Writing this from Blacklist on Monday morning. My favourite coffee spot in Bali and most mornings you'll find me here. Iced americano, laptop open, motorbikes flying past on the road in front of me. Great coffee, palm trees and a lung full of exhaust fumes...what's not to like.
Back home this newsletter was always a Sunday task. Out here the time difference means it happens Monday at 8am instead, and it's turned out to be the better slot. A full week behind me to reflect on, a full week ahead to plan, and I’m actually rested enough to do both properly.
You can coach skill. Mentality is harder.
I’ve been thinking a lot about mentality recently.
When you interview someone, you can normally get a reasonable read on their intelligence, experience, personality and how creatively they think. You can ask technical questions, give them a task and see how they communicate.
What is much harder to identify is how they behave when things become difficult.
Will they dig deeper when the work is frustrating and the initial excitement has gone? Will they do the extra thing nobody asked for? Will they help a teammate when it is inconvenient? Will they maintain the same standard when nobody senior is looking?
An interview is an artificial environment. People are prepared, well rested and actively trying to show you the best version of themselves. Mentality normally reveals itself later, when something has gone wrong or an easy option is available.
I used to think you could spot it early. I don't any more. Mentality reveals itself over months.
Looking around Toucan, the people who have gone furthest are grafters. That does not mean they work every hour available or ‘perform’ being busy. It means they take ownership. They care about the standard of the work and about the people around them. When things get difficult, they become more useful rather than less.
I do think you can coach habits. You can set clear expectations, create accountability and put someone in an environment where good work is recognised. People can become more confident and resilient with experience.
But I am less convinced that you can install the underlying instinct to keep going when it would be easier not to.
We’re very lucky we have a team of smart, good people who have strong mentalities.
”You can teach someone how to do the job. You cannot teach them to want to do it properly when no one is watching.”
The internet rewards the extreme version.
I recently posted my 100th Instagram Reel in 100 consecutive days.
Those videos have generated around 1.5 million views. Some have travelled much further than I expected. Others, which I thought were objectively better, have completely flopped.
After a year and a half of using TikTok as my testing ground, I rebooted Instagram with enough data and content experience to feel like I understood what worked.
One hundred posts later, I still could not confidently tell you which video will go viral.
I can usually improve the odds. The hook is important, the subject matters and retention is critical. But there is still a level of unpredictability that makes anyone claiming to have cracked organic content look slightly disingenuous.
The thing I have learned is that reasonable opinions rarely work. You can’t sit on the fence online.
Here’s some examples:
I believe personal brands are becoming more important → Founders who refuse to show their face are going to become invisible.
Businesses should hire earlier than the P&L allows → Hiring only when you are already desperate is a terrible way to build a company.
That does not mean saying things you do not believe. It means finding the clearest and strongest truthful version of the point.
My practical rule now is simple: write down what I genuinely think, then remove every sentence I added to make it sound balanced.
Most people naturally soften their point before publishing it. They add qualifications, caveats and enough nuance that nobody could possibly disagree. It might be technically correct, but it is also completely forgettable.
”If nobody can disagree with your take, nobody will remember it either”.
3am kick-offs and a Sunday that reset what I think of as normal.
England played Norway at 5am on Sunday morning.
The group games were at 4am, which we also got up for. The semi-final and potential final are both at 3am. Living in Bali is excellent for many things. Following England through a World Cup is not one of them.
Sunday’s game went to extra time, which meant I missed the 7am long run I had planned.
Instead, I got on a static bike for 60 minutes of zone two cardio.
I have always struggled to find zone two on a bike. Either my heart rate stays in zone one or I increase the resistance and my quads feel like they are on fire. I kept looking for a comfortable middle ground that did not seem to exist.
This time I accepted the leg burn, stayed with it and eventually got my heart rate where it needed to be.
It turns out I did not need a better bike setup (although it being a Concept2 helps). I just needed some more of that strong mentality I mentioned earlier.
Afterwards we spent the afternoon with friends and their two year old at the Le Bajo family market. Blankets on the grass, swimming, coconuts and playing with a bat and ball. Then we all went for sushi, where a sushi roll cost roughly £2.
I keep comparing Sundays here with Sundays at home.
A lot of people you meet in Bali say this is not real life. Maybe that is the point.
Back in the UK, I put a £6 tub of Fage yoghurt back because I could not justify spending that much on it. Here, the three of us can have a genuinely amazing dinner for around £20. At home, I am lucky if Pizza Express comes in below £70.
It is not only about things being cheaper. The weather changes what you do. Socialising happens outside. Work, exercise, family time and seeing friends can all fit into the same day without requiring military level diary management.
I know Bali has its own problems and living here is not the same as being on holiday. But when people dismiss a lifestyle because it does not resemble normal life, I think that says more about what we have accepted as normal.
Perhaps life is not supposed to feel relentlessly expensive, rushed and indoors.
”When a better way of living feels unrealistic, it might be normal life that needs questioning”.
That's issue fourteen.
It's coming home!