The hard truths that set us free

We've all been following Bryan Johnson — the Silicon Valley "tech bro" turned longevity guru who refuses to die. He's spent $2 million a year on Project Blueprint, his biohacking journey followed by millions anticipating the magic pill that'll keep them alive forever.

It hasn't arrived. Instead, eleven years of gruelling self-administered biohacks have given him an incurable autoimmune disease.

Get a good night's sleep, don't drink, don't smoke, and avoid stress — advice we already knew, probably not worth $2 million a year

And the culmination of all that pseudoscience? A list of 41 things to live by — get a good night's sleep, don't drink, don't smoke, and avoid stress — advice we already knew. Probably not worth $2 million a year and an incurable condition in which his own stomach, as he put it, is eating itself.

Disappointing. But not surprising. Because there is no life hack for living forever. We know this. So why did Bryan Johnson and his millions of followers invest so much into an impossible quest?

Psychologists call it the Sunk Cost Fallacy — the more we've invested, the harder it becomes to walk away. So instead we keep going, finding new ways to ignore a hard truth that was right in front of us.

I'm not immune to this myself.

For eight years I ran Function & Form on creative prowess alone. And the work was great. But "we do great work" isn't an angle. It's a given. It doesn't tell a client why us and why now.

The right brand story means nothing without the right systems to tell it.

In 2023, as budgets tightened, the problem caught up with me. A difficult year that forced the reflection I'd been avoiding for nearly a decade. Once I was honest enough to face it, the answer was obvious: The right brand story means nothing without the right systems to tell it. That became the proposition — leading with operational cost savings, revenue and adaptability. Craft and creativity remain, but they're not an angle. They're the standard.

Eight years to face the problem. A few months to fix it.

We recently presented a proposal to a new client — a board of stakeholders who probably hoped to cut costs. But in their own words they saw every one of our deliverables as non-negotiable. They weren't nice-to-haves. They were must-haves. Things they hadn't known they needed. That's what happens when a value proposition is built around operational value rather than creative appeal. It took me eight years to face the problem. A few months to fix it.

I now offer my clients this perspective. An outsider's view — without the baggage, comfortable enough to address the elephant in the room.

Because once the hard truth is acknowledged, the right solution is usually closer than you think.

Just like getting a good night's sleep.