Just Do The Fucking Work

I’m uninspired.

Not creatively blocked. Not out of ideas. Not “searching for my muse.” I’m just worn down. Pneumonia has been riding me like a rented mule, and on top of that, someone I love, a family member, is reaching the end of his life. It’s a double-header you don’t train for. And yes, I know I’m the guy known for having energy that borders on cartoon physics… but even Wile E. Coyote hits the canyon floor sometimes.

And when life starts to wobble like this, my mind does what it always does. It goes straight to my dad.

If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you’ll remember that my dad passed away earlier this year. It still feels like yesterday. He was the original sounding board, R&D lab, and accountability officer all in one, and he carried his own kind of genius long before I ever learned the alphabet soup of marketing acronyms.

He had a few sayings he’d drill into me like they were gospel.

“Surround yourself with people that get you and don’t worry about the people who don’t.”

That one slapped even when I was a teenager with a bad haircut and worse judgment. Because it’s true. Most people won’t get you. Most people won’t get your work. And none of that matters. Find your people. The ones who hear your big ideas and don’t flinch. The ones who see the weirdness and say “cool, how do we turn that into something?” The ones who don’t require you to be smaller.

Another one was, “Overdeliver on everything and worry about the margins later.”

This is why I’m built the way I’m built. Why my team is the way it is. Why the work we do hits harder, is bigger, and makes brands actually matter to people. You do the work like it’s the only work that’s ever been done. You pour yourself into it. You say yes to the effort even when your body is screaming for the bench. And then, sure, later you figure out the dollars. Later you measure. Later you optimize. But first: you show up like someone’s counting on you.

But the line that’s ringing in my head right now, the one that feels like it’s etched into me, is the simplest one he ever gave me.

“Just do the fucking work.”

That was his entire philosophy wrapped in five words. A Colt family operating system. A cure-all. A compass.

Frustrated by things out of your control? Just do the fucking work.

Wish things were better? Just do the fucking work.

Feel like other people have it easier, smoother, luckier? Just do the fucking work.

It sounds harsh until you live with it long enough to understand that it’s actually the most compassionate thing he ever taught me. Because “just do the fucking work” isn’t about grinding or martyrdom or hustle culture nonsense. It’s about returning to the one thing you can control when the rest of life is chaos.

I can’t control pneumonia. I can’t control aging or illness or loss. I can’t control what people think or what they approve of. I can’t control the algorithm. I can’t even control the weather.

But I can control the work. I can control how I show up. I can control where I put my energy. I can control that I keep moving, even if today that movement looks more like a shuffle than a sprint.

And that’s the part that hit me this week. Feeling uninspired doesn’t mean you’re done. It doesn’t mean the ideas won’t come back. It doesn’t mean your spark is gone or you’ve aged out of your own creativity. It means you’re human, you’re tired, and your heart is carrying a little too much weight at the moment.

Inspiration is a luxury. Work is a discipline. And discipline saves you when inspiration abandons ship.

This is something every creative, every founder, every marketer, every entrepreneur with a beating heart, needs to remember. You don’t need to feel amazing to make something meaningful. Some of my best ideas came out of crappy weeks. Some of my biggest wins were born on days when I honestly wanted to crawl under a blanket and emotionally relocate to another planet.

You show up anyway. Not because the world demands it, but because you’ve built yourself that way. Because someone once taught you how.

So yeah. I’m uninspired today. I’m tired. I’m sad. I’m sick. And I’m still here typing this with a chest that currently sounds like a haunted accordion, because that’s what the work requires.

If you’re going through something similar right now—if life feels heavy or unfair or annoyingly human—take this from me and from my dad:

Do the work in front of you. Not perfectly. Not heroically. Just do it. One email. One idea. One blog post. One small step that says, “I’m still in this.”

That’s enough. More than enough, actually.

And the funny thing is, when you do that, inspiration eventually comes back around. Not because you sat waiting politely for it, but because you kept the engine running.

Today isn't my best day. It won’t be my last tough one either. But I did the work. And tomorrow I’ll do the work again. That’s how we continue. That’s how we honor the people who taught us how.