in my secret executive era
on learning how to make new
Mitski calls it retired from sad, new career in business; I call it secret executive, parents still unimpressed.
It is the in between where days drip like honey from the spoon, the liminal space that never ends only continues with just you, ceo staring into the abyss eating glass—who keeps coming out with new flavors of glass?—savor the taste as you repeat to yourself, the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.
consulting = confidence + doubt
We assume that in leaving situations in pursuit of safety, we will find it elsewhere. As it turns out, the first order of business is returning to ourselves. We are a safe place too.
I had three calls last week with friends and colleagues considering new paths forward, and each person said they left our call feeling inspired.
I like mental sparring at work and I like how it's the basis of my work as an indie consultant — what Venkatesh Rao frames as infusing systematic doubt into your client/partner's thinking — and so it caught me when three rounds of unprompted feedback reflected how I bring systematic confidence. (thanks A., for the reference)
I'd overlooked this about myself, you see, you get to a place where you realize people will abuse your care, exploit their access to you, neglect your love, now watch the pattern unfold without restraint. You realize you can hold empathy and self respect in the same hand, knowing there are some settings where it's not about showing your hand; it's about leaving with the hand intact. Calloused and firm. Well-moisturized.
(Related reading - UK-based former journalist Yaling Jiang writes on “What happens when an Asian woman decides to speak up, and still isn't heard.”)
And so we find the phrase that COVID made famous; we contain multitudes. We are confidence by natural wiring; doubt by social conditioning.
But it feels important to articulate what keeps slipping out of the hand, this amorphous space in between doubt and confidence. On a personal level the tension somewhat resolves through faith, but professionally it's something like -
Doubt sharing a home with imagination. And congeniality.
That's an attempt at articulating my edge at work — what marks the 2.0 of my consulting practice. (data & outcomes too, yeah yeah yeah)
I'm not a woman trying to get everyone in a room to talk about feelings; I'm a partner helping you derisk your decisions by acknowledging the value systems sparring underneath the work, and doing the work of reconciling them. I've eaten too much glass to forget the taste.
AI only furthers the cause, in what Shuwei Fang calls the "AI intimacy dividend," as researched for Harvard's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy.
She notes how while chatbots have found popularity as "agreeable conversationalists" — "being surrounded by ‘yes men’ is not helpful in the search for the truth."
"Agreeable conversationalist" is an understatement for me on a good day, when I'll engage anything with a pulse. It's a type of strength but another is becoming everything that my cultural upbringing feared (for valid reasons): one who speaks the truth.
—
The irony with indie consulting is we forget it's our own story that sets us apart. Consultants get commoditized too; a corporate pedigree is no more a story than dropping out of college or just doing good work at a series of unknown companies.
When those around me consider going solo, my best tip is you don't choose the indie life, it chooses you.
Your scars are your edge (as much as your joys!) and if you can't name at least three, then maybe stick with the day job. Dysfunction is a control factor in any workplace experiment, isn't that what we all are?
Fang goes on to address investors and entrepreneurs: "However, [market] success in this space will require overcoming some non-trivial technical and governance challenges, emotional intelligence capabilities, and transparent reasoning abilities to build trust, strong privacy protections and ethical frameworks, and most importantly deep understanding of cognitive science and how humans process information."
AI cannot take away my work if it's contributing to the problems that fuel my work.
AI creating value in the business of sense-making concurrently creates need for human consideration.
"The presence of AI is a sure indicator of a more profound absence of human consideration," Rob Horning writes.
I think of the viral video I just watched of a woman who forgot to mute while rebuking her partner who forgot to feed the dog again, TO BE LOVED IS TO BE CONSIDERED!!!
Then returning to her team, clear-eyed and composed.
perks perks perks
8 years into newsletter writing, I feel like I'm at the beginning of discovering my voice. I still cringe when I think of past words I've published, until T. gently reminded me that my audience has grown with me.
So, thanks for considering my words. Secret Granola Club members (paid subs) - I’m mailing zines out to you today, keep an eye out! It's a lightly edited print take on my first visual poem "old dreams making way for new" that I wrote in Oct 2021. The sentiment holds; I am still learning how to make new.
If you want one, join us for $5/mon below and send me your address. (You get printed matter 4x/year, the annual big zine comes in the fall!)
repair / rest
G. got her Masters in Public Health last month, and commencement brought me back to interning at Health & Human Services in college. It was a strange and fascinating arrangement, my favorite unpaid minion experience under Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy's IDEO-contracted Chief Design Officer Ann Kim.
There I met people who had worked through multiple government shutdowns and administrations.
There I saw that the work of repair never stops.
—
An exercise in confidence — I imagine one day the work of repair can take a day of rest. And in that rest, we'll have space to create work that has no end.
Helado Negro on making music:
"I spend a lot of time recording sounds and processes. It is working with no intention, just looking for that moment that is inspiring. Those moments are the most informative. Creating work that has no end, it's just a place you live to discover something different. It's a cloud moving over a landscape, changing the temperature and the colors all so delicately."
So many gems throughout (per usual!) - reflecting on this: "There I saw that the work of repair never stops." Rest & repair on an endless cycle, feeding into each other even as they also drain each other.