My journey into writing started on the job. I was a senior creative and brand strategist in advertising, building stories for companies that wanted to matter. I loved it. I loved mapping out human behaviour, figuring out what people cared about, and turning all of...
Some days I wake up and feel like my mind and body are running on old wiring. Frayed. Overheated. Ready to spark at the slightest touch. I keep telling myself that resilience changes you, but lately that word feels less like a badge and more like a scar I keep trying...
I’ve spent my whole life watching people. Friends, strangers, students, CEOs, lovers, neighbours. I watch how they move through the world, how they avoid themselves, how they numb, how they pretend. I watch the cracks where truth slips out. The older you get, the more...
Everyone posts their Spotify Wrapped like it’s a personality test.“Look at me, I’m a sad indie kid with a side of 2000s pop-punk nostalgia.”Cool. Except that’s not who you are, it’s just what you had on repeat when you were cleaning the kitchen. Spotify Wrapped isn’t...
No, seriously. This isn’t an attack. It’s not a self-help prompt. It’s a question. Do you actually know who you are? And even if you think you do, are you comfortable with it? We get told constantly how important “knowing yourself” is. But what does that even mean? I...
Why Music Owns Memory The power of music. It’s not a new idea. It’s been a universal truth for centuries. But if you’ve lived even a little, you already know this: music doesn’t just fill the silence. It defines the moment. I’m writing this on a window bench at a surf...
Creativity gets defined to death. The Cambridge Dictionary calls it the ability to produce original and unusual ideas. Business books frame it as the power to generate useful solutions. All accurate. All boring. After thirty years in advertising, design, and brand, my...
I’ve been called immature for most of my life. Sometimes it was an accusation. Sometimes it was a compliment. Sometimes it was both, usually in the same sentence. If immaturity was a martial art, I’d be a 5th Dan black belt in Immaturity-do. And yeah, I’ve trained...
This morning I quietly judged a guy for driving a gas guzzling SUV while sipping an iced coffee made from beans grown in a deforested rainforest, out of a single-use plastic cup… that I bought. I walked by, smug in my moral superiority, shaking my head at his...
Because apparently just existing isn’t impressive enough anymore. I’m 53, and I still don’t have a “purpose” in the way Instagram defines it. But don’t worry, the internet’s full of 23-year-olds who do. According to TikTok, if I’m not living with radiant intention,...
I’m a feminist. Not because I hate men. Not because I burn bras or scream into the void. I’m a feminist because I believe, at my core, that everyone deserves the same shot at life, dignity, safety, and opportunity, no matter their gender. Let’s rewind. I’m 53. I was...
Every now and then, in the middle of a scroll or a deadline or a cold cup of coffee, I’ll get hit with this weird, overwhelming clarity. Not about life’s big questions, but about something deceptively small. Like the movement of my own hand. The way I walk. The sound...
That was the line that started writing itself in my head this week. And like so many of the lines that come to me, it didn’t arrive with logic, it arrived with memory. With reflection. With something unresolved. When I was a kid growing up in the 70s and 80s (and...
I grew up in a world so low-fi, it might as well have been powered by duct tape and dumb ideas. Street hockey until the lights came on. BMX ramps made of questionable wood and absolute confidence. Tree forts. Paper cuts. Model glue. Weekends filled with nothing to do...
This weekend was Pride in Victoria. Flags waving, music pulsing through downtown, colours louder than the crosswalks they danced across. And as I stood there, just one man in a sea of joy, I felt it hit me again. This celebration isn’t about politics. It isn’t even...
I’m sitting here on my deck sipping coffee on a picture-perfect summer morning. My mind is casually drifting between the work projects I have on the go, the things I need to get done around the house, and the endless worry orbiting around a few of my kids (adult kids,...
Everyone’s obsessed with the why. And I get it. It’s a powerful question. It drives purpose, intention, and meaning. But here's the cold truth: knowing your why is just the beginning. Stopping there is like drawing blueprints for your dream home and never picking up a...
Let’s start with a disclaimer: I’m not a psychologist. I hold no degrees in sociology or human behaviour. This isn’t science, it’s just the rant of a regular dude. OK, maybe not so regular. I’m 53. Canadian. Middle-class. Straight. White. A father. A creative...
Let’s get real. AI can write a pitch, design a logo, build a website, maybe even spit out a tagline that sounds okay on paper, but let’s be honest, most of it still feels like reading a script written by a committee of polite aliens who studied Earth commercials on...
Every piece in the 8 Deadly Sins series now has a custom Spotify playlist to bring the emotion to life.Start with “Validation”, a sonic descent into our addiction to approval.
You're not hungry. You're hollow. We consume at a rate the human body, brain, and soul were never designed to handle. Food. Media. People. Products. More. More. More. But here’s the punchline: We’re not full, we’re fucking empty. This isn’t about gluttony in the...
Let’s cut the crap. Brand isn’t a logo. It’s not your typeface. It’s not your tagline plucked from a late-night brainstorm with stale coffee and shattered dreams. Sure, all that stuff matters, but only once you’ve got the real stuff figured out. The guts. The pulse....
A dopamine addiction dressed as confidence. The sin of the scroll. The echo of the like. The death of authenticity. Validation is the first in the “8 Deadly Sins of the Modern Era” because it’s the one most of us are swimming in, without realizing we’re drowning. We...
Somewhere along the line, we decided that “creativity” meant painting sunsets or sculpting something tragic out of stone. We shoved it in a little box labelled “arts,” wrapped it in stereotypes, and started handing out labels like candy. “You’re creative.” “You’re...
Let’s get something straight: We talk a lot about confidence, self-love, and “just being yourself”… But if you’ve ever stared in a mirror and wanted to look away, you know it’s not that simple. This one’s personal. Like…punch-you-in-the-gut personal. Self-esteem is a...
(And the one thing the world desperately needs more of) Let’s start here: Empathy isn’t soft. It’s not passive. It’s not some HR seminar buzzword or something reserved for greeting card copy. Empathy is a fucking superpower. Especially for creatives. In a world that’s...
Being in a relationship with a creative is… well, it’s an experience. Ask my wife. Actually, don’t—she might still be recovering from this week’s emotional rollercoaster and endless kitchen chest bumps (she hates those). We’ve been together 15 years. That’s 15 years...
My wife and I just got back from a 20-day trip to Italy and Spain. Sounds romantic, right? Wine, sunsets, pasta, all that jazz. But it wasn’t a vacation—it was a homecoming. Not for us, technically, but for the international students who lived with us over the past 7...