Audio version or get better audio quality on Spotify

---

Welcome Back, Also DANGER ALERT

 

Welcome back to 2021!

I always enjoy that late January anticipation feeling, having the time to think of cunning plans before the madness fully kicks in.

Are you looking forward to the comfort of another year of working at home? How good is not having to commute or dress up?

It’s so convenient and comfortable.

Also quite dangerous for your career. We’ll return to that shortly.

Did I Mention I’ve Got A Book Coming Out?

 

Meanwhile, exciting news! My book has a title and a cover! Undisruptable is on pre-sale NOW, out June 16! I’m so thrilled that I used my entire year’s exclamation mark quota right there!

Yet that excitement is blended with deep fear. It’s interesting how your goals change when you reach them.

August 2020 thoughts:

OH MY GOD I’VE GOT A CONTRACT WITH PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE, THIS IS THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY LIFE AND THE DREAM I’VE WORKED TOWARD FOR DECADES.

Three minutes later:

I need this book to sell well enough to be released in other countries or I’ll have achieved NOTHING.

So there will be changes to the blog this year. Good changes I think. We’ll return to that too.

But first: the book.

 

Undisruptable, What’s That About?

 

Undisruptable is not a regular business book in that there’s no picture of me on the cover and thank fuck for that.

It’s about why many of the conventional approaches to business aren’t as essential as you think.

And how to set yourself up to have as much control over your life as possible, even when you’re under heavy siege from viruses, digital disruption, globalisation and who knows what else.

Last January my business partners and I were in Queenstown, a very nice place.

We were planning a landmark year of business stuff that we’d worked on for years. But also working on how to do alright in the economic downturn we felt was around the corner.

If we’d known exactly what was around the corner, we would have just stayed in Queenstown and lived in hollowed-out trees up the mountain.

 

via GIPHY

 

But that survivalist mentality placed us well to survive the horrors that descended.

For the last decade we put a lot of accepted business thinking in the bin, and doing that has proved invaluable in the last year.

(Business tip: it really helps to have a balanced set of optimist and pessimist owners. I’m optimism guy, which has its uses. But in reality it was our doom-prepper team who got us through 2020, I’m just the one who likes writing about it.)

It’s sixty self-contained chapters in the style of the blog, so you don’t have to worry about remembering what you read before. And it clocks in at Year 6 on the reading ease scale.

Because phone scrolling has ravaged your reading attention span as badly as mine.

 

Why Not Buy It Now

 

I’d really appreciate your help in getting it into the airport bookshelves so my Mum can tell her friends about how clever her boy is.

It all works on pre-sales. All the pre-release sales go into Week 1 sales figures. A decent chart performance means other retailers buy it, and that gives it the momentum toward popularity.

Because the book buyer herd instinct is strong. People walk into bookshops and buy whatever book is next to Mark Manson’s, because they read his already.

You can pre-order Undisruptable here:

 

 

Bless you!

 

The Most Cursed Video Genre Of All

 

Marketing yourself is weird when you’ve spent decades marketing other people’s stuff.

So this year I’ll bring you live-eye reports of what does and doesn’t work. There will be lessons you can benefit from on your own business journey.

Like that time earlier this week when, after an intense month of creating material, Facebook algorithms shut my Undisruptable account permanently for Unacceptable Business Practices.

Because some of the vids had a single swear word. Lesson. I managed to get it un-banned.

The number-crunching reality is that the blog readership isn’t enough to guarantee the book will be a success. I need bigger numbers, and only video can deliver that.

It takes a special kind of mindless optimism to go: I know what the world needs! Business advice videos from a middle-aged white guy!

But that is what I’m bringing to this situation. Please don’t hate me.

I promise that compared to others of the LinkedIn Guy genre, my videos are much … shorter.

And they’re the only ones set in a bar.

Will there be bin chicken content?

Do you even have to ask?

 

Where’s The Blog Going?

 

Motivation For Sceptics will be a mixed media experience this year.

There’ll be something new each week. It might be a story or a video. Or a poem.

Joking there will be no poems.

I’d forgotten how much I like the fine details of making videos, and I figure if I’m enjoying myself, it’ll come across in the material.

It’ll rebrand to Undisruptable shortly, to avoid confusion.

Now where was I? Oh yeah remote working.

What signal does your efficient virtual work performance send to your cost-cutting CFO? Here’s what.

“You are expensive local headcount. Your best defensive move is getting back to the office.”

 

 

Here’s another, on the perceived riskiness of starting your own business. And why, in 2021, the reality is that jobs have never been riskier.

Here’s are some thoughts on how to put yourself in control of your life. Warning: contains trace elements of Pete Evans.

 

 

Any shares of these vids would also be appreciated.

I’ll get this thing back to Tuesdays sooner or later, once I get through the video gremlins and national holidays.

Hoping you have an interesting year. Good interesting. Thanks for all your support over the last few years, it’s an ongoing delight.

 

---

 

PS Lots of people got in touch with nice messages after last year’s final story, PK is just fine now. Things are looking up.

SUBSCRIBE

I write a story like this every Tuesday. Drop your email here to get it in your inbox, entirely free of charge.

Bonus: you get a free e-book on 20 Ways To Improve Your Business Right Now. Practical tips we used to build a $20M national business in about 10 years.