Philip Borrowman

Former baker and cafe owner. Now working online as an Internet Marketer & Coach.

Travelling the world as a digital nomad. 🎉

➡️ www.takingaction.online
➡️ https://www.youtube.com//

17/03/2026

I just went back to GPT after using Claude for the last 6 months or more... sweet mother, GPT is so clunky and crap...

Back to Claude I go. 🤣🤣

14/03/2026

I find it strange that people will happily give 40 years of their life to a company without questioning it, yet if I suggest skipping one Christmas, delaying a holiday, or cutting back on a few nights out to focus your time and money on building a real business online, suddenly I’m the unreasonable one.

It shows how deeply we’ve been conditioned to think like employees - follow the routine, collect the pay cheque, spend what’s left - rather than step back and build something of our own.

The funny thing is, it doesn’t even take a lifetime. Two years of focused effort on one project can completely change your life. Two years of learning, building, publishing, improving. But most people will not do it.

They will binge 36 hours of The Walking Dead without blinking, scroll social media for hours every night, or watch endless Netflix series. Yet ask them to watch a 45-minute tutorial on how to use AI to write better emails or build a simple online system and suddenly the response is, “Oh my God, I don’t have the time, Philip.”

It’s not really about time. It’s about what we’ve been trained to prioritise. Entertainment is easy. Building something for yourself requires focus, patience, and a willingness to think differently.

And that is the part most people have never been taught how to do.

08/03/2026

For anyone travelling from Abu Dhabi today, the airport is nice and quiet...

06/03/2026

Woke up this morning feeling pretty excited.

Plan was simple: finally escape the UAE and head back to Thailand after spending the last 6 days living the glamorous life… in a hotel room.

Sadly, the flights have been cancelled again. 🤷‍♂️🙄

Tried calling the airline.

Thirty minutes on hold… then the call drops. Same as last time.

So the only option is chat support.

Last time I did that, it took about six hours before a human appeared. 🤣

So for now… the plan is simple.

Wait.

Can't imagine the chaos in the customer support of these airlines. 🤣🤣

05/03/2026

In the late 1800s, doctors were prescribing co***ne.

Not secretly. Not as a fringe treatment.

It was recommended for things like fatigue, depression, hay fever, and even morphine addiction.

Then in the 1940s and 50s, cigarette companies ran adverts featuring doctors.

White coats. Stethoscopes. Professional endorsements.

“More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.”

At the time, it all seemed perfectly reasonable.

Now we look back and wonder how anyone thought that was a good idea.

Today we have our own version.

Walk through any supermarket and look at the amount of sugar added to everyday foods.

- Breakfast cereals that are basically dessert.
“Healthy” yoghurts loaded with sugar.
- Energy drinks that deliver a day’s worth in a few minutes.
- Sauces, snacks, granola bars - even foods marketed as healthy.

Spoonful after spoonful quietly added to almost everything.

And then there’s the supermarket aisle labelled “health food”.

Which raises an awkward question.

If that one small section is the health food…

What does that make everything else in the shop?

It all feels normal because it’s everywhere.

But history has a habit of exposing the blind spots of each generation.

And I suspect future generations will look back at our obsession with adding sugar to everything and shake their heads at the insanity of it.

03/03/2026

Quick marketing lesson from 3:30 a.m.

My phone went off with a missile alert. Interceptions overhead. Loud explosions.

Serious situation.

But here’s the interesting part…

I’m watching international news coverage while sitting here on the ground in Abu Dhabi.

And the gap between reality and framing is staggering.

Check the two screenshots... One is short and factual. The other emotionally charged garbage.

Same facts. Completely different emotional outcome.

This is positioning at a global scale.

The facts might be:

- Interceptions successful
- No injuries
- Minor damage

But the headline becomes:

😱 “Petrifying experience”
🥺 “Stranded in conflict”
😤 “Could this escalate?”

That’s not information. That’s emotional amplification.

As marketers, we need to understand something uncomfortable:

Attention is the product.

Fear holds attention better than balance.

Speculation holds attention better than resolution.

“What if?” holds attention better than “Here’s what happened.”

So they don’t just report events. They stretch the emotional frame around the event.

Zoom in on the smoke. Interview the most shaken person. Ask the expert what might happen next.

That’s not journalism strategy. That’s retention strategy.

And here’s the real takeaway for us:

Framing changes perceived reality.

Same situation.
Different angle.
Different emotional reaction.

This is why copy matters.
This is why headlines matter.
This is why positioning is everything.

The question is:

Are you informing… Or are you inflaming?

Because the mechanism is the same.

The only difference is intent.

Study this. It’s a masterclass in attention economics happening in real time...

A masterclass in lies and bu****it....

Sitting watching the BBC is tragic. Pure emotional manipulation.

Why they cannot just report the facts without adding pure speculation is so sad.

27/02/2026

On my way to Abu Dhabi for a quick Visa run. 🥳🥳💪

Only downside to being resident of UAE is I have to "check in" every 6 months.

Working remotely today.

24/02/2026

You hate your job.

Maybe you don’t say it out loud. But you feel it every morning when the alarm goes off. And the worst part isn’t even the work. It’s the hope. 🙄😂

That quiet, desperate hope that one day you’ll find something online that changes everything overnight. A side hustle. A secret method. A clean escape.

You’ve probably tried a few already. And when they didn’t work fast enough, you moved on to the next one.

I know - because I did the same thing for years...

It’s funny how the world works.

If I told you to skip Christmas or miss your weekly Sunday lunch with your best friends for a few months, you’d look at me like I’d lost the plot. Like I was heartless. Like I was asking too much.

But when your boss tells you to work late… Or to give ten years to a job you hate… You don’t even blink. You just say yes.

We’re willing to sacrifice our lives for security. But not for freedom.

If you want to succeed online, you have to accept a season of imbalance. That might mean six focused months. Or intense bursts of effort over a few years. But there will be trade-offs. There’s no clean, perfectly balanced path to building something that pays you back long term.

Most people are searching for passive income like it’s hidden behind a secret door. A trick. A shortcut.

It isn’t.

The people selling “secrets” rarely mention the years they spent testing, failing, doubting, and starting again before anything worked. What looks fast from the outside was slow and uncertain up close.

You can build freedom. You can build income that doesn’t depend on a boss.

But first you have to decide what you’re willing to give up for a season to make it real.

20/02/2026

Don’t get sucked into the AI hype.

This is no different to the WordPress plugin hype. The NFT hype. The crypto bot hype. It’s the same cycle with a different label.

99.9% of the YouTube videos titled “This new AI tool changes marketing forever” are not made by people actually building real businesses with that tool.

They’re entertainers.

They make money from views, affiliate links and the excitement of “new”. Not from using the software long term.

That’s why when you try to implement what they show, it never quite works properly. You can’t get it fully plugged in. Something’s always missing.

Because they’re not using it themselves.

Go look at their channel.

- Next video - different tool.
- Next video - different tool.
- Next video - different tool.

It’s content about tools. Not results from tools.

Don’t fall for the same hype again and again.

Pick a system. Use it. Master it.

Stop chasing shiny objects.

17/02/2026

Quick reminder for anyone feeling anxious, second-guessing themselves, or doubting the strategy right now:

Stop scrolling.

Social media and YouTube will always show you a million other people, methods, strategies, and the latest AI gimmick that looks faster, easier, better, and more profitable than what you’re doing.

That’s the algorithm’s job. It feeds your fear. It feeds comparison. It feeds doubt.

Every time you open Facebook or YouTube, you’re inviting that noise into your head on purpose.

It’s your choice to log in. So just stop. Put it down.

Don’t open it for a week. I promise you’ll literally feel the anxiety leaving your body.

Protect your focus. Stick to the plan.

13/02/2026

Did you know you've already found the way to make money online??? No joke. You've got it... It's right there in front of you...

ALL OF YOU, have the method that will work for you. You just don't see it.

12/02/2026

When the going gets tough, most people don’t push through. They retreat.

Not because they’re incapable. Because they have a safety net.

👉 The job.
👉 The salary.
👉 The routine.

So the moment business feels uncertain, frustrating, slow, they fall back on the easy option. And that decision, repeated enough times, keeps them exactly where they are.

I recorded a video about this... About why comfort wins, and what it actually takes to stop running back to it.

If you’re serious about building something of your own, you should watch this.