Visibility is not the problem. Being general is.

The shift in the source of light

Most outreach advice focuses on finding companies: make a list of targets, research them, pitch them. It rarely works because companies don’t hire you; people do. And

July 22, Brooklyn

An introduction limits what can happen next. A prompt expands it. We treat introductions as neutral, even kind — a way of easing an encounter. But an introduction actually

Most people treat aesthetics as a personal touch. But without literacy, aesthetics is general and never yours. Aesthetics and literacy are the same cognitive act, operating in different

It’s possible to be curious about someone’s work without being curious about them. To study the output, craft, the thing, and never reach the person who

Movement is not something you can hand to another person. You can only transmit a motion you already carry. We talk about leaders who “move” people, about ideas

Week 10 of 10 — Creative Surplus: A Chapter a Week

On Aesthetics, the general and the specific

Week 9 of 10. Creative Surplus: A Chapter a Week. No technology makes a meaningful exchange any better than it already is. This week covers the most ground

Thought leadership is a media business. It runs on the economics of attention: a post, a talk, a byline, a quote in someone else’s deck. The currency

Creative surplus isn’t something you build toward or earn through years of grinding in a job you dislike. It’s the baseline condition of being a thinking,

Week 8 of 10. Creative Surplus: A Chapter a Week A circle is a band practice for solo artists. In 2019, I set out to build an intentional

Week 7 of 10 – Creative Surplus: A Chapter a Week

Self-leadership begins when we learn to draw a frame without drawing a picture. Every other mode of communication is, in effect, telling people what to do rather

Week 5 of 10 – Creative Surplus: A Chapter a Week In abundance, all we have is philosophy. Discovery is the first movement of creative surplus: paying attention to

If your entire professional identity is organized around serving clients, you’ve collapsed yourself into a role. You’ve become the helpful expert. The reliable partner. The one

PSA: I'm excited to announce the first online elective at Critical Business School — A Little Death, with Danya Shults, on endings and what they make room

The Block essay that Jack Dorsey and Roelof Botha published last week is worth engaging with. The historical arc and the argument that AI can now perform the

Progress or more sophisticated analysis

I started a meta-community in early 2020, just before we all stayed at our desks. The goal, as I wrote at the time, was to build a

CBS is a school of schools. A space for thinking about thinking — in its actionable sense. A place where thoughtful practitioners can meet others in thinking. One of

A month ago, Sarah Boris invited me to write 10 resolutions. I would love to invite you to contribute 10 resolutions for 2026. I am inviting artists, curators,

Who is writing your strategy? How do you navigate your practice and work in a way that aligns with your worldview and personality? Economically, utility is cheaper and

Time and attention are all we have. When do you give attention to your own thoughts, and when do you ask others to do the same? When we

Announcing Men in Progress, new space.

On limits of planning and the potential of agency

In a world of abundant utility, all we have is self-leadership. All value exists in movement. Any stationary comfort is a leaking boat—creativity drowning in the

The more specialized you are, the more expensive your change will be.

Specialization is the worst thing you can do for your career. Computational thinking is the default mode when we cannot connect to the reason (meaning/value) behind our

What is creativity, and why is it important?

Thoughts on Recording 10 Podcast Conversations.

A living idea gives more the more you engage with it, in the form of value, meaning, and energy. It is not confined to physics, because your mind

Nothing new is created in transactional spaces. These are spaces that operate from a scarcity mindset, which is why they prioritize access and efficiency over value and creativity.

Digital provincialism is intentionally moving toward passive information economies and away from self-authorship. It is not only accepting but actively pursuing the snugness of algorithmic duvets. It

Belonging Without Fitting In

Optimistic act, Anchored in Realism and Love

You are in the life you’re designing.

Being reductive is being overly simplistic without acknowledging its cost. Thoughtfulness is the intuitive knowledge that there is more, and having the fortitude (self-leadership) and patience to

Mostly Information Technologies

You are a system of attention, waiting for stimuli and dispatching action. Your attention is a living, moving system, like your body. It must remain free to sense.

Meaning is not measured in word count

A practice in harmony seeks language for its curiosities and has the rigor to articulate the value of its clarity, once it comes. They innovate at a level

Routine expands time. When we make suggestions to ourselves instead of making a decision, we lose the robustness and mindspace that consistency opens up.

What is the difference between understanding and experiencing?

Not Caring is an Active State

Name-dropping assumes a single scale of value and invites judgment. You can name-drop a person to demo your network, or a book to demo your knowledge.

Art holds meanings that have yet to be found in words. Next time you find yourself in a place of deep meaning, but one that resists articulation1, consider

I ride bikes for fun and health. The mental aspect of it is very compelling, and I frequently make references to it (in terms of self-leadership, among

The ability to multi-lane efforts suffers the most under a scarcity mindset and is necessarily reduced to a reactive, last-in-first-out approach.

Developing the capacity to be friendly without needing to be friends is the best way to negotiate power and love (Adam Kahane). When we say things with more

Focus, like power, is best when it is soft. You need to soften your gaze to see more rather than concentrate more energy into the same frame. Holding

Like water, care needs to flow. When blocked by communication channels, economic models, or leadership, it will inevitably create dissonance. In these places, the inner, expansive self can

Meaning and motivation are the same. When we write, we seek to convey meaning. It is the fuel of connection and the currency of creativity. Communication without meaning

Technology does not change habits of mind; it amplifies existing ones. If you use AI to write without reframing what you write, you will produce more, weaker words.

Leadership is being yourself in new ways. Identifying these ways is the first step in accessing them in different situations or having the conviction to follow them in

On Professional Mindfulness

An Oxymoron

Briefs need time; prompts need space.

Being yourself is good business.

Self-authorship cannot exist without self-curiosity.

Potential is the invisible ceiling of self-actualization

Branded space are audiences, not communities.

There is no change without an outside-in perspective.

Knowledge is mechanical, meaning is alive.

Groups, by being groups, resist change

Too much planning stifles action. It overextends the world’s influence by collecting information on the current space of possibility, stifling imagination on what might come, and using

Consistency materializes small actions. Anything else will be a campaign for change, which cannot be sustained without external intervention. Change is realized over time. We are surrounded by

When we look for a traditional scale (the same thing, more people), we look for a common denominator. What is the most legible and sticky version of my

An index is a communication meeting point, a way to describe something constantly changing and agree on a temporary pause, an evolutionary truce. If we allow indexes to

We live in a culture that takes connectivity for granted but is not incentivized to sense its texture. It has never been easier to use other people’s

This week, I am sharing a list of living ideas, which I am now cross-posting from Notion to byed.it (thanks to its new custom domain feature)

Change happens in the middle ground between meticulous 5-year plans and living in the moment. There is an inherent tension between experiencing the now and imagining more.

To deliver value (meaning) for others, we need to have access to understand what something means for us. Only when we can articulate the meaning (in a product,

Everything you like, you like for a reason. All of those reasons connect with your aesthetics (/intuition). In a personal constitution. Being curious about that place of noticing

Taylorist image turned on its head

Communication degrades with efficiency – when trying to communicate thin meaning with too many words, or when running out of patience and space to develop a living idea, and

There are opportunities for opinions all around us.