The Year That Was

ISSUE 17 [296g Per Serving]

I watched an advert once. I forget who made it, or what it was for (I’ve never been able to find it since). It might’ve been Australian.

The premise was simple.

A kid, maybe seven or eight, is asked by someone off-camera to give advice to someone younger than they are now. Then we meet a 12-year-old, asked the same question. Then a teenager. Then someone in their twenties. And so it goes — each person a little older than the last.

Eventually, we reach a woman in her nineties. The now-familiar prompt is repeated as the camera pans slowly in on her face.

“Don’t worry,” she says with a twinkle in her eye. “Nobody knows what they’re doing.”

This Substack started as a series on LinkedIn — connecting creativity and endurance sport. The original idea was to lean into that rich, analogous territory weekly.

But like most things, it’s taken on a life of its own.

It’s become a sounding board for how I think about culture. A home for the stuff that interests me. A personal account of various challenges. And, occasionally, a record of the principles I try to live by.

All of which, obviously, flies in the face of conventional Substack advice — you know the type.

So if you asked me to explain exactly what I’m doing here — to summarise Carb Load as a neat value proposition or distil it into pitch-ready sales patter — I’m not sure I could. And I’m not sure I’d want to.

Why? Because I don’t really know what I’m doing.

And that’s okay.

So for now, I’ll just keep serving up whatever takes my fancy. Hopefully it takes yours too.

Thanks for being here. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. See you in 2026.

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