Your career can be a vehicle for your own self-expression.
But let’s get real.
You’re being manipulated.
You work in a system where GDP goes up if you break your leg. You’ll have to go to the ER/A&E, pay for a taxi, order out more.
In the same way, Imposter Syndrome makes bottom lines go up.
It develops naturally with over-burdened teams.
Teams full of people who are forced to seek out their own training if they wish to grow.
Who are subtly made to feel inferior, which makes them work harder.
Take stock for a moment of where you are now.
Are you engaged and dedicated to the craft of strategy, but not energized?
Perhaps even depleted?
Do you feel the onslaught of meetings, deliverables, and never-ending to-do lists as stress in one of its many manifestations?
Are your skills not improving as rapidly as you imagine they could be?
And where is it you are driving this vehicle of self-expression, your career?
I know I feel very lucky to be working on teams with people I trust who understand how I elicit my best work.
People with whom I have healthy, organic, expansive relationships, who are happy to work with me because:
I have a clear process.
I have principles and values that I can articulate.
I have demonstrable skills in:
Asking the question behind the question.
Synthesizing like a mother-fucker.
Being a just-right force in the room.
Negotiating and scoping.
Meeting new collaborators easily and effortlessly.
I turned the corner (yup, keeping this vehicle metaphor going the whole damn way), when I went Brain Surfing.
I published Brain Surfing the Top Marketing Strategy Minds in the World in November 2015 as both a paperback and an ebook.
It has since sold over 8,000 copies.
Some college classes include it in their course work. Friends have spotted readers in the wild and sent me pictures:
But I never created an audio version.
And I never let you surf my brain. I never put forth “my ways.”
Now I’d like to change that.
I personally enjoy getting to know people through voice (but if you want to come for a visit in Oakland, let me know and we can discuss.)
I’m currently living in a building with a soundproof recording room so it’s encouraged me to add voiceovers to The Project 100 editions.
I’ve decided to create a new Substack for you to experience Brain Surfing in a whole new way.
First, while it will come to your email, it will be more of an evolving audiobook-to-course than a newsletter.
I will start by reading Brain Surfing and dripping it out in 10-15 minute episodes, 2 per week.
After we get through the book, the content will shift.
I will offer the courses I’ve already developed only to members.
The exact ways I’ve developed my skills and articulated my principles and values.
And there will be tea spilling bonus material about the tenth strategist I lived with after publishing.
I want you to feel the ease and lack of effort that strategy work now feels like for me.
I want you to feel the giddy joy like I am experiencing on the projects I’m working on right now because the ideas are so irresistible and the feedback is so positive.
My strategy skills are my most valuable on the open market.
As such, I will not be sharing them for free on the Brain Surfing Substack, however it is not possible to eliminate the “free” subscriber level.
To me, your brain and body are the most expensive equipment you use in your work.
Training is vehicle maintenance.
Training can also be like buying a new map or hiring a driving instructor to learn to how to handle extreme conditions or to drive more sophisticated machines.
Project 100 will continue to offer free subscribers content where brands, work, and health overlap.
But my Brain Surfing Offering will give you access to my strategy brain.
Check out my new Brain Surfing Offering and see if it’s a fit for you here: