#197: CRAZY TALK
Today is my birthday so as a birthday treat the whole newsletter is going to be CRAZY TALK.
If you don’t know what crazy talk is, it is crazy and the crazy section of my newsletter that is usually down below that you have to scroll to.
I don’t edit it and I don’t censor myself at all so if I want to shout WAFFLES. I can. Like donkey from Shrek.
The way I write it is that I just let the pure unfiltered thoughts stream from the tentacles of my brain onto the page and let the creativity or the juice or the whatever just flow and let it all come out.
It started because I was thinking about what my next creative ADVENTURE might be which was me thinking about ROUTLEDGES CHAMPAGNE, or being a CEREAL ENTREPRENEUR, or raising a FUNd to invest in social impact entrepreneurs.
But now I just write crazily about how many startups are BORING and I have been worrying about how the things we create or I create need to be helpful and good for the world, and are most businesses?
I don’t know really but right now I am quite tired and I am hungover from being on a stag doo. On the first night someone asked me in a nice way how we protect our mental health on a stag doo. And I said MATE BOUNDARIES. Say no to that beer.
What I have realised about drinking lots and lots of beers with groups of BLOKES is that drinking less is harder than not drinking at all. What I love about the non-UK drinking culture is small beers. YES CERVEJA PEQUENO or what I think in Australia is called a Scuna. What a size.
#bringbackhalfpints
That should be the next movement I start.
Because alcohol is fantastic and drinking is good, or at least I think so, so it’s not about just cutting it out and BANNING IT for me, it’s about a better relationship with it. Don’t, don’t drink. Drink less. Actually do whatever you want tbh this is crazy talk
The other crazy thing I have been thinking about is that I am pretty sure the next thing I start will be humanitarian in some way and not profit generating at all. Well obvs could be like a not for profit or something.
I think the constraint of needing to generate profit and then to have your organisation valued by an external person. E/g you start a ltd company and at some point there are questions of ownership, profit etc etc. They are constraints that mean you create certain art.
BUSINESS IS ART.
Yet from an impact perspective they do hold you back because ultimately you follow the money. Follow the money and ultimately that designs an organisation.
I think to build something properly humanitarian that impacts the parts of society that are creating little to no economic value (and let’s be honest that’s where the help is needed) I think an organisation can’t be a ltd, profit generating company by design. Perhaps it can but the value flow does seem to get distorted along the way, capitalism just ends up winning. The system has to be designed different in social impact I am sure of that.
But anyway, whatever James this isn’t a thesis on company design for social impact, although someone should do that as a dissertation at uni?
I have been thinking about what has changed my life and I keep coming back to the word BELIEF.
I have had a life littered with belief in a really good way. Mum and Dad believed in me. Then got into the world of startups and investors believed in me.
Mills and Doug gave me 10k each with no strings attached to start Sanctus, that is just insane.
Belief can be so powerful. Especially when you might be from an environment where belief and hope are scarce.
How do you give belief to the people who need it?
There’s a crazy question.
I like that.
Thanks for letting me write this weeks newsletter on crazy talk, as crazy talk, I bet I will have lots of unsubscribes, but oh well. Next week I will write a normal/serious/newsletter and then crazy talk will be down the bottom again in its own special section.
This week for my 31st birthday (Hobbits come of age at 33 that’s how old Frodo was when he started his journey with the fellowship) I wanted to have a birthday treat of crazy talk, so this is my gift from myself to myself.
Mum, I haven’t got the card yet from the airbnb letterbox but have text them.
For my birthday, if you would like to, I wish that everyone lets themselves do something a little crazy and is kind to themselves and maybe treats themselves to something?
Love
James x
p.s GENTLE TALK is a thing and my mum said it is good and sometimes too much crazy is too much. I love writing.
What I'm writing
GENTLE TALK II 👇🏼 Below👇🏼
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GENTLE TALK #II
slowly slowly
waves break against the shore
no matter how big the wave
trickling until it's no more
loud crash
gentle descent
the tide relents
slowly slowly
waves lap against the land
feet fall into the sand
slowly slowly
Who am I?
Writer, founder, husband, always tanned.
Wannabe poet, imposter, taboo buster.
Thinker, philosopher, not a drinker
Joker, chancer, bad dancer.
shoulder chipped Stokie
champagne hippie
Asks questions,
the big ones
best ones.
Always
asking
Who
am
I?