For you, scaffolding is life. For everyone else, it’s the essential but temporary structure that enables them to get their building built or repaired. The scaffolding is not the building.

There are lots of people who work in scaffolding. I was one of them when I was a pastor. Philosophers are scaffolders, so are therapists and gurus. (Not all scaffolding is fit for purpose. Some works for one type of building but not for others.) For some people who work in scaffolding, scaffolding is life. They may try to sell you on that idea. If you want become a scaffolder, great. It’s important work. If not, remember that you are building a life, not the scaffolding around your life.

I think one of the reasons I didn’t go attach myself to another -ism when I left Christianity is that my parents and my church provided good scaffolding. When I was done with the scaffolding, I found I had built a fairly robust life. I didn’t need to wrap another structure around it.

Obviously this analogy has its limits – I’m still learning, growing and building – but I think it’s a useful picture to work with.

—Jeff

Learn to fly the nest without the scaffolding. Don’t use it as a crutch. Stand on your own…or collapse. Sometimes it’s best to start over.

Grow slowly
Skyler

A tree can maintain the form of a tree long after it has died. Wood is hard and strong.

A tree that has fallen over with its roots ripped out of the ground can sustain leaves, flowers and fruit for a while.

Institutions (Religious organisations, political parties, businesses, schools, teams, charities, governments, civil services, militaries, governing bodies, etc.) are like trees.

Institutions are formed around ideas, technologies, products, processes, strong leaders. All those things have a lifespan that is shorter than the lifespan of an institution.

An institution that does not have the ability to renew itself with new ideas, technologies, leaders, etc. will die like a tree. What I mean is that it will keep on looking like a living institution for quite a while even though its destiny is to be lunch for wood lice.

For any institution that you are part of, it’s good to know

• where it is in its lifespan and

• whether or not it can renew itself.

If it can’t, get out well before everyone has noticed that it’s dead. By the time people have noticed, it’s way too late.

—Jeff

Sometimes getting involved is not enough to save something, even if you think it can be saved. Putting energy in somewhere that will not be revived or sustained, will in turn, drain the life out of you as well.

Grow slowly
Skyler

The tricky thing is knowing when you (or the company your work for) are committed to building a better typewriter when the world is about to start choosing computers.

Here are a few ideas:

• Pay attention to what early adopters in your sector are doing

• Pay attention to what the kids are doing in general

• Approach new ideas like Paul Graham does

• When it’s necessary, be absolutely ready to walk away from your sunk costs and do something new.

—Jeff

“Pay attention to what the kids are doing in general,” couldn’t be any more true. I will never be as cool and hip as I once was, but I will enjoy trying.

Grow slowly
Skyler

How do you do it? I don’t know
all the things, but I’ve learned
two things:

1. Pursue results rather than ego inflation.
   If you need to get the credit or be seen to be right, you’ll strengthen resistance to the change you want to bring (e.g. most of social media). People are more open to ideas when they have meaningful participation. That means the idea will change in some ways. That means you won’t get all the credit.

2. Conversations beat presentations.
   I know this works in design. I’m guessing it does in other areas. When you want someone to buy your idea/design/project and you present a shiny finished package, you are inviting people to look for flaws. When you show them sketches and rough drafts, you invite them into the process. You create excitement about possibilities. You spark their imagination.

—Jeff

Monday is back my friends, and here we are! Let’s take this week and make the time to inspire someone, strike up conversations that are engaging and eye-opening.

We’ve got that kind of power. Let’s find ways to use it.

Grow slowly
Skyler

You rarely get any credit and never get any money for doing that extra bit at the end. Most of the time no one even notices. I think it’s worth it though. Go the extra mile, make one more pass.

Tuesday

Shipping work that is not quite perfect on time is better than shipping too late or not shipping anything.

And as we learned this week, better shipping a day early than a day late.

Ship it.

Wednesday

Stop buying the weird other people are selling and do your own. Come up with your own criteria for what success looks like. They won’t be as extreme as the growth guys’ measures, but that’s okay. Their growth measures won’t meet your growth needs.

And yesterday

Live in the season you are in now.
The stability is in the flow.

The first rip of the guitar on this one had me hooked. Feel free to deep dive into Witch Ripper’s newest album, Through The Hourglass, dropping today!

First full week in the office in the books. This week, I got my first rehearsal dinner on the schedule, had countless meetings, and even lead one all by myself. I’m honestly surprised my brain isn’t melting out of my ears at this point.

Relax, recharge, return to us on Monday.

Grow slowly
Skyler

Birth
Growth
Ageing
Death
Rebirth…

The movement is constant and you cannot reverse the direction of travel.
Let Aquarius get old and die.
Live in the season you are in now.
The stability is in the flow.

—Jeff

Living in the season we are in now is such a key take away from this. We can’t change the past. Focus on the now. The future will be.

Grow slowly
Skyler

I think I’ve figured out why.

THESE PEOPLE ARE FREAKS.

They are not normal. They are at the ends of all the spectrums. They leap out of bed before five AM and drink a gallon something green and powerful while immersed in ice and doing journalling with key members of their power team. During their six AM workout they start six companies and smilingly say no to 16 others as their radiant teeth reflect dancing light around their office-gym-dojo-temple-kitchen which overlooks a waterfall that has been tuned to the perfect harmonics for stimulating creativity. They studiously avoid all social media while simultaneously creating 75 pieces of social media content daily— I’m actually getting annoyed now.

They live their freakish lives and then turn to you and say, If you want to be successful, you must… and then list the freaky things that they do.

Is that how you want to live?

I don’t.

I don’t want to be Tim Ferriss or Ryan Holiday or Benjamin Hardy or Jocko Willink or Shane Parrish or whoever’s popular now. (I’m realising as I edit this in April 2026 that I’ve moved on and this post should probably be titled ‘I used to consume personal growth media but you still don’t have to.)

But I do have a hypothesis about what may be the ultimate lesson to learn from these folks. Because they are intense, end-of-the-spectrum type people, they don’t have any option but to let their freak flags fly. They don’t own a normal setting.

You and I are closer to the middle of these various spectrums. We find it easier to shut down our weirdness and go with the general flow of culture. I think the big lesson here is: Let’s not.

If your own personal, not-quite-so-extreme weirdness is saying radically change your diet for the better, do it. So what if you look weird at restaurants? Quit social media. Take up shortwave radio or printmaking or curling. Throw away your television. Watch only French films from the 1970s. It’s fine. It’s better than fine. Your weird is how you will grow. It’s how you will find your success.

Stop buying the weird other people are selling and do your own. Come up with your own criteria for what success looks like. They won’t be as extreme as the growth guys’ measures, but that’s okay. Their growth measures won’t meet your growth needs.

—Jeff

I’d love take up curling 🥌. It is my favorite nap time sport during the Winter Olympics.

I have a lot of weird-ities. I love them.

I love yours too.

Grow slowly
Skyler

Shipping work that is not quite perfect on time is better than shipping too late or not shipping anything.

A thing about sending an email to you five days a week while having a family, a full-time job and the occasional side gig, plus learning a new language is that good enough is the best I can do. If each day I manage to say 80% of what I mean and it’s said 80% as good as I can make it, I’m happy.

At the same time, I’m never satisfied. My 80%-as-good-as-I-can-make-it is (hopefully) better now than it was a year ago.

—Jeff

My apologies for your surprise edition of TREE on Sunday instead of Monday. I was mentally too far in the future. To be totally honest, my days have been completely melding together for a couple of weeks now, so it was only a matter of time before that happened. Regardless, I’m still glad you’re here.

Grow slowly
Skyler

The week before I originally wrote this post in 2021, I gave a newsletter one last check before I sent it off to print. The client had approved the final artwork. I still checked. I found and fixed three mistakes.

You rarely get any credit and never get any money for doing that extra bit at the end. Most of the time no one even notices. I think it’s worth it though.

• It means I’m living according to my internal integrity.

• While people may not notice the details of what I do, I have developed a reputation for excellence.

—Jeff

I hope your Easter weekend was relaxing. This week, I start full time in the office. I am officially out of the kitchen. Bittersweet to say the least. Matthew is back in the Midwest for work until June, and we’re gonna keep chugging along. Thanks for being here!

Grow slowly
Skyler

Some people say we need to sit down. We need to keep quiet and be content with not knowing the answers. Those people don’t know what they’re talking about.

The thing that makes you shine is that you are trying to figure things out. Keep asking the questions and looking for the answers, you glorious king!

Tuesday

Imagine keeping it the same until you die. You may be perfectly content to leave some things unchanged. The thought of other things staying the same may make you sick to your stomach.

Now you know what you need to work on.

Wednesday

Don’t wait for inspiration to show up. Inspiration is already there, waiting for you to show up. The more you show up, the more you’ll be inspired.

And yesterday

Persist. And keep raising your standards.

Do I expect you to listen to all 37 minutes of this? No. But this one is more than just music. This one is an experience. Enjoy

Happy April. Happy Good Friday. Happy Passover. Happy Easter weekend. Happy birthday to my husband. Happy journey around the moon to the team aboard Artemis II.

I hope you enjoy all the things there are to celebrate this weekend.

Grow slowly
Skyler

Persistence + high standards is a formula that has been working for me and making my employers and clients happy for 30-odd years.

Don’t worry if you’re not the best. Persist. And keep raising your standards. (More on this next week.)

—Jeff

This is why I would be sad if I didn’t learn anything new again. How else do we improve, if not learning from the last time we tried something out. Every time we do something we get better at it, for the most part. We find shortcuts, we find better ways to go about things.

Keep persisting. Keep learning. Keep growing.

Grow slowly
Skyler

Don’t wait for inspiration to show up. Inspiration is already there, waiting for you to show up. The more you show up, the more you’ll be inspired.

People who do creative work because they’ve put it in their schedule find inspiration regularly. People who do creative work only when they feel inspired are rarely inspired.

—Jeff

There have only been a few opportunities in my life that I have let pass me by. In my more mature adulthood, I jump at opportunity if it aligns with my interests. I haven’t been regretful yet.

Jump when the jumping’s good.

Happy April, ffriends!

Grow slowly
Skyler

What if from today forward you
didn’t learn anymore,
gained no more skills,
only listened music you already knew,
never changed your opinions or attitudes,
kept your same job, hobbies, eating habits, acquaintances –
would you be happy?

Think through each part of your life. Imagine keeping it the same until you die. You may be perfectly content to leave some things unchanged. The thought of other things staying the same may make you sick to your stomach.

Now you know what you need to work on.

—Jeff

If I didn’t learned anything new from now, I would be so incredibly sad. I would go back to college tomorrow if I was offered the chance to. To learn whatever I wanted. I absolutely love learning.

Grow slowly
Skyler

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter;
to search out a matter is the glory of kings.
‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭25:2‬, ‭NIV‬‬

The universe is a glorious place to live because it is made of mysteries. The more mysteries we solve the more mysteries we find. It’s mysteries all the way down. Except there is no All The Way Down, not one we’ll ever reach.

Humans are a glorious species because we ask why. We never stop trying to figure things out.

I count all of us as kings. In the ancient world, only kings and the people they patronised would have access to the resources and knowledge needed to seek out a the answer to mystery. Today, we have easy access to more resources and knowledge than ancient monarchs could imagine.

Some people say we need to sit down. We need to keep quiet and be content with not knowing the answers. Those people don’t know what they’re talking about.

The thing that makes you shine is that you are trying to figure things out. Keep asking the questions and looking for the answers, you glorious king!

—Jeff

What an eventful end of the week and weekend in my house. I hope your weekend was restful and you’re ready to take on a new week with me.

Let’s figure stuff out together.

Grow slowly
Skyler

Above all, don’t waste your luck. What a tragedy it would be if you and I with our lucky lives didn’t bring all the thriving goodness that we have to offer to the world!

Tuesday

Jeff reminds us that what is good for the goose is not always good for the gander. Sometimes what works for me, wont work for you. We’re all unique, and that is the best part about that.

Wednesday

We like to extrapolate universal principles from single data points. We want a single theory of everything. We wish for one-size-fits-all.

The problem with that is, that is not the way the world is built. And that…is okay!

And yesterday

It is for me as a particular human to love my particular existence.

The slow, intense guitar in this one really speaks to my soul. The video showcases that clear bass guitar as well, and I would love nothing more to have one. Can I play? No. Can I even read music? Not a chance. Still want it.

We almost made it through March. This year is already flying by, I can hardly grasp it. Matthew comes home this weekend! He’s been working out of town since Mid-January, and we are thrilled to have him home for a short time, before he heads back up north for another round. 10

Happy weekend.

Grow slowly
Skyler

God is the source and medium of existence. To love God is to love existence. It is for me as a particular human to love my particular existence.

—Jeff

Made it through my first day in the office. I forgot how hungry brain work makes you.

Tomorrow I will pack more snacks 🤣

Grow slowly
Skyler

(!!!)

I’m like, how can this be? I can focus. I show up on time. But these things he’s saying… So I do a couple reputable ADHD evaluations online and the results are: dude, go see your doctor about your almost certain ADHD. I immediately wait for about a month (because ADHD?) and then I go see my doctor.

My doctor, who I hadn’t met before because I only moved here in 2022 and I’m healthy, told me two important things:

1. The NHS is useless for adult ADHD. The waiting time to get a diagnosis is eight years (!!!)

2. If I did the self-evaluation he gave me and scored high on it, I could safely assume I had ADHD.

I took the self-evaluation home and put it straight on my desk where I could see it and remember to put it off every day for a couple weeks.

When I finally did it – it took 10 whole minutes – you’ve guessed by now: I totally do have ADHD.

My point is that I’ve written things, especially about willpower, that may not apply to you because your brain is wired differently to mine.

Not everyone can be a vegan.

The thing that levered you out of your depression may not work at all for your friend.

That guy who figured out a thing and turned it into a course about What Everyone Must Do If They Want to Be Successful isn’t correct about what everyone must do.

We like to extrapolate universal principles from single data points. We want a single theory of everything. We wish for one-size-fits-all.

But that’s not the world we live in. We live in the kind of world where there are over 4,000 religions, 160,000 species of moth and articles titled ’14 Types of Lettuce and What to Do With Them’.

Be slow to universalise your experience.

—Jeff

I was in my 20’s when a doctor finally looked at me and asked me if I’d ever been screened for an attention deficit disorder. I have ADD, and my grades in my undergrad program suffered because of it until I found a medication that got my brain on the right track.

After graduating, I stopped treatment for it, I also stopped therapy. Those two things together made postpartum incredibly difficult and it wasn’t until a year and a half ago that I questioned whether my seasonal depression and anxiety was due to my untreated ADD. Whataya know. I was right. Sometimes I’m pretty smart.

My point is, you don’t have to suffer unnecessarily or scrape by in life hanging on by a thread. We’re all unique. We all have what works for us.

I hope you find what works for you.

Grow slowly
Skyler

It’s good advice for lots of people. But my first reaction was: this is terrible advice for so many people!

For instance:

Single parents trying to make ends meet with two jobs.
Single parents with a job and evening classes.
Single parents full stop.

People with ADHD like me have plenty of focus but it goes off in unhelpful directions. I don’t need more focus. I need tools to help me manage my focus.

Watch what happens when the graphic is changed from prescriptive to descriptive:

Now my defences are down. Now I’m curious. I’m interrogating myself. Is time the issue? Is focus the issue? Is craving more productivity the issue?

This is why I’m a big fan of the phrase ‘for me’, as in, ‘What worked for me was…’ When you say ‘for me’ you grant your listener freedom to decide whether or not it’s for them.

Another good thing about ‘for me’ is that it can save your work from death by a thousand caveats. You don’t need to list all the people your story may not help. Tell your story with context. Tell people what worked for you and trust that it will resonate with the right folks.

—Jeff

New Death Cab for Cutie? Say less!

I need more focus most days, but having more time wouldn’t hurt either.

Grow slowly
Skyler

This leads me to two thoughts:

1. When write about things that have worked for me, remember how lucky I am. My luck doesn’t invalidate what I have to say. It does mean that some things which are easy for me are difficult for other people.

2. Your situation isn’t exactly the same as mine. It might be much better or much worse. But know this: you lucked out too. You don’t live in Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, Sudan, Ukraine or any of the several other places where ordinary folks are trying to survive wars they didn’t ask to be part of.

Don’t be ashamed of your luck or despair over those who don’t have the luck you do. You can’t control the effects of your birth and upbringing. Above all, don’t waste your luck. What a tragedy it would be if you and I with our lucky lives didn’t bring all the thriving goodness that we have to offer to the world!

Start your day with some words of gratitude, then give yourself fully to living.

—Jeff

There may always be a silver lining, you just have to take the time to find it.

Grow slowly
Skyler

Jeff mentions how making a game out of things we deal with in daily life can make things a little more fun. Beating the GPS is a fun game we likely all play. Life is still a game, and it can be fun to play.

Tuesday

Life might be a game, but the best part is that it’s your game.

You get to choose quite a lot of what you will nurture and what you will destroy. I hope you are choosing to maximise nurture and minimise destruction.

Wednesday

Capitalism is just a game. We made it up.

Finding the best way to play the game of Capitalism takes time. It’s worth learning.

And yesterday

Even when you can’t see your power or your options, you still have them. If you can’t find them on your own, ask someone to show you.

Jeff & Christine make a heck of a team. Ninja moves are made. Awe is struck. Appreciation is never ending. The best part of them being a team, is that Christine can point out to Jeff that he has power. As a dad, as a partner, as a friend, as the creator of good fun things. Sometimes it just takes someone reminding or showing you, you have options.

A Day To Remember is the very first band that began my love of this type of music. Did their last album absolutely leave me disappointed? Yes. Will I still always love them? Again, yes.

This is their new collaboration with Bilmuri and it has me jamming and feeling like the ADTR that existed in my high school days is still in there somewhere.

What a week! We made it. I hope this weekend you will find the relaxation and rejuvenation you deserve through making the mundane, every day things a game.

Happy weekend.

Grow slowly
Skyler