Hey what's up? I went for a walk and stumbled upon a sentence written on the street. "Wie durft te verdwalen vindt nieuwe wegen." Cute, right? Also annoying though, because it got stuck in my head like one of those songs you secretly hate but still know the whole chorus of. It resonated. Maybe because it feels almost impossible to get lost these days. Open your phone and you're found. Blue dot. Suggested route. Estimated arrival. Reviews. Three alternative paths. One is faster. One has fewer stairs. One probably optimised for your current emotional damage. Getting lost has become a choice. Maybe a luxury even. Which is maybe why I keep thinking: choose the adventure, not a job. I know. Sounds like a LinkedIn post from someone wearing a Patagonia vest in a WeWork elevator. Or worse, at the Zuidas! So... bear with me (once again) cuz this is a journey ;) A job is not really a thing. I stole that line from Maja at Velvet Noise, who said something like: "a job is a bundle of problems someone wants solved badly enough to pay another person to solve them." A job title is just packaging. CEO. Creative Director. My favourite... Head of Strategy. Founder. Advisor. Chief Vibes Officer. Whatever. In corporate environments people discuss job titles. In the creative community people name drop. Both are shortcuts. Sometimes useful. Mostly boring. Who you know can help. Of course it can. Being around interesting people helps you develop taste. You pick up references. You learn what good looks like. You start noticing when something is off, which is usually the difference between "nice" and "I can't stop thinking about this." But what matters more is what you've done. Not in the humblebrag CV way. More like... where have you wandered before? What did you build? What did you break? What did you learn when the map stopped working? Can you tell the story without making yourself the hero in every scene? How do you fail forward? I had a conversation with a CEO recently. Let's call him Fab. Not because he's fabulous, but because his name is Fabricio. I won't turn this into a corporate fanfic, although this side-quest is becoming a thing, but what stayed with me was not his rep or title. It was his curiosity. The urgency. The quality of the questions. His ability to move between strategy and product without pretending those are separate worlds. Knowing the shortcomings. That's rare. Taste is a much used word these days. If you can do "everything" with AI, taste will be the differentiator. Right? Such a slippery slope. People use it to sound expensive. To me it's more like judgement with receipts. Your sense of taste is not what you like. It's what you can recognise, explain, defend, and improve. And judgement comes from doing. From shipping something when it still feels a bit embarrassing. From helping someone solve a problem before there is a contract. From making the wrong call, surviving it, and remembering the bruises. From noticing that your first idea was just a remix of something you saw on the timeline last week. But how do you tell? How do you get known for your taste? I've never liked the personal brand stuff although you might argue differently. Personal brand feels like such a wanky phrase for what is really happening. It makes the whole thing sound like you're putting on a little outfit for the algorithm. Today I'm founder. Tomorrow I'm thought leader. Friday I'm vulnerable because engagement is down. Hahahaha please unsubscribe me from myself. The real version is not branding. It's about making your thinking findable. It's leaving evidence of your aliveness in public. Proof that you are already in a relationship with the problems you want to be trusted with. Not hired for. Trusted with. Then... you only need one person to believe in you, hahaha. But the better goal is to become someone people can trust. Trust you to see the problem clearly. Trust you to care about the craft. Trust you to not disappear when it gets messy. Trust you to have enough judgement to know when the map is useful and when it's time to take the weird little street because there might be a better view around the corner. And now, because the simulation has a sense of humor, we have agents. Your first agent is kinda like the first person you fall in love with. It's new, exciting and magical. You think you can take on the whole world together. You stay up too late. You tell your friends they don't understand. You forgive all the red flags because look, it made a spreadsheet, booked a thing, wrote some code, summarised your chaos, and called you brilliant at 02:13 in the morning. Then reality arrives. It gets confused. It lies with confidence. It over explains. Hallucinations are a thing. It forgets the one thing you actually needed. It starts every sentence with "You're absolutely right" and suddenly you're like... wow, maybe I need boundaries. Still magical though. Because maybe agents are not here to replace taste and judgement. Maybe they expose the lack of it. If everyone can make something, then the question changes. Not "can you build?" but "what do you choose to build?" Not "how many agents do you have running?" but "do they know where you're trying to go?" Adventure used to mean leaving the map behind. Now it might mean choosing not to follow the most efficient route. Letting curiosity beat optimisation for a minute. Walking without the fcking airpods. Posting the half formed joke. Calling the person. Making the thing before the title exists. Daring to get lost. Or at least pretending we still can. What else?
If this newsletter felt like a detour, good. Efficiency is overrated anyway. I’m gonna go outside again and see if there's more unsolicited life advice written on the pavement. Maybe that’s the whole trick. Less optimising. More wandering. Less proving. More doing. And if you actually get lost, congratulations. N. |
Get Lost
Hey what's up? I went for a walk and stumbled upon a sentence written on the street. "Wie durft te verdwalen vindt nieuwe wegen." Cute, right? Also annoying though, because it got stuck in my head like one of those songs you secretly hate but still know the whole chorus of. It resonated. Maybe because it feels almost impossible to get lost these days. Open your phone and you're found. Blue dot. Suggested route. Estimated arrival. Reviews. Three alternative paths. One is faster. One has fewer stairs. One probably optimised for your current emotional damage. Getting lost has become a choice. Maybe a luxury even. Which is maybe why I keep thinking: choose the adventure, not a job. I know. Sounds like a LinkedIn post from someone wearing a Patagonia vest in a WeWork elevator. Or worse, at the Zuidas! So... bear with me (once again) cuz this is a journey ;) A job is not really a thing. I stole that line from Maja at Velvet Noise, who said something like: "a job is a bundle of problems someone wants solved badly enough to pay another person to solve them." A job title is just packaging. CEO. Creative Director. My favourite... Head of Strategy. Founder. Advisor. Chief Vibes Officer. Whatever. In corporate environments people discuss job titles. In the creative community people name drop. Both are shortcuts. Sometimes useful. Mostly boring. Who you know can help. Of course it can. Being around interesting people helps you develop taste. You pick up references. You learn what good looks like. You start noticing when something is off, which is usually the difference between "nice" and "I can't stop thinking about this." But what matters more is what you've done. Not in the humblebrag CV way. More like... where have you wandered before? What did you build? What did you break? What did you learn when the map stopped working? Can you tell the story without making yourself the hero in every scene? How do you fail forward? I had a conversation with a CEO recently. Let's call him Fab. Not because he's fabulous, but because his name is Fabricio. I won't turn this into a corporate fanfic, although this side-quest is becoming a thing, but what stayed with me was not his rep or title. It was his curiosity. The urgency. The quality of the questions. His ability to move between strategy and product without pretending those are separate worlds. Knowing the shortcomings. That's rare. Taste is a much used word these days. If you can do "everything" with AI, taste will be the differentiator. Right? Such a slippery slope. People use it to sound expensive. To me it's more like judgement with receipts. Your sense of taste is not what you like. It's what you can recognise, explain, defend, and improve. And judgement comes from doing. From shipping something when it still feels a bit embarrassing. From helping someone solve a problem before there is a contract. From making the wrong call, surviving it, and remembering the bruises. From noticing that your first idea was just a remix of something you saw on the timeline last week. But how do you tell? How do you get known for your taste? I've never liked the personal brand stuff although you might argue differently. Personal brand feels like such a wanky phrase for what is really happening. It makes the whole thing sound like you're putting on a little outfit for the algorithm. Today I'm founder. Tomorrow I'm thought leader. Friday I'm vulnerable because engagement is down. Hahahaha please unsubscribe me from myself. The real version is not branding. It's about making your thinking findable. It's leaving evidence of your aliveness in public. Proof that you are already in a relationship with the problems you want to be trusted with. Not hired for. Trusted with. Then... you only need one person to believe in you, hahaha. But the better goal is to become someone people can trust. Trust you to see the problem clearly. Trust you to care about the craft. Trust you to not disappear when it gets messy. Trust you to have enough judgement to know when the map is useful and when it's time to take the weird little street because there might be a better view around the corner. And now, because the simulation has a sense of humor, we have agents. Your first agent is kinda like the first person you fall in love with. It's new, exciting and magical. You think you can take on the whole world together. You stay up too late. You tell your friends they don't understand. You forgive all the red flags because look, it made a spreadsheet, booked a thing, wrote some code, summarised your chaos, and called you brilliant at 02:13 in the morning. Then reality arrives. It gets confused. It lies with confidence. It over explains. Hallucinations are a thing. It forgets the one thing you actually needed. It starts every sentence with "You're absolutely right" and suddenly you're like... wow, maybe I need boundaries. Still magical though. Because maybe agents are not here to replace taste and judgement. Maybe they expose the lack of it. If everyone can make something, then the question changes. Not "can you build?" but "what do you choose to build?" Not "how many agents do you have running?" but "do they know where you're trying to go?" Adventure used to mean leaving the map behind. Now it might mean choosing not to follow the most efficient route. Letting curiosity beat optimisation for a minute. Walking without the fcking airpods. Posting the half formed joke. Calling the person. Making the thing before the title exists. Daring to get lost. Or at least pretending we still can. What else?
If this newsletter felt like a detour, good. Efficiency is overrated anyway. I’m gonna go outside again and see if there's more unsolicited life advice written on the pavement. Maybe that’s the whole trick. Less optimising. More wandering. Less proving. More doing. And if you actually get lost, congratulations. N. |