find — the good, the bad and the bits I’m still figuring out.

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In that time, we have trialled a bunch of TV series as a couple, but none of them had stuck, until we gave Ted Lasso a crack last week.

Since then, we have been obsessed.

Our first official couples binge-watch series. We’ve managed to crank out a couple of shows a night for the past week or so, and we have loved every minute of it.

We have laughed in unison over and over again. Enjoyed the character development, sub-plots, humour and tension. Everything about it has been captivating, insightful and just so, so funny.

If you haven’t watched it, do yourself a favour and start tonight.

A bit about the show…

Some quick context for the uninitiated…

Ted Lasso is about an American gridiron coach who is hired to coach a lowly English Premier League side in soccer (football).

He is flown to the other side of the world to coach a team of men he has no relationship with, in a game he has no idea about, in a country he is not familiar with.

We soon learn that his hiring was part of an evil revenge plan concocted by the club’s new owner, Rebecca, to spite her ex-husband Rupert, who loved the club. Rebecca gained ownership of the club after Rupert left it to her in their divorce.

Despite being set up to fail, Ted is undeterred.

He slowly and methodically wears everyone down, gains their trust and builds camaraderie in a team whose soul had left them.

Ted’s enthusiasm, energy, and optimism are disarming and playful, but his sense of justice and principle earns him respect throughout the community. Eventually, the club and the town that supports them begin to change their tune.

Here are 6 things I have taken from the show so far, and why I think it is a superb representation of the core Stoic principles I attempt to live my life by:

1. You catch way more flies with honey

As the saying goes…

You catch way more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.

Speaking literally, honey is sticky, whereas vinegar is not. But metaphorically, honey is sweet.

Being sweet (ie. nice/pleasant) is a much more potent tool for building connections. Yes, we live in a world where people are inherently pessimistic, but remaining pleasant in the face of that is a very quick way to disarm people.

Energy and enthusiasm are infectious.

Whether by design or accident, carrying yourself around with a certain energy will eventually bleed into those around you.

Have you ever spent time around someone who complains all day about their work?

After two days, you will also be convinced that the world is shit.

But spend a week around someone who oozes optimism, like Ted…

You will start seeing the brighter side of life. Maybe not right away, but eventually it’ll sink in.

Connecting with people through negative means (eg. bitching, moaning, fear, pessimism) might illicit a quicker connection, as people tend to find these easier. But connecting with people through sweeter alternatives (eg. optimism, confidence, laughter, joy) will build deeper and stronger connections.

If you want to relate to people, use vinegar.

If you want to lead people, use honey.

2. Curiosity is a superpower

Right from the moment he arrives at the club, Ted begins employing his cagey curiosity.

The first thing he does when he comes onto the home ground and training facilities of AFC Richmond is to walk out onto the playing surface. He wants to get a feel for it.

He clocks team assistant Nate and begins making conversation. Nate is taken aback as Ted asks what his name is:

Over and over again, Ted chooses curiosity when encountering a new character.

He is always seeking to understand.

Through curiosity, he is able to find common ground with everyone in the club. Once you find common ground with a human being, they are much more likely to hear you out.

Curiosity invites understanding, and understanding invites camaraderie.

Being curious simply means not to assume. Remove your pre-conceived ideas about a topic/person/environment and attempt to understand what is actually going on.

Epictetus put it simply:

Ted operates like he knows nothing—and that’s exactly why everyone eventually trusts him.

I say it is a superpower because it is a rare trait.

Most people do not wish to understand. Most people have their way, their thoughts, and their expectations, and they push them onto those around them.

This may build complicity, but it rarely delivers connection.

3. Doing hard stuff is sexy

Over and over again, the characters in the show are faced with challenges.

They are constantly being brought to a crossroad and asked to choose—the easy way or the right way.

Every single time, they choose the hard way.

Not because it is easy, but because it is right. They don’t always get the desired outcomes, but in the eyes of the viewer (ie. me), they have succeeded.

The Stoics called this Amor Fati—love of fate.

The idea that every obstacle, every crossroads, every uncomfortable moment isn’t happening to you. It’s happening for you.

Ryan Holiday built a whole book around it. Ted Lasso built a whole show around it through repeated action in the face of adversity.

Doing hard stuff is not easy.

It requires courage. It requires the removal of expectation. It requires foresight into the potential outcomes.

Often in life, people choose the wrong path not because they are bad or evil, but because it is much simpler not to face adversity. It is much simpler to defer pain to a future that may not arrive.

Through the show, we see countless examples of characters choosing the hard way.

1. Roy standing up for Nate

2. Keeley’s admission to Roy that she slept with Jamie

3. Rebecca’s confession to Ted about her reasons for hiring him

4. Sam’s protest against Dubai Air

5. Higgins’ truth bomb to Coach Beard about his relationship with Jane

Every single time, they do it without fear of consequence

And every single time they appear sexier to the viewer for doing so.

4. Mental health can affect anyone

There are so many things I love about this show, but probably the thing I have found most fascinating is the role mental health plays in Ted.

A guy who has just gone through a divorce, attempting to do the impossible, with the entire world against him, continues to plot forward seemingly undeterred. But eventually it catches up to him.

The pressure builds inside until he can’t contain it any longer.

In a brilliant scene toward the end of season one, Ted suffers a panic attack.

The team is out celebrating a big win when anxiety overwhelms him in a crowded karaoke bar. His hands start shaking, and the feeling takes over to the point he pushes his way through the crowd to escape to the street, where he is found by Rebecca curled up and breathing heavily.

I’ve felt this exact thing, more times than I can count.

It’s terrifying.

I love the fact that the show decides to take the character there, because it is so real.

No amount of optimism or ‘she’ll be right’ can subdue the undercurrent of anxiety that we all deal with, if not addressed properly.

The work is the work is the work is the work.

Even Ted, with a bulletproof character and seemingly unflappable brightness, is taken down and totally floored by this panic attack.

This scene illustrates so brilliantly that mental health can come for all of us, at any time. Despite how ‘together’ people may lead on, what is going on inside may be a completely different story.

Don’t take things for granted. Never judge a book by its cover.

All the cliches…

The point is that mental health is real, panic attacks are debilitating, and a smile does not mean someone is not drowning in pain.

5. Lessons learned are bigger than results earned

What we learn along the way and who we become are worth more than any trophy.

This show illustrates this over and over again.

One example is when Jamie, after departing Richmond and heading back to Premier League side Man City, finds himself a bit lost.

So he returned to the club that was actually helping him grow as a human.

He accepted the demotion and assumed his place on the outskirts of the club because he knew deep down that this was his only shot at redemption.

Prioritising self-development over ego and fame.

Another great example is when the team, after four straight draws, finally have a change of fortune… a loss.

But despite the loss, the team are seen celebrating in the locker room, not because they lost, but because they had rallied behind Sam in his protest against Dubai Air.

The team was united.

Probably my favourite example so far was when Keeley attempted to help Roy work through his identity crisis. Roy Kent, football superstar and former Chelsea hard man, is weighing up retirement and feeling the dread of being a regular person again.

After having football been his key identifying feature since the age of 12, he doesn’t know who he is going to be during life after football. In a very sweet scene, his new partner Keeley calls over Roy’s niece Phoebe. She tells her to close her eyes and say everything she knows about her Uncle Roy.

She proceeds to rattle off a bunch of identifying features and concludes with ‘I love him’, not once mentioning his status as a professional footballer.

Life is rewarding if we allow it to be.

Wins are not wins if we do it with people we despise. Success feels empty if all we have to show for it is a trophy. Fame is not important if we can’t be true to ourselves.

The show constantly brings its characters to a place that is hard to digest—a setback, a loss, an identity crisis etc, and every time the characters have a choice… do I choose the ego that has served me to this point, or do I evolve to the higher version of myself?

When it’s all said and done, people will remember what you did, not who you were.

Legacy is founded on character, not accolades.

6. What’s good for the whole is good for the part

In Stoicism, there is an idea called Cosmopolitanism.

It basically refers to the collective consciousness and interconnectedness of man (Ie. we are all part of one living entity called humanity).

The Stoics believed that if something was good for the community, it was good for the individual, not every individual, but the average individual that makes up that collective.

Conversely, something bad for the community is likely to be bad for the average individual.

Coming from a game like Gridiron, Ted always prioritised a team-first mentality. Gridiron is a game with so many moving parts that the team has no choice but to be aligned at all times.

Every single thing we do is adding to or taking away from the collective.

By putting the team first, the collective first, we may get some things wrong, but if the collective succeeds, then it is ultimately good for the individual.

Too many people think with a ‘me first’ mentality.

Emphasising their own selfish desires and needs to feel powerful and rewarded. By removing the ego, prioritising the whole and focusing on collective success, we free ourselves from the burden and loneliness of individualism.

Life is a lot more fun when we are sharing…

Sharing wins.

Sharing our losses.

Sharing our war stories.

Sharing our dreams and passions.

Sharing the pain and torment of human life.

Ted forces his team and the people in his orbit to gravitate toward this thinking because he understands the importance of the team.

He makes tough choices with the team in mind.

Occasionally putting individuals off-side (pun not intended), but eventually bringing them back to the truth… that life is way more interesting when shared through the lens of community and connection.

Final thoughts

This show has been a lovely reminder of the good in people.

It shines a light on all of the selfishness and shitty behaviour that every one of us is capable of, but it chooses to reveal a more wholesome and rewarding path forward.

It reveals our deepest insecurities: separation, loss, heartbreak.

But it reminds us of our greatest strengths: courage, honesty, perseverance.

There is a bit of Ted in all of us, and the more we can lean into that, the better the world around us becomes.

Life is hard, but you are harder.

In the words of Ted Lasso…

That’s all for this week, gang.

With gratitude,

SAV

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Two from Mum. Two from my brother.

Never a good sign.

By the time I get her on the phone, she’s locked out of an apartment, alone, crying in a stairwell—and a locksmith is asking her for $800 to open two doors…

That was just the start of it.

This one is a doozy, buckle up!

The context

A couple of weeks ago, my Nan passed away.

I wrote extensively about this woman who had done so much for our family in this newsletter.

My Nan was my Mum’s Mum, and they were best mates.

They would hang out every day, go on little adventures and chat constantly about what was happening and reminisce on the crazier times.

Since my Nan passed, my Mum has been pretty heartbroken (understandably so).

Mum had been feeling a little lost, so she decided to take a couple of weeks to herself, escape the constant reminders on the Central Coast and come to Melbourne to stay in my brother’s vacant apartment while he holidays in the USA.

My brother’s apartment is located on the 3rd floor of an older apartment building tucked one street back from Church Street in Richmond.

She had been enjoying her little getaway.

Day trips, visiting cafes, going to dinner or the movies with me, having lunch with my brother Luke, walking around town or simply just laying down and crying without any distraction.

Whatever she needed to do to feel better, she was doing it.

The prelude

On Monday night, I was catching up on work when I decided to take a break to check my phone and start prepping for dinner.

It was roughly 8 pm.

I checked and saw several missed calls from Mum and Luke… not a good sign.

She had just returned from an outing to find that she had lost the key to my brother’s apartment somewhere on her travels.

Already feeling a sense of hopelessness and burden from losing her best mate, she was brought to a place of distress, with no way to get into the apartment and no one to come and help.

She had spent over half an hour in the stairwell, crying and attempting to contact my brother and me for help.

Luke managed to speak to her and sent her a locksmith's website.

In a state of panic, she called the locksmith and asked them to come help without receiving a quote or any expectation of what the job might cost.

I finally managed to get onto her, and by now it was closer to 830pm.

The locksmith had arrived and was asking for $1000 to open the 2 doors, but ‘graciously’ had brought the price down to $800. She was distraught and didn’t know what to do.

I asked her to put the locksmith on the phone…

I explained to the guy that she is an older woman who is in distress and not thinking clearly, as she had just lost her Mum. I reiterated that I knew he was just doing his job, but I wanted to know what options we had, as $800 seemed preposterous.

He said that for the doors to be opened, it would be $800; otherwise, pay a cancellation fee of $150.

I apologised for wasting his time, but said that neither of those options seemed reasonable given my Mum’s distress. I told him that his services were not needed tonight and that I would come collect my Mum, then gave him my name and number and told him I would sort out the fee with his company tomorrow.

I said I was happy to pay something, just not right now.

He probed for an amount of money that I would be able to pay…

I told him that no money was being exchanged tonight, thanked him for his time and told him that I would be coming to get my Mum shortly.

Midway through my sentence, he hung up the phone in frustration.

Not a good sign.

The drama

I was halfway through dinner when he hung up the phone, but immediately jumped up, threw on some shoes and headed straight out the door.

I ordered an Uber, but it was taking too long, so I flagged a vacant taxi.

Once in the taxi, I called to make sure Mum was ok and to reassure her that I was on my way. She was crying and telling me not to come.

I could hear that the guy was still there.

But why would he still be there? The job had been cancelled, this doesn’t make sense.

I started panicking.

A couple of minutes later, I received a phone call from my Dad…

“Matt, hurry, there’s 3 of them now”

I hang up and instantly tick into fight or flight. I don’t have the full picture, but I’m now really concerned. It’s late at night, and there are 3 guys surrounding my anxious, elderly mother.

I start filtering through the possibilities.

This could be nothing, but in the rare case that it is something, I need to be prepared.

I make a call to my buddy, someone I know can handle themselves if things go sideways.

“Mate, my Mum is in trouble, I need you to be at this address ASAP”

He simply responded, “Say less, I’ll be there in 10”.

As I’m headed down Church Street, we pass the Richmond cop shop, and I see 2 officers in their paddy wagon. I tell the taxi driver to stop immediately and let me out. I hand him my phone as collateral and sprint toward the cops.

I try to calm my breathing (by now the adrenaline is well and truly pumping) and give them a quick backstory.

I basically let them know that I believe my Mum is being extorted and that I am about to head over there into what may be a hostile situation. I tell them that they don’t have to attend, but it might be worth being there in case things escalate.

Then I charge back to the taxi, hop in and proceed toward the apartment.

The taxi pulls up, I pay the fare and Usain Bolt down an alleyway to the back street and toward the apartment block.

Running toward the steps up to the apartment, I start yelling out, I can’t see my Mum yet, but just in case they are surrounding her, as I believe, I want to scare them away.

“Fuck off you dogs”

“Leave my Mum alone… fuck you cunts”

I race past 2 of them, who are now sitting on the stairs just outside the apartment, and one of them starts yelling back at me, taunting me. I ignore him, I just want to get to my Mum.

As I approach the top flight of stairs, I see the apartment door has been opened.

Mum is inside and sitting down, she appears to be ok.

I start believing that I may have miscalculated, maybe I was wrong. I have a huge dump of adrenaline and realise that the police are now approaching a situation that may have been a huge waste of their time.

So I turn to run back down the stairs to greet the cops and tell them that there was a misunderstanding and that I am sorry for wasting their time.

They now have a duty of care to investigate and proceed to head up the stairs.

I take myself away from the scene to calm down.

While I am pacing around and trying to settle my breathing, I overhear the cops asking the guys questions… “Who do you work for?” and “Why do you need three men to open one door?”, the cops are clearly suspect on what has been going on, but without any real proof, they take their details and allow them to leave.

The cops head up to check on Mum, and the guys head downstairs to where I am now sitting. We start chatting. At this point, my mate arrives and sees me and these guys calmly talking about what had just happened.

I apologise to the guys for overreacting, still thinking that I had misread the situation.

The guys leave, and the cops come down after finishing with Mum. I apologise again for wasting their time; they assure me that this is not time wasted, as companies that prey on the vulnerable do exist.

They were also of the opinion that something sinister may have been at play.

The cops leave, and my buddy and I go to check in on my Mum.

The aftermath

We sat down with Mum to go through what had happened.

She said that after the guy hung up on me, he went to get 2 of his friends and that the 3 of them cornered my Mum and told her to call her son (me), so that they could get paid.

She refused to call me and instead started crying and saying that she was scared.

A few of the neighbours poked their heads out to see what the commotion was about, and I believe in a moment of panic, the guys caved and accepted $200 to open the door rather than have this escalate any further.

I made sure Mum felt safe and calm, and then got a ride home with my mate.

When I arrived home, I called Dad to debrief on the craziness that had just taken place, still not really sure if I had overreacted or not.

During our conversation, we started going over the details, and it became abundantly clear what had just happened. After searching for the company’s reviews, we were inundated with scam warnings—Trustpilot, Reddit, Product Review, you name it, these guys were very well known to be pure scum.

Here’s a very small sample…

After seeing dozens of very recent reviews sharing the same experience of helplessness, I became a little disoriented in how to feel.

On one hand, I was justified in my quick response and outrage.

On the other hand, I had apologised to these guys and allowed them to walk away after just terrifying and intimidating my already heartbroken Mother.

I didn’t necessarily need to resort to violence, but I did want justice.

And after seeing all these reviews, clearly corroborating our suspicions that these guys preyed on the weak and vulnerable, it made my thirst for justice even more prevalent.

My Mum was safe, my job for this night was done, but this saga is nowhere near finished.

A note to those involved

To my Mum, who showed insane courage to make a scene in the face of this terror rather than silently complying, I am so proud of you! You made your voice heard and scared these cowards into changing course.

To my mate who answered the call (you know who you are) without a second thought about self-preservation… thank you. You were there in my family’s time of need; that’s what family does for one another. Your selflessness in that moment showed me who I already knew you to be: a man of honour, bravery and integrity.

To the cops who took me seriously and arrived to help manage the situation with professionalism and calmness, thank you.

To the three weak excuses of men who attempted to intimidate an old, vulnerable woman for money, you are cowards who choose to lean into greed and self-preservation over common decency… shame on you.

Final thoughts

This was a truly wild experience, one that I am glad resulted in a decent outcome.

I’m glad my Mum is safe. Glad my mate answered the call without hesitation. Glad the cops took it seriously.

But we were the lucky exception.

These guys will try this again. And next time, the person on the other end of that phone might not have a son who can get there in time.

We’re not done with this. Not even close.

For now, I’m just grateful for what we still have.

That’s it from me this week, gang.

With gratitude,

SAV

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I’m not pro-Trump. I’m not anti-Trump.

I’m pro-human.

The moment we start talking about “them” and “us,” we’ve already lost.

But I am curious. And curiosity means I sit with things I don’t agree with long enough to actually understand them.

Because the world doesn’t feel safe right now—and someone is profiting from that feeling.

The fear you’re carrying isn’t new. It’s been here before. Pandemics, wars, financial collapses—fear is ancient. What’s new is how organised it is, how loud it is, and how many people are being paid to keep it that way.

So I’m not going to add to it.

The changing of the tides…

In 2016, this billionaire reality TV star took the world by storm in one of the greatest upset victories of the modern era.

Then he (along with every other side of politics) stoked racial tension and mused on about identity politics until things came to a head in 2020 when he was pushed aside for a change candidate.

He denied the results, claiming they had been falsified.

Despite his frustrations at ‘the system’, he did move aside (just after gently causing an insurrection).

Political unrest and global violence then proceeded to rage for 4 years as the Biden experiment seemed to fail.

And then, by some divine intervention... big DJT, riding a wave of anti-woke, “isolationist”, America first and anti-establishment rhetoric stormed back into the top job for at least another 4 years.

So Trump has been back in charge for nearly a year now—what are we to make of it?

Rather than get caught up in the fear apparatus, I’m using 5 things to help me stay grounded now (and forever)…

1. Gratitude

Every moment presents an opportunity.

To see what you have and be grateful for it, or to look away in preference of another thing/moment.

This is a fast track to unhappiness.

Many people prefer to acquaint themselves daily with what they wish they had and not what they do have. It’s a sad state of affairs, but it doesn’t have to be.

Fear is rampant, but again, it doesn’t have to be.

By writing 5-10 things you are grateful for every morning, you increase your vibration.

Looking within and seeing what you have been blessed with will lead to a lighter and brighter existence. This is true freedom and power.

Do it for long enough, and you just might change the world.

At the very least, your own inner world.

2. Reading

I don’t read too wide anymore—but I do read deep.

The main topic of study: Stoicism.

Stoicism is an ancient philosophy popularised in modern times by author Ryan Holiday, but it has one of the oldest and most consistent practices known to man.

I generally read 2-3 pages per day of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

Like every great thinker of the last 5000 years, his ideas and insights lead me to deep thinking and self-actualisation—ideas on:

• Love

• Respect

• Discipline

• Obedience

• Selflessness

• Acceptance of death

• Disregard for material things

• Awareness of your responsibilities

• Unwavering commitment to his principles

• Prioritisation of the community over the individual

You don’t have to read Stoicism, but read something.

Any reading, especially of the classics, will heighten your ability to see the world the way it was meant to be seen.

Centred around love and abundance.

Reading is the key to unlocking parts of you and parts of the world around you that you might never have seen otherwise.

3. Writing

I write almost every day.

Writing is a skill that brings us closer to our actual thoughts.

Where reading allows us to discover things we didn’t know about, writing helps us synthesise our knowledge on the things we do know about.

It helps us excavate deeply held beliefs.

Uncover our true thinking on certain topics, and shine light on the parts of us that the world hasn’t seen

Writing allows you to understand yourself in a new light.

To see the truth and affirm your position.

Using a pen helps (as discussed in this newsletter) because it creates a real connection to the words and invites a deeper understanding and neural pathways on the topic.

If you don’t have time for pen & pad, that’s fine, tap away on your laptop like I’m doing right now

Just take the time to get your thoughts down, journal on where you are and find a way to unpack the thoughts within you. Figure out what is real, what is not real, and what’s been borrowed from an external entity.

4. Curiosity

Curiosity is a superpower.

It is the ultimate superpower against shit behaviour.

Have you ever had someone get angry at you, and rather than reacting, you probed with questions, harmlessly seeking to understand?

It’s a beautiful thing. The target in question has nothing to use as fuel.

Curiosity has a wonderfully disarming effect.

It also allows you to gain insight into everyone and everything.

At our company, we have a motto when dealing with situations that require our undivided attention, things like:

1. New technologies

2. Stakeholder disputes

3. Customer complaints

4. Teammates with new ideas

5. Disgruntled/underperforming staff

The motto is…

Seek to understand

This is curiosity in practice. This is the art of being okay with not knowing, but being resolute in your mission to properly understand that you don’t know.

Curiosity leads to deeper connections and stronger foundations to build our views and our arguments around.

Try not to lean on emotion and reaction immediately.

First try curiosity, gain some perspective and then choose an appropriate route.

5. Prioritising humanity

Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m important, but I’m not that important to the point of wanting the world to revolve around me.

So what I have to wait in line a little longer...

So what I can’t have exactly what I want right now...

So what if someone gets a slightly better job than me...

So what I have to celebrate something on a different day...

Instead, I practice gratitude.

And every single day, I am grateful for the way of life I was born into, the people I am friends with and the pocket of time that I occupy.

The average quality of life is remarkable.

We are alive in the greatest period of time by any possible measurement—we are so blessed.

Just in the last 100 years alone:

• Access to electricity rose from 10% to 90%

• Global literacy rates rose from <40% to 86%

• Extreme poverty has dropped from 75% to 8.5%

• Access to clean water improved from 25% to 74%

• Life expectancy doubled globally from 34 to 73 years

• Infant death/birth ratio dropped from 150/1000 to 27/1000

There is so much work to be done, I know.

But we have so much to be grateful for and so much to celebrate, let’s focus on what we do have, rather than what we don’t have.

The next 3ish years are going to be tricky.

I do recognise that.

Quite simply, with Trump in office, the extreme right has been emboldened.

But again, ultra-nationalism and Judeo-Christian values are frameworks an individual can hold up without feeling the need to ostracise members of our community that we don’t understand or agree with.

Fear usually comes from a lack of understanding.

The more we feel like we are lacking, the more likely we are to look for someone who is causing this lack.

Someone who is ‘taking from me’ and ‘making me lose’.

Gratitude stops fear in its tracks.

It diverts the gaze away from what you’re missing out on and illuminates what should be celebrated (i.e. what you should be grateful for).

Final thoughts…

Fear is a tool.

Someone is always trying to sell it to you.

The answer has never been to fight fear directly. It’s to have something inside you that makes the fear irrelevant.

Gratitude does that.

Every single day, I make it my mission—regardless of what’s happening out there—to be thankful for this life I was born into.

We can all win; we can all have a piece of the pie.

Be grateful for what you have, and don’t be afraid to share; there’s plenty to go around. Just remember, we will all die and be buried in the exact same earth (so who gives an eff).

Stay vigilant and keep your heart open to everyone, always; it is our only hope.

I believe in us—together we can...

MAKE. GRATITUDE. GREAT. AGAIN.

With gratitude,

SAV

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