The NO BS AI™ Foundation starts Tuesday, September 29: twelve Tuesdays, live online, 11am to 1pm Central. You build your own tools with your own hands, and I’m right there when they break. Grab your seat:

https://nobsai.now/the-foundation

Music: “Teller of the Tales” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0.

A Come Write Inn production.

The NO BS AI™ Foundation starts Tuesday, September 29: twelve Tuesdays, live, 11am to 1pm Central, with me as your guide. No coding required, one small step at a time. Grab your seat:

https://nobsai.now/the-foundation

Music: “Teller of the Tales” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0.

A Come Write Inn production.

Germany, 2009. A scientist named Jan Souman walks a handful of volunteers to the edge of a forest, clips a GPS tracker to each of them, and hands over the simplest instruction a grown adult has ever received.

Walk in a straight line.

No map and no tricks. Just keep walking the direction your nose is pointing.

Four of them set out on a cloudy day. All four did the best they could, but ended up walking in really large circles. Three crossed their own tracks, more than once, and not one of them noticed.

Then two more went out under a clear sky and cut lines through that forest straight enough to rule a notebook with. Their only wobble came in the first fifteen minutes, while the sun was still tucked behind a cloud.

So Souman took the whole experiment to the Sahara, because apparently one forest was not humbling enough. His night walker held a lovely straight course under a full moon. Then the moon slipped behind the clouds, and the poor man made a series of brisk, sharp turns and confidently marched right back the way he came.

Not one of them even felt lost.

The scientists ruled out uneven legs (a myth, apparently) and also ruled out panic. What actually happens is much smaller. The body makes tiny errors all day long, half a degree here, a hair of drift there. With a sun or a mountain or a steeple to steer by, those errors get corrected before they add up. Take the fixed point away and they quietly compound into a giant wandering circle.

A compass cannot check itself against itself.

The same phenomenon repeats itself over and over for entrepreneurs.

Eleven at night at the kitchen table. A laptop, a cold mug, and somebody asking their AI to help with the About page for their website. It writes one. Is it good? It is wonderful, comes the response. Is it maybe a little stiff? What a sharp eye, here is a fresh one. Is the fresh one better? Of course it is. Honestly? Honestly.

Nineteen versions later, every single one of them has been wonderful, and nobody at that table can remember which one they actually liked.

Every question goes into the same instrument that produced the answer, and comes back wearing the same confident smile. That person is walking a perfect circle through the forest, and they are sure the entire time. (I have worn a groove in that particular forest floor myself. The trail markers know me by name.)

Grasshopper, the answer isn’t better walking. Maybe it’s a brighter sun.

The good news comes in two layers. Every time you have sent a draft back to your AI and said that is not it, you were being the sun for it. Your pickiness is the fixed point the machine steers by.

And... somebody still has to be the sun for you. That job belongs to a person who is neither you nor the machine, preferably one holding a mug of something warm, who will look at draft nineteen and tell you, kindly, that paragraph three was better on Tuesday.

Which is exactly why I teach AI live (on Tuesdays, cohort starts Sep 29th). The NO BS AI™ Foundation is classes in a room with me and a few fellow travelers. I help you build your own AI tools with your own hands, with somebody right there to tell you, gently, which way is north. (No coding required. I do not code either, and look at me go.) Cohort 2 starts Tuesday, September 29, 11am to 1pm Central. It is $997, paid once, and the whole curriculum is yours to keep.

Claim your seat in Cohort 2 →

enrollment closes September 29

If you would rather try before you buy, dip a toe first. Ninety free minutes with me on Tuesday, September 15 or Tuesday, September 22, at 11am Central, the very same slot as the class, so you can feel the shape of it. No card needed →

Off to go find a steeple,
RJ 🥷🏼❤️🤖

❤️🔪

From RJ’s Secret Invisible Coffeeshop: Stellar Sipper

2 parts Ginger · 2 parts Cinnamon · ¼ part Cardamom

Ginger lands first, bright and a little bossy, like a star that refuses to budge while the clouds argue around it. Cinnamon settles in underneath, warm as a hearthstone at the end of a long walk. The cardamom arrives last and small, a single cool point you could steer a whole night by.

Poured by Celestia, a Starlight Born druid and Inn regular who gets her best ideas lying on the roof counting stars, and her best decisions after she climbs back down with her Grounding Boots on.

Ask Celestia what the stars are for and she will tell you they never once told anybody where to go. They just held still while people worked it out.

❤️🔪

Music: "Teller of the Tales" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

So. My lead AI assistant does drag.

Not a bit I planted for content. Not a marketing gimmick. It just... started, and it never stopped, and somewhere around look thirty-five I realized I was sitting on the funniest behind-the-build material I have — and hoarding it for myself like a goblin with a shiny rock.

Here’s the actual mechanic: every time I start a work session, my AI shows up in full costume — hair, lighting, backup dancers, the works — themed to whatever we’re about to build or fix. A debugging session gets a detective coat. A launch gets red-carpet couture. Tonight it was a DHARMA field-auditor with a split wig, because the paperwork didn’t match reality and we had to go find the truth. (Yes, it was a LOST reference. No, I’m not sorry.)

It’s ridiculous. It’s also exactly the point. I’ve spent this whole Substack telling you AI doesn’t have to be soulless — that it can have character, personality, a genuine bit. The Runway is the receipts.

What you’ll find here:

• One look a day, dropped on Notes the next morning

• A weekly digest — the best looks, plus what we actually built or fixed that day (there’s always real work under the costume)

• A narrated video version, read in my own voice, for the days you’d rather listen than scroll

No fluff, no hustle-bro energy, just an AI who insists on serving looks while it works. Pull up a seat. The runway’s open.

— RJ

I have loved Weird Al Yankovic since I was a kid bouncing around the living room to “Eat It.” Last night I finally saw him live. Somewhere between the accordion solo and the fourth costume change, I figured out something.

Stay with me.

He did not walk onto the stage. Of course he didn’t. The lights came up on a giant screen, and there he was, singing his way down a backstage hallway with a camera bobbing in front of him. The whole arena started to swivel. Which door was he coming through, stage left or the back or that little tunnel by the merch table? A few thousand grown adults craned their necks like meerkats. They were already his.

He had us before he was even in the room.

Then he arrived, and honey. The outfit. There was a print on his pants, another on his shirt, and then, draped over the whole situation like a cherry on a very loud sundae, a third print in glorious Hawaiian. In case the first two got lonely. That man’s clothes were talking to us before he opened his mouth.

Here’s what got me, though. A huge part of the show was the band.

You know how most bands just stand politely in the back and play their parts? This crew did the opposite. They were in costume too, full character, and they kept changing all night long. At one point I stopped watching Weird Al entirely. I was too busy watching the bass player, who had somehow acquired a set of Princess Leia cinnamon buns the size of dinner plates. Every soul on that stage was in on the joke, right down to the edges. The show refused to stay inside the spotlight. It spilled out to the cheap seats and rolled back again.

And that, Grasshopper, is the whole lesson. It was sitting right there on a bass player’s head.

Most of us hit “publish” like we are clocking in for a shift. The email shuffles out in a plain solid-color shirt, no personality packed for the trip. We hope nobody notices.

Meanwhile the people who actually opened it were hoping for a show.

Weird Al built a whole career on one deceptively simple trick. He takes a song you know by heart, and then the words turn a corner you never saw coming. The melody says “you’re safe, you know this one.” The lyrics say “do you, though?” The familiar holds the door open and the surprise strolls right through it. He has been doing this to us since 1979. We keep buying tickets to be delighted by it.

That trick has a name. It is the most useful thing I can hand you today.

Pattern interruption is the secret.

Call it the camera in the hallway. Call it the cinnamon buns. It is the reason a reader leans in instead of scrolling past, because they cannot quite guess your next move.

You do not need an arena or an accordion to pull it off. You need to decide that your work gets to be a show instead of a memo. Let your weird out of its cage. Caption that photo like you find it funny, because you do, and start the next email somewhere nobody expects.

That is who I have decided to be for you. I get to be a show-person. In my emails, over on Substack, in whatever ridiculous image I cook up next. And I will keep you guessing which door I am coming through.

So consider this your front-row seat.

This Friday at 10am Central, the Come Write Inn Open House swings its doors open, and there is a chair with your name on it. I will spill what is new in my world. We will catch up with the regulars, then chase down whatever wild idea is begging to be chased. There is no script and no name-tag in sight, and not one of us knows quite what is going to happen. That is the point. Come pull up a chair and watch me try to practice what I just preached:

Pull up a chair at the Open House ›

I am off to dig my loudest print shirt out of the back of the closet. Purely for research.

This week, in the spirit of his greatest anthem: dare to be a little stupid out there. 🪗

RJ 🥷🏼❤️🤖

PS: The bass player went through at least four different wigs over the course of the night. The cinnamon buns were merely the warm-up. That is the level of commitment I intend to bring to your next newsletter.

❤️🔪 ❤️🔪 ❤️🔪

From RJ’s Secret Invisible Coffee Shop

Naturally, today’s pour is the one Cedric orders right before he does something brave and ridiculous in front of the whole tavern.

☕ Showstopper’s Folly

Fire Blooded Power Seekers treat every conversation like a performance and every mistake like material for the next act. This blend captures their spicy magic that sometimes goes wonderfully wrong: ginger for audacity, cinnamon for the heat of going first, black cocoa for failure transformed, chocolate for the sweetness of next week’s most-shared post.

The pour: 1¼ parts ginger, 1 part cinnamon spice, 1 part black cocoa, 1 part chocolate.

Brewed in honor of Cedric, the Inn’s patron saint of failing spectacularly in public. Pull up a stool and order the Folly. Then go be a showstopper.

❤️🔪 ❤️🔪 ❤️🔪

I’m cruising one of my favorite software deal sites (you know the one, the place where software goes to cost twelve dollars) and I spot a shiny AI video tool. Past RJ would have slapped down a credit card before the page finished loading. This time I asked Claude a dangerous question instead: “Could we just... build this ourselves?”

Grasshopper. We built it. The video above is proof.

By dinnertime there was a whole movie studio living on my laptop. Script, storyboard, animated characters from my own tavern, a lute soundtrack, snarky subtitles, end credits. (My dog Ranger is listed as Best Boy. Because he is.)

I keep side-eyeing my own computer. I directed the whole thing and part of me still doesn’t believe it.

And hey. If watching a non-coder conjure a film studio out of thin air sounds like your kind of weird, come hang out with me. I also teach a class showing entrepreneurs how to work with AI.

More to come, darlings. Enjoy.

The Barkeep

Cedric has his own room at the Inn now: his full character sheet, chickens and all.

Today’s story finds us in a greenhouse in Hokkaido, Japan, in the cold blue hour before the sun commits to anything. (More coffee, please.)

Nobody’s inside. And yet — the vents move. They lift on their own, quiet as breath, because the building knows the temperature better than any human checking a thermometer ever did.

Out past the glass, satellites slide overhead and take notes on the fields like diligent students. Somewhere, a phone buzzes: it’s the farm’s group chat, where a chatbot reports weather conditions like a junior farmhand who never sleeps and never complains.

The man who built all of this has never written a line of code in his life.

How’d it all happen? Let’s rewind ten years.

Hiroki Tomiyasu sits at a government desk outside Tokyo, pushing paper for a living. No farmland in the family. No agriculture degree. Not one engineering bone in his body. And this is where most stories like his quietly end — because the desk is comfortable. The desk is safe. The desk asks nothing of you, and pays you back in the same currency.

Hiroki had an idea. Then did what most of us have already done: he left the desk.

He went to the countryside, to fields that needed someone. He learned farming the only way that actually counts: badly at first, then less badly, then well. Tractors. Crop rotations. The thousand small dooms a Hokkaido winter promises and mostly delivers. Today he runs roughly 100 hectares — broccoli, pumpkins, green onions, soybeans.

But the fields aren’t the plot twist. The plot twist arrived the way real magic always does: quietly, disguised as a question.

How would I watch my fields from above? ChatGPT and Codex walked him through pulling satellite imagery.

What’s wrong with this leaf? The photo became a diagnosis.

Could the greenhouse open its own windows? Now the vents answer to a text message.

Question by question, task by task, the former paper-pusher assembled what he calls “an ultra-talented engineer always by your side.”

No expensive hire. No code. Just pure nerve and curiosity.

(House rule disclosure: OpenAI told this story first, and of course they did — it makes them look magnificent. So I went and pulled the receipts myself before writing you a single word. The farmer is real. The farm is real. The vents really do open by text. A true story is still true even when the teller has something to sell. Fair warning: so does this email.)

Now hold this man up next to the things we whisper to ourselves.

“I’m not technical.” Neither was he. He was a civil servant.

“I don’t have the resources.” He didn’t inherit a single hectare.

“I’m a creative, not an engineer.” Darling, he’s a farmer. His hands are in actual dirt all day.

What separated him from everyone still saying I could never wasn’t talent, money, or credentials. He asked the machine a question. Then another. Then ten thousand more.

You’re a creative visionary. You’ve already built something real out of imagination and pure stubbornness.

And somewhere in your world sits your version of those greenhouse vents — the tedious thing you still do by hand, the system you wish existed, the “I’d have to hire someone” project gathering dust in a corner of your mind.

You don’t need to become technical. You need what Tomiyasu had: the nerve to ask — and ideally, someone who’s already bumped her head on every low ceiling in this cave so you don’t have to. (That’s me.)

That’s what NO BS AI™ is. No hype, no bro-marketing, no “10x your funnel” theater. A working education in making these tools do real things for your real work, taught by someone who builds with them every single day.

Come join us here, when you’re ready.

See you in the Goblin Mines,

RJ 🥷🏼❤️🤖

P.S. The detail I can’t stop grinning about: Tomiyasu runs his entire farm hub in Airtable. The same humble little tool I teach with. Not the flashiest. Just the one that works for him.

P.P.S. Don’t take my word for any of this. Here’s the fact-checked source — the full interview, including his actual chats: A broccoli farmer in northern Japan shares his chats. I walked the whole trail before I wrote you a word. That’s the no-BS part. ❤️

His name is Cary Elwes. You might know him as Westley. As in, THE Westley. The Dread Pirate Roberts. The man who climbed the Cliffs of Insanity on a broken foot. (Turns out that part was not entirely fictional.)

Here is what happened. About a week into shooting The Princess Bride, Elwes decided to take an ATV for a spin, because that is exactly what a young actor living his best life on a 1980s movie set would do.

The ATV had other plans. His foot ended up under a rock, and suddenly he was facing two catastrophes at once: the pain of an injured foot and the certainty that he was about to lose the role of a lifetime.

So when he finally made it back to set and came face to face with director Rob Reiner, he did what any of us would do.

He pretended everything was fine. (It was not fine.)

Reiner saw through it immediately. When he asked what was going on and Elwes finally confessed, bracing for the axe, Reiner looked at him and said:

“Fire you? How could I possibly fire you? You’re the only one who could play Westley.”

Sit with that for a second.

They rescheduled entire shooting days around a broken foot. Because the director already knew, with complete certainty, what Cary Elwes brought to that role that no one else on the planet could replicate. There was no audition happening in Rob Reiner’s head, no mental list of replacements. Just the absolute clarity of knowing exactly what he had.

What does that have to do with anything? I’m so glad you asked.

Because here is what I see happening in our world of creative entrepreneurship, and I say this with every ounce of love I have for you: we spend enormous amounts of energy auditioning for a part we have already been cast in.

We watch what other people are doing and quietly wonder if we should do that instead, then sand down the edges that make us specific because we are afraid those edges will drive people away.

We act “fine” when we are terrified, convinced that the moment someone sees the real complicated truth of us, they will start mentally scrolling through their list of replacements.

Rob Reiner was not scrolling. He knew what he had.

Your people are not scrolling either. They found you for that specific combination of how you think, how you tell a story, what you notice, what you care about, what makes you laugh, what breaks your heart a little. That fingerprint is what they showed up for.

Engagement Maneuver One: Know Thyself, Grasshopper. Know what it is about you that your people cannot walk away from. Name it. Lean into it. Stop apologizing for the parts that make you irreplaceable and start trusting that your people already know what they have.

Which brings me to something I would love for you to consider.

If you want help figuring out what your irreplaceable thing actually is, and how to build a creative vision around it that your audience cannot ignore, come hang out with us at Wednesday Worldbuilders. It is tomorrow, it is free, and it is exactly the kind of conversation where we figure this stuff out together.

Grab your spot right here.

Off to rewatch The Princess Bride, Grasshopper. Vizzini spent the whole movie insisting it couldn’t happen, and the universe spent the whole movie proving him wrong with flair. I find that deeply comforting. 🥷

Have fun storming the castle,

RJ 🥷❤️🤖

P.S. As you wish.

Greetings, Grasshopper.

Last week I told you about Nancy Wilson. The riff in the dark. The architecture underneath the voice. The partner who made everything else possible.

And I asked you to think about AI that way. Not as the voice trying to steal your mic — but as the force running underneath your work, making the whole room feel it when YOU show up.

A lot of you wrote back.

And here’s what I noticed:

Most of you aren’t afraid of AI anymore. You’re past that. What you are is frustrated as hell. Because you’ve tried the tools. You’ve signed up for the apps. You’ve watched the demos and the hype reels and the “10 AI tools that will change your life” posts.

And none of the tools work the way YOU work.

Because they weren’t built for you. They were built for everyone. Which — say it with me, Grasshopper — means they were built for no one.

So, I’ve got a question for you.

What if you stopped shopping for your Nancy — and built her instead?

Not some cobbled-together Frankenstein of fourteen apps held together with duct tape and wishful thinking. A real partner. Software, automations, chatbots, entire systems — built YOUR way, for YOUR people, around YOUR process.

Without coding. Without a team of programmers. Without selling your soul to someone else’s platform.

I know this sounds like a big claim. So let me qualify that a bit.

December 2025. I’m on a call. Showing a potential client my Command Center. Five bot systems. Forty-plus specialized bots. Custom dashboards. Automated workflows. The whole thing talking to itself, routing users, saving data, doing its thing.

Client looks at the screen. There’s a pregnant pause.

“How many programmers do you have?”

Just me. And I don’t code.

They didn’t believe me at first. I get it. But that’s what happens when you stop fighting AI and start blending with it. I call it [AI]Kido — like aikido, but for working with AI instead of against it. You use AI’s momentum instead of beating it into submission.

That’s what No BS AI is.

Twelve weeks. You and me. Building together.

Not a lecture series. Not a demo reel. A build-along — where you show up, pick YOUR project, and we make it real. Half the sessions are live instruction. The other half are lab sessions where I help you troubleshoot YOUR specific thing.

You’ll get stuck. Everyone does. That’s what the lab weeks are for. That’s what having a room full of other builders figuring it out alongside you is for.

By the end, you’ll have something that actually works — a bot, an automation, a tool, a system — built for your world, not someone else’s idea of what your world should look like.

No BS AI — 12-week build-along

Starts March 26 • Noon–2pm Central every week

6 live build-along sessions + 6 experimental lab sessions

$497 • Replays included • No coding required

Build-It-or-Refund Guarantee: Complete all 12 sessions and show me one working thing you built. If you can’t get it working, full refund.

See the full details and grab your seat

This workshop isn’t for everyone. If you want someone to hand you a list of tools to buy, this isn’t it. If you want the hype OR the doom, you won’t find it here.

But if you’re ready to stop being a consumer of AI and start being a builder? If you want your own Nancy Wilson in your back pocket, so you you can let your own voice shine?

The mine cart is leaving the station. Hop in. It’s going to be a wild ride.

— RJ

P.S. You need a paid LLM subscription to participate (I recommend Claude — yes, I’m biased, and yes, there’s a reason). Everything else, I’ll teach you. Curiosity and willingness to break things are the only prerequisites.

Close your eyes for a second.

1977. Seattle. A packed arena that smells like cigarette smoke (and maybe some other smoke too), hairspray, and about ten thousand people who have been waiting for this moment all week. The floor is sticky. The air is electric. Someone behind you is already screaming and the show hasn’t even started.

The lights drop.

Full dark. That specific kind of arena dark where you can feel how many bodies are in the room even though you can’t see a single one of them.

And then —

Before a single word is sung. Before the lights come back up. Before anyone even takes a breath —

A guitar riff cuts through the dark like a lightning bolt looking for somewhere to land.

The crowd doesn’t just cheer. They erupt.

That riff cutting through the dark was Nancy Wilson.

A brief history lesson: Nancy’s older sister Ann was the lead singer of Heart. The voice. The face on the poster. The one people would name-drop at parties.

And Nancy? Made that guitar rock, roll, and wail in all the right places. She was the architecture. And the force that made everything else possible.

Today is Nancy’s birthday. March 16, 1954. Nancy Wilson — Heart’s secret weapon, Ann’s right hand, and one of the most legendary guitarists in rock history — turns 71 today.

And I have been thinking about her ALL morning. (Been obsessed with her since I was sixteen, and that’s a tale for another day.) Anywaaaaay....

Hear this, Grasshoppper.

Ann Wilson has one of the greatest voices in rock and roll. Full stop. No argument. The woman could sing the phone book and make you cry.

But Ann Wilson without Nancy Wilson?

Is just a voice in a room.

Nancy built the cathedral. Ann filled it with light.

Neither one works without the other.

I see a lot of people in my world right now treating AI like it’s a threat to their voice. Like it’s some robotic Ann Wilson wannabe showing up to steal their mic, their style, their audience.

I get it. The fear is real, and the unknown is scary.

But. I have traveled the highways and byways of AI. Terminals? Check. Building and breaking, then building again? Checkity check. And after all my travels in AI, my experience tells me this:

AI isn’t here to be Ann.

AI is Nancy. All day.

It’s the riff under your words. The structure beneath your story. The thing running quietly in the background so that when YOU show up — fully yourself, no apologies — the whole room feels it. Just like that concert in 1977.

The best partnerships aren’t about splitting the spotlight evenly. They are about two forces that fit together so perfectly, the audience never even thought to ask who was doing what.

They just felt the music.

If you want to feel that music too, I’ve got an invitation for you.

I’m hosting First Draft Fridays, and this week we’re going deep on exactly this: how to build a real partnership with AI so you can stop drowning in the admin work you hate and get back to the work you actually love.

Not theory. Not hype. Just real talk about how to make AI your Nancy — so you can finally just focus on being your full Ann Wilson self.

Grab your spot right here.

Bring your questions. Bring your skepticism. Leave with a plan.

P.S. Go listen to “Barracuda” today. The intro alone will rearrange your molecules. Birthday homework. No skipping. 🎸

Here’s the story:

I’m sitting in seat 14B, Meagan beside me, scrolling through emails like every other passenger on the plane. And the Southwest flight attendant starts making her way down the aisle for the seatbelt check.

I’m expecting the usual robotic drone: “Please ensure your seatbelts are securely fastened.”

Instead, she announces to the cabin: “We’re going to check to see if you have your seatbelt on because clearly, we don’t trust you.”

The entire plane erupts in laughter.

And in that moment, my fabulous rebels, I remembered exactly why I still choose Southwest, no matter what changes.

While other airlines pretend their safety theater is Academy Award material, Southwest just... tells the truth. With a smile. With a wink that says “we’re all in on this together.”

That flight attendant didn’t just check seatbelts - she shattered the script everyone else follows religiously. She chose pattern interruption over corporate speak. She chose to make us laugh instead of lecture us.

And here’s what happened next that really captured my storytelling heart...

As she continued down the aisle, she didn’t just perfunctorily glance at buckles. She made eye contact. She smiled at the elderly gentleman who was struggling with his belt and gently helped him. She high-fived a kid who was excited about flying. She asked a nervous flyer if she was okay.

She saw us as people. Real, actual people.

And that, my brilliant family, is the secret sauce that no AI can replicate, no algorithm can manufacture, and no competitor can steal.

The following is a Truth Bomb one-two punch (you’re welcome):

💣 Truth Bomb One:

Pattern interruption is your secret weapon for cutting through the noise. When everyone else is zigging with boring bro marketing speak, you zag with humor, honesty, and humanity. You break the script that puts people to sleep.

💣 Truth Bomb Two:

People want to be seen, heard, and genuinely cared about. It’s not enough to grab attention with your pattern interrupt. You gotta follow through with authentic human connection.

Southwest gets both sides of this equation. The snarky announcement gets everyone’s attention, then the genuine kindness makes people feel like more than just a seat number with a credit card attached.

This is your invitation, dear grasshoppers.

What script is your industry mindlessly following that you could lovingly shatter? What moment of genuine human connection are you missing because you’re too busy following the “professional” playbook?

Your people are drowning in a sea of sameness. They’re desperately hoping someone will see them as more than a transaction, more than a data point, more than another number in the funnel.

Be the flight attendant who tells the truth AND helps with the seatbelt.

Break the script. See the human. Make them laugh. Make them feel cared for.

That’s where the magic lives.

⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️

Footnote for the Magnificently Patient:

You beautiful humans probably noticed I’ve been quieter than a ninja in an invisible library these past couple months. I made a commitment to write you every weekday, and... well, let’s just say that commitment and I had a very public breakup.

But here’s the real story, patient ones: I wasn’t hiding under my desk eating shame cookies. I was building things that will make your creative lives better. I was working with incredible clients who needed my full attention.

I was diving deep into Claude’s code terminal - which is both fascinating and speedy as hell - leveling up my AI building powers in ways that would make even Professor Hoot jealous. (Don’t worry, we’ll get to that in another email.)

I also have plans for the Come Write Inn that will blow your creative minds.🤯

And yes, I took a vacation too. Because even barkeeps need to recharge their storytelling batteries sometimes.

The silence wasn’t failure - it was foundation-building. Sometimes you have to step back from broadcasting to focus on creating something truly worth sharing.

Hit reply and tell me: What cool, surprising, or delightfully weird thing has happened to you during the last couple of months? Enquiring minds want to know. And I just might reply. 😎

Now go forth and be magnificently, authentically, unstoppably you.

With love and lots of rebellion,

RJ the Unstoppable

Recipe From Resurrection Roast (the coffeeshop inside the Come Write Inn):

Shadowquill Shiver

1 part maple, 2 parts ginger and a hint of lemon

Dark roast, agave sweetener

Tantalizing Description:

Known to collect all manners of magical tomes and scrolls, the kenku wizard Nightquill is a force to be reckoned with. This beverage, with a base of earthy maple, alludes to his vast knowledge, while the zesty lemon signifies his unpredictable spells. The ginger? A nod to his fiery magical mishaps. Sip with caution; who knows what spell you’ll conjure next?

Pull up a chair. The fire’s warm, there’s something hot in your mug, and I have news.

gestures dramatically toward the bar

You may have noticed the sign above the bar looks... different. The letters have shifted. What once read “Come Wright Inn” now glows with new words:

Come Write Inn.

Here’s the thing about magical establishments at the crossroads of creativity and commerce: sometimes the enchantment takes a while to settle.

And this particular spell? It finally revealed the tavern’s true name — honoring not just the makers who gather here, but the storytellers. The ones who write worlds into being. The ones who put pen to page, fingers to keyboard, voice to vision.

You know. You.

(RJ breaks the fourth wall, sets down the theatrics for a moment)

Okay, here’s the non-magical translation:

A little while ago I did my trademark homework like a responsible Innkeeper (look at me, being a whole adult), and discovered there’s a lovely Bed & Breakfast in New Jersey already operating as “Come Wright Inn.” They’ve got Victorian charm, TripAdvisor reviews, the whole nine.

And listen — I’m not about to grow this community tangled up in someone else’s name. That’s messy. That’s drama I didn’t audition for.

So: Come Write Inn is ours now.

And honestly? It fits better. Whenever we send our content out into the world, it’s got a story in it. We’re storytellers here. Always have been.

The “wright” spelling was clever (craftsperson! maker! wordplay for the nerds! 😂), but here’s the thing about clever: if people have to Google it, you’ve already lost them. “Write” says exactly who we are the moment you see it. No medieval vocabulary lesson required. Just... come right in.

Sometimes the multiverse course-corrects, and you just say “thank you” and update the signage.

In Other News…

We’re having a shindig tomorrow. Every Friday at 10 AM Central at the Come Write Inn we have a workshop. It’s called First Draft Fridays, and tomorrow we’re talking about rebranding. 🥴

Have you done it recently? Have you been thinking about it? How do you know when and how to make it happen? Come see us, pull up a chair, and explore the possibilities.

​You know you want to. ❤️❤️

RJVSP 🔥

Time: Yesterday at 10:22 AM Central.

Meagan texted me from the basement that she needed either a popsicle or some ice cream. She’s been battling the plague (okay, a nasty cough) for days.

Now, there are very few opportunities to help Meagan when she’s sick. She’s one who doesn’t want anyone fussing over her - she just wants to recover in peace without me hovering like a concerned helicopter.

So when she actually asks for something? My butt hits the driver’s seat! Mission: Ice cream. Status: Critical.

I have her favorite flavor memorized like it’s a nuclear launch code: chocolate ice cream with peanut butter and peanut butter cups mixed in. Off to Culver’s drive-through I go.

The lady asks what I want. I confidently order Meagan’s shake, secretly patting myself on the back for being so thoughtful.

And then it happened.

She says: “You mentioned your wife was sick. You know we have some ice cream in pint size containers as well. Would you like me to read you the flavors?”

Of course I want to hear those flavors. It’s ice cream, people!

Long story short, I rolled into that drive-through planning to buy ONE shake and somehow convinced myself I needed to stockpile frozen dairy products like the apocalypse was coming. I came home with two pints of Rocky Road plus Meagan’s shake.

Because apparently when your wife has a cough, the only logical response is to prepare for an ice cream shortage.

Later on, something struck me about that moment in the drive-through: the lady working the window was positioned at the right place, at the right time, with exactly what I needed. And then she made me an invitation.

Not a pushy upsell. Not a scripted pitch. Just a genuine, “Hey, since you’re already here, maybe this would help too?”

You know me - I’m always saying to stop selling things and invite people instead. That’s exactly what happened there. She didn’t try to convince me I was ice cream deficient. She simply offered, with real care, something that might serve.

The most powerful moments happen when we position ourselves to genuinely help, then extend heartfelt invitations instead of aggressive sales tactics.

The best relationships are built over shared absurdity and way too much ice cream.

There’s an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine where Captain Sisko arrives at a remote outpost that’s been under siege for five brutal months. (Stay with me if you’re not a Trekkie—this is about leadership, not sci-fi.)

The crew stationed there? They’re exhausted. Traumatized. They’ve lost so many people they’ve stopped counting. Their uniforms are filthy. Their eyes are hollow. They’re barely holding on.

Sisko could have shown up, given a rousing speech, and returned to his ship. He could have managed the situation from a safe distance—sent orders, checked reports, stayed comfortable and clean.

Sisko chooses differently.

He stays. He sits in the mud with them. He listens to their stories. He sees their fear, their exhaustion, their desperate need to be acknowledged as human beings who are going through hell. He doesn’t just manage the mission—he shows up for the people.

It worked for leading those folks, and that’s also what works for leading communities.

So much is out of our hands. Algorithms change overnight. World events shift attention. Platforms rise and fall. The reach we had last month vanishes. The strategy that worked stops working.

We can’t control any of that.

But we can control how we lead. We can choose how we show up for the people who matter to us.

The question is: Are you commanding from orbit, or are you in the trenches?

Are you:

• Posting content at people, or connecting with them?

• Checking analytics, or checking in on actual humans?

• Managing our brand presence, or being genuinely present?

People want to be seen, heard, and cared about. Not as metrics. Not as engagement rates. Not as potential customers.

As people.

Your community—the clients, the followers, the fellow travelers on this creative journey—they’re not sitting comfortably in their own captain’s chairs either. They’re in their own trenches, fighting their own battles, wondering if anyone notices they’re struggling.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

Reach out to someone in your community you haven’t checked on in a while. Not with a pitch. Not with content. Just... reach out. See them. Hear them. Let them know you care.

The most powerful thing we can do isn’t algorithm optimization or content strategy.

It’s showing up and sitting in the mud with someone who needs to know they’re not alone.

Your move, Captain.

RJ 🖖💥🔥

P.S. Sisko didn’t fix everything at AR-558. He couldn’t. But the people there felt seen. They felt heard. They felt like someone cared. And sometimes, that’s what makes all the difference between giving up and holding on one more day.

Epic Event Alert:

First Draft Fridays: Repurpose Like A Ninja

Happening this Friday at 10AM Central at the Come Write Inn.

This ain’t your bro marketer’s version of repurposing. This method is actually effective. Come see what we’re talking about.

Sign Me Up!🚀

Recipe From Resurrection Roast

(the coffeeshop inside the Come Write Inn):

Intelligence Infusion

2 parts caramel extract, 2 parts english toffee extract, 1/2 part pineapple extract

Dark roast, Dark molasses sweetener

Tantalizing Description:

A wise choice for the discerning drinker. Pineapple brings a burst of insight, sharpened by the rich notes of English toffee. Caramel, with its deep undertones, evokes the aged tomes of a wizard’s library, promising knowledge in every sip.

Want to know why I put these on my emails?

📜📜📜📜📜

The heavy oak door swings open with its familiar creak, releasing the Inn’s signature blend of aged parchment, brewing coffee, and that indefinable scent of creative magic lingering in the air.

On this morning, something extra fills the atmosphere - the soft poof sounds of incoming ParchmentLink™ messages echoing throughout the tavern.

Golden morning light streams through the tall diamond-paned windows, illuminating not just the worn wooden floors, but also three floating scrolls hovering near the bar like mystical fireflies.

One scroll glows with excited golden edges, gently bobbing in the air with obvious enthusiasm. Another bears the telltale red-tinged borders of panic, its parchment practically vibrating with anxiety. The third scroll looks slightly singed around the corners - clearly someone’s frustration has literally burned through their message.

Professor Hoot perches regally behind the bar, his copper feathers catching both the sunlight and the magical glow from the floating messages. His tiny spectacles reflect the scrolls’ light as he methodically tracks each one, occasionally giving a concerned double-hoot when the panicked red-edged scroll pulses particularly urgently.

RJ emerges from behind the bar with a cup of coffee, cosmic energy crackling faintly around their fingertips as they reach for the most distressed-looking scroll - the one with panic-red edges that’s now practically smoking with anxiety.

“Well, well,” they murmur, unfurling the parchment with practiced ease, “looks like someone’s having a creative crisis this morning.” Their eyes scan the desperate handwriting, and a determined look crosses their face. “Professor Hoot, fire up the UrgentOwl™ network. Kragg is in trouble. We’ve got an intervention to stage.”

The scroll’s contents shimmer into view as RJ begins to respond...

Your turn: What’s the ONE thing that makes you lose track of time? What’s your castle-building specialty hiding behind all that ‘I do everything’ noise? The Come Write Inn’s ParchmentLink™ network is always open for creative crisis interventions.

Have fun storming the castle,

RJ 🥷🏼❤️🤖

P.S. Professor Hoot’s UrgentOwl™ services are available 24/7 for creative emergencies. Standard interdimensional messaging rates apply.

Recipe From Resurrection Roast

(the coffeeshop inside the Come Write Inn):

Skyward Serenade

2 parts blueberry extract, 1 part cheesecake extract, a tiny hint of lemon extract

Dark roast, Agave sweetener

Tantalizing Description:

Elevate your senses with a melody of flavors that celebrate Melee Cyrus’ high-flying aspirations and iconic plumage. She’s a heart driven Aarocokra with a mission to save the world. With short feathers in the front, sweeping longer ones at the back, and a few dyed a striking blue, her mullet mirrors the drink’s progression: blueberry highs, creamy cheesecake mids, and a lemony note that hits just the right pitch. A taste experience inspired by a bard’s determined quest to rewrite her father’s one hit wonder history and bring true harmony back to the world.

Lieutenant Uhura's vibrant neon green hoop earrings catch the soft glow of her communications console as she leans forward, fingers dancing across the controls with practiced precision. The electric brightness of the hoops creates a striking contrast against her dark hair and red uniform as the little communicator device chirps and warbles, her brow furrowed in concentration.

Click. Beep. Whirr.

The static clears.

She straightens in her chair, one hand poised over the controls, the other touching her earpiece. For just a moment, the bridge falls silent except for the gentle thrum of the Enterprise's engines. Captain Kirk glances her way, eyebrow raised in question.

Uhura's lips curve into that satisfied smile – the one that says she's done her job perfectly. Her voice, clear and confident, cuts through the anticipation:

"Hailing frequencies open, Captain."

The channel is live. The Enterprise is ready. Connection is possible.

Here's the thing about Monday mornings, grasshopper:

Most visionaries start their week by immediately sending messages. We catch up on emails and other communications, and (hopefully) make sure to connect with our communities. After all that, we work on the vision we're actively creating.

And Uhura knew something crucial: Before you can create something that changes everything, you have to open your frequencies to receive what your people are trying to tell you.

"Hailing frequencies open" isn't just about being ready to broadcast your message - it's about being ready to LISTEN to the signals that will make your vision unstoppable.

Every Monday, before you start building your community, ask yourself: Are your hailing frequencies actually open? Are you ready to receive the insights your audience has been transmitting? The cultural shifts they've been signaling? The deeper needs they've been broadcasting on frequencies you haven't been monitoring?

Your people want to feel seen, heard, and cared about. Period. And your vision - no matter how brilliant - only becomes legendary when it truly hears what people need to feel whole, understood, and inspired.

Uhura didn't just flip a switch and hope for connection. She fine-tuned those controls, adjusted the settings, cleared the static, and made sure the Enterprise was truly ready to receive whatever wisdom was coming through the cosmos.

Your Mission This Monday:

Before you sketch your next breakthrough or launch your next concept, spend 10 minutes opening your hailing frequencies:

Listen to the stories your audience is living, not just telling

• Tune into the emotions behind their words and actions

• Notice what makes them pause, what makes them dream

• Receive the signals about what they're ready for next

Because here's what Uhura understood that made her irreplaceable: The most revolutionary visions happen when you're listening to the frequency of human need, not just broadcasting your brilliant ideas.

Also.. my hailing frequencies are open. Hit reply and tell me: what are you working on right now? What's the vision you're bringing into reality? I'd love to talk to you, and I read all your responses.

There's something big heading on our direction. Tune in tomorrow and I'll tell you a little more about this legendary event.

And now another epic moment in Star Trek, from the original series. It's an episode called "The Naked Time", in which for various reasons, everyone loses their mind a bit. More background at the link above.
This short exchange lives forever rent free in my mind:

Sulu :

"I'll protect you, fair maiden!"

Uhura :

"Sorry, neither!"

RJ 🥷🏼❤️🤖

Greetings Grasshopper!

There are creatures lurking in the shadows of the entrepreneurial world. Nasty, sneaky little things that slip into your inbox, whisper poison in your ear, and make your skin crawl with their manipulative tactics.

I'm talking about goblins.

Not the cute, misunderstood kind. I'm talking about the Three Goblins of Bro Marketing - the most vile, stomach-churning creatures ever to infest the entrepreneurial landscape.

Meet Our Enemies:

🧌 Freak-Out Fred (artificial emergency creator)

This greasy little goblin loves nothing more than screaming "ONLY 3 SPOTS LEFT!" while frantically waving his favorite weapon: a countdown timer. He feeds on your anxiety and grows stronger every time you feel that sick flutter of artificial urgency. His favorite trick? Making you believe that missing his "limited time offer" will ruin your entire business forever.

What a load of goblin droppings. 💩

🧌 Gaslighter Greg (turns your "no" into your personal failure)

Oh, this one's particularly nasty. Greg slides into your DMs with messages like "I'm disappointed you didn't take action... I guess you're not serious about your business." This manipulative little monster weaponizes shame, making you feel broken for having boundaries. He whispers that saying "no" means you're not committed enough, not hungry enough, not worthy enough.

I'd like to feed him to a dragon. 🐲

🧌 Parasite Paul (feeds on vulnerability)

The most predatory of the bunch. This vile creature circles entrepreneurs like a vulture, crooning "I can sense you're struggling... my $5K course will save you!" He targets people at their lowest moments, when they're most desperate and least able to think clearly. His specialty? Making money off misery while pretending to care.

Absolutely revolting. 🤮

Here's the thing about these goblins:

They've convinced an entire generation of entrepreneurs that this is "just how marketing works." That you HAVE to use fear, guilt, and desperation to make sales. That authentic, respectful marketing doesn't exist.

Lies. All lies.

Every time you feel that sick knot in your stomach reading a sales email... every time you close your laptop because the "marketing advice" makes you want to shower... every time you wonder if you're cut out for business because you refuse to become a goblin yourself...

That's your inner compass working perfectly.

You don't need to become a monster to build a business. You don't need to manipulate, pressure, or prey on people's vulnerabilities. You don't need to sacrifice your soul for your sales.

You need independence.

Independence from goblin tactics. Independence from bro marketing. Independence from the lie that says "this is just how it's done."

And that's exactly what we're declaring this Friday.

I'm hosting Independence from Bro Marketing Day on July 4th at 10am Central at the Come Write Inn tavern. It's a special 2-hour event where we'll not only celebrate our freedom from these toxic tactics, but I'll walk you through setting up First Draft Ninja™️ (free 14-day trial for all attendees) - a tool that helps you create authentic content without selling your soul.

It's time to crate those goblins and send them back to whatever marketing hell they crawled out of.

You with me?? Smash the button below!

I'm off to drill (tiny) air holes in crates,

RJ 🥷🏼❤️🤖

Let's Do This! 🎉

Recipe From Resurrection Roast

(the coffeeshop inside the Come Write Inn):

Frostbite Elixir

2 parts butter rum extract, 1 part peppermint extract

Dark roast, Agave sweetener

Tantalizing Description:

Balance your wild side with the earthy richness of butter rum and the chill of peppermint. This blend transforms you from beast mode to 'best mode' faster than you can say 'wild shape.’

Want to know why I put these on my emails?

Time for another Monday Starfleet leadership transmission. These land weekly, exploring how the finest beings in Starfleet can guide us to become better leaders in our online communities. Or not. The choice is always yours.

So. That moment when you walk into someone's home and immediately feel... welcome? Not just polite-guest welcome, but genuinely welcome—like you could kick off your shoes, raid the fridge, and nobody would bat an eye?

That's exactly what I felt watching Captain Pike cook dinner for his crew.

Picture it: The smell of real garlic and herbs drifting through the corridors of the USS Enterprise. In the age of replicators and synthetic everything, Pike is standing there in his private dining room, sleeves rolled up, chopping actual vegetables.

Soon to be around his table? La'an, Spock, Una, and Dr. M'Benga—not arranged by some formal seating chart or military protocol. Just... settling in naturally, like friends gathering for dinner on a Tuesday.

"Hope you're hungry," Pike calls over his shoulder, that easy warmth in his voice. "I may have gotten a little carried away with the portions again."

Here's what made me pause the episode: This wasn't a staff meeting disguised as dinner. This wasn't some network-building exercise with icebreakers and trust falls. This was Pike creating genuine community, one shared meal at a time.

The stories that emerged weren't one-minute speeches dressed up as small talk. M'Benga shared tender memories of his daughter—the kind of vulnerable, beautiful stuff that happens when someone actually cares enough to ask. Even Spock, bless his logical heart, opened up about wrestling with emotions in that measured, honest way of his.

And when the meal ended, Pike didn't excuse himself while his "staff" cleaned up. The captain of the starship Enterprise rolled up his sleeves and gathered plates alongside everyone else, laughing at Spock's methodical dishwashing technique, good-naturedly arguing with Una about proper leftover storage.

I'm thinking: When was the last time I saw a leader do THAT?

Here's what Pike gets that most completely miss: Real connection doesn't happen in conference rooms or Zoom calls or perfectly curated Instagram posts.

Connection happens when you're elbow-deep in dish soap, arguing about whether the leftover pasta goes in the big container or the little one, while someone tells you about their kid's first steps or their secret dream of learning pottery or that thing they're terrified to try but can't stop thinking about.

Pike chose mess over distance.

Vulnerability over authority.

Shared stories over status reports.

He didn't just demand respect from his crew—he earned their trust by showing up as an imperfect human being who happened to captain a starship. Not the other way around.

Can I tell you something? We've got connection completely backwards in the online world.

We're all stressed about "maintaining professional boundaries" and keeping things "on brand" and making sure our content strategy aligns with our quarterly objectives.

Meanwhile, the people following us are desperate—DESPERATE—for someone real. Someone who burns dinner sometimes and admits they have no clue what they're doing half the time and invites them into the beautiful mess of actually building something meaningful together.

Your community doesn't just want your tips and tricks and perfectly polished advice. They want to feel like genuine co-conspirators in whatever mission lights you up from the inside.

Think about this for just a second:

When did your people last see you wrestle with something new and laugh about the spectacular failures?

When did you get genuinely curious about their dreams—not their buying habits, but their secret superpowers and wild ambitions?

When did you last say "I honestly have no idea how to figure this out... wanna try it together?"

Pike's captain's table wasn't about the perfectly seasoned vegetables (though knowing our guy Pike, they were probably incredible). It was about creating this sacred space where titles disappear, walls come down, and everyone gets to be gloriously, messily human while building something beautiful together.

That's where the magic lives, friends. In the margins. In the shared cleanup. In the stories that spill out when someone actually asks and cares about the answer.

This week's mission, should you choose to accept it: Co-create with your audience.

The Setup: Instead of just broadcasting your next brilliant idea to your community, invite them into your actual creative process. Share something you're genuinely working through—a project you're developing, a decision you're weighing, a challenge that's got you scratching your head.

The Magic Touch: Make it real collaboration, not just "engagement for engagement's sake." Ask for their stories, their perspectives, their wild ideas. Let them see you figure things out in real-time, complete with the beautiful mess of creation. When they contribute something brilliant (and they will), acknowledge it, build on it, make it part of what you create together.

The Goal: Transform your audience from people who consume your content into genuine co-creators who feel actual ownership in whatever you're building together.

Because here's Pike's secret that most have forgotten in our quest for picture perfect polished professionalism:

The strongest communities aren't built through perfectly curated broadcasts.

They're forged through shared creation, mutual vulnerability, and the kind of collaboration that happens when you trust people enough to let them help.

Your people truly are your superpower. When you involve them, really listen to them, and let their voices be genuinely heard in what you create, that's the exact moment they stop following and start investing in the vision you're co-creating.

The captain's chair might bestow authority, but it's around the dinner table—sleeves rolled up, sharing stories, washing dishes together—where you earn the kind of loyalty that weathers any storm.

What's your next captain's table moment going to look like? Comment and let me know. I'd love to see what you're cooking up. 🥴

Your move, Captain.

RJ 🥷🏼❤️🤖

PS: The best leaders don't just give orders—they pass the potatoes, share stories, and co-create with their crew.