Psychotactics

I wake up every morning at 4am.
And before I know it, it’s 7am.
At 7am I take stock of what I’ve done
Some days I’ll whistle through two or three articles, answer questions on the 5000bc forum, post on this blog, and even go through chunks of email, and sometimes I even have time to jump on [...]

You probably haven’t realised it.
But there’s a difference between the two.
Time well wasted is a good activity.
Wasting time is a silly activity.
So what’s the difference between the two concepts? And how on earth could either of them be ‘good’ activities?
Let’s tackle wasting time
So I woke up today, and got to my computer at 5am (yeah, [...]

Waitasecond? The Recession of 2016?
What the heck? We’re aren’t even done with this recession yet.
And that’s the whole point, you see.
You’re so focused on your day to day activity that you can’t see what’s coming up around the corner. And in 2016, there will be a recession. And then again in 2023, and then [...]

Have you ever wondered why it’s so very difficult to get clients to absorb what you tell them? I’ll tell you why. You’re not demonstrating your product or service using a simple ‘water test’ technique. The ‘water test’ technique is not only simple, but it’s  very actionable, thereby instantly increasing consumption of a product or [...]

I can’t really recall the date: I think it was Jan 25th 2009.
I opened up the newspaper. And there it was: Air New Zealand was offering discounted fares from Auckland to London for just $2000. And in less than 24 hours, they’d sold their pre-arranged quota of 2000 tickets.
That’s $4,000,000 in under 24 hours.
Snapped up.
Paid [...]

I just want to ask you one question: Do you think, truly think that Tiger Woods works harder at his golf than anyone else? Or do you think he works less hard?
And just to continue the question…
Do you think Steve Jobs works harder?
Do you think Michael Phelps works harder?
Do you think Miki Ando works harder? [...]

I always applaud people who take a little more care than others.
It shows personality.
And it stands out, creating a factor of uniqueness.
Most “out of office” responses are yucky.
Boring. Staid. Like the person writing it doesn’t have a brain.
Then you get a breath of fresh air like this one:
Oh what do we have here?  Another [...]

Do you know the story of the Rosetta Stone?
You do, don’t you?
You  know how archaeologists couldn’t make head or tail of hieroglyphics.
And it’s not like they didn’t try. They just weren’t able to figure out what those nice little pictures on the Egyptian monuments really stood for. And then of course, in mid-July 1799, these [...]

When we look at a photograph, we start seeing ourselves, even without meaning to do so.
This is why you can never put a ‘problem’ in your photograph.
But how can that be true? When you see the newspaper photos, they always seem to have something that’s blown up, or burnt down, or something that seems to [...]

How can negative feedback be a gift? That sound ridiculous.
Because no matter if a customer is screaming at you, or whispering their irritation in your ear, the feedback still rankles. And jolts. And you feel like defending yourself.
But remember, feedback is never personal.
We just take it personally.
When a person says: your food needs to be [...]

July was always the worst month of the year for me!
In the years 1997, 1998, 1999, I dreaded July. Because you see, back then I wasn’t in marketing—I was a cartoonist. And somehow in July all the cartooning work mysteriously dried up. The phone would stop ringing. And it would stay dead no matter what I [...]