This week at Try Hard Studios - July 3, 2026
I've gotten a lot of things in life by simply asking for what I want. It sounds almost too simple to be a strategy, but it is. If you want it, ask for it.
Most people never do. They wait to be picked. They wait to be anointed. They assume that if they were supposed to have the thing, someone would have offered it by now. Meanwhile, the people getting the opportunities are at least... asking. The field of people who actually ask is shockingly small, which means the moment you open your mouth, you're already ahead of most of the competition.
There is a caveat! A minor strategic point. There are ways of asking that make a yes way more likely.
First, don't ask for something ten steps ahead. Ask for the thing one step out of reach. God bless the intern asking for the CEO's job, but the odds are not great. Ask for the thing right after the one you have. Then, when you get it, ask for the next one. Stair-step it. Every yes becomes an artifact, a little piece of proof you can carry into the next ask.
Second, think hard about what the person you're asking wants. How can you increase the odds of hearing a yes? A conference organizer doesn't necessarily wake up wanting to discover brilliant new speakers. They wake up wanting to not put on a bad conference. To put on a good conference! Their job is risk management in some ways.
You can show up and ask them to take a chance on you. Why not? The worst they can say is no. But if you show up and say: I've done this before, here's a recording, I am not a risk. Even if the recording is a smaller conference, a meetup, whatever. You've just handed them the thing they actually want, and your odds of a yes go way, way up.
Asking is scary. It stays scary. I've done it a bunch, and my brain still tells me, "This is insane," every time. But at some point you have to decide: do I want to be comfortable, or do I want great things out of my one wild life?
Ask for something! Something real, something slightly out of reach!
Worst case, they say no and you're exactly where you started. Best case, everything changes.
Things I found this week
Just a heads up that each Twitter/X screenshot has a link to the original post if you want to go follow the account.
This one is called Wanderer above the Sea of Fog. I have a sticky note on my monitor that says, "You are going to die," and it's sort of a memento mori, just a reminder that you only get one shot at all of this and you might as well give it all you've got.
Everything underfoot used to be something enormous. A paving stone that remembers being a mountain.
I can't decide if this is the saddest thing I've seen all week or the most hopeful. Either way, I love it.
You can literally wake up one day and just decide to be completely different. It is hard to change, but I think deciding to change is actually the hardest part. Once you make that decision, it gets a whole lot easier. But it's not easy to actually decide.
Inspiration for the backyard that I will someday build.
Our old neighbors, who used to live down the street from us, have a pizza oven in their backyard, and every Friday night their house was just open. It was open to friends, neighbors, anyone. You never really had to call or ask if Friday night dinners were happening. It was always open, and there was always food, and people would just show up.
We used to just walk down the street every Friday night, and we could count on the fact that a bunch of people would be there. And I want to build that in our new neighborhood.
I don't want to sound like I'm a thousand years old, but do they make movies this beautiful anymore, especially animated ones?
Olga is one of my favorite people to follow online. I believe she's actively in the process of making a movie, but these still shots are really something.
Until death, all defeat is psychological! You've only got one life, it's worth an attempt.
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Talk soon,
Aaron