Philip Teaches Cartoons Newsletter

How cancer caused a life reboot

When I was diagnosed with cancer in March 2025, I felt punched in the gut.

It was aggressive and I needed surgery quick.

One thing I knew…

I needed something to get me through the prep, the surgery, and the recovery. It was going to be painful and traumatic.

What would keep me going? What would make all the pain, discomfort, and change in my life worth it? What could I look forward to?

I wrote this down:

“Live your best creative life.”

You see, I was working a job that was full of great, dedicated people, had fantastic benefits, could be challenging at times (in the good stretch way), but just didn’t fulfill me creatively.

So I decided to find a way to fulfill that side of me. Eventually, that culminated to this: focusing on drawing cartoons and starting a newsletter.

And this is the first one…

Tiny Habits

If you want to conjure up cartoon creativity on demand, amaze people while you sketch without a pause, and take on any blank page without a hint of fear…

Create a drawing habit.

According to author and habit researcher BJ Fogg, PhD, a habit requires a trigger, a tiny action, and a celebration.

Luckily, before I knew any of this, I unconsciously created a drawing habit for my cartooning…

I start every cartoon of my character Jake by drawing a circle for his head. Once the circle is on the page, I have an internal program to draw the face, body, legs, arms, and hands. I very rarely pause once I start. It’s almost automatic once the circle is drawn. And I get a huge sense of satisfaction as I look at my finished image.

This habit has saved me from hours of “NOT drawing time.”

This week, I signed up for The Tiny Habits 5-Day Program to develop other habits in my life. I have three habits I’m working on: one for cleaning, one for playing guitar, and one for writing.

And I can’t wait until these habits are as automatic as my circle drawing habit.

If you’d like to make something as effortless and mindless to do as brushing your teeth, try out the free Tiny Habits 5-Day Program here:

​https://tinyhabits.com/join/​

You’ll get the basic info you need and a wee bit of coaching to help you implement.

My earliest cartoon inspiration

If you were to ask who inspired me to draw cartoons, I’d say Charles Schultz and Peanuts, Saturday morning shows like Looney Tunes, and most recently Sean D’Souza and Psychotactics newsletters and ebooks.

But they only inspired the final product.

When it comes to drawing, my earliest memory is watching a local TV weatherman who drew a cartoon at the end of every forecast. His name was Don Woods and watching him made me think I could do it.

The best part? People could write in to the show and the winner of that night’s cartoons would be announced. I still have the cartoon I won.

Here’s a quick video showing his character Gusty:

​https://youtu.be/YQDHw_hBV9E?si=7l7KwgPmPL4Dd2ER​

It just goes to show how a cartoon character can be used in your career or business as a memorable marketing tool.

Next week, I’ll talk about personality…

and the most helpful test I’ve ever taken (I doubt it’s what you think).

Until then,

Philip