Authenticity Over Architecture

If you’ve noticed over the past few weeks, I’ve changed the format of this newsletter. Again. I’m a constant tinkerer.

This time, though, the change wasn’t about aesthetic or performance or anything along those lines. It was about authenticity. It was about trying to stop comparing and optimizing, and just being.

If I’m not careful, I can find myself focused less on the content of what I’m writing/sharing, and more about making it look real or official. Whatever that means. Not inherently bad things, but not the right things.

Our BETTER team has a newsletter that is formatted like most brand, informative newsletter. My personal newsletter, Keep Chopping Wood, is just a daily thought with no real thought for formatting or design.

I tried to make this one more like the BETTER version, or like other great newsletters I receive. But it’s not me. As a result, I felt myself trying to fit content into that format, instead of just saying what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it.

Seems no matter how much I write or talk about not comparing, or the threat of over-optimization, I still have lessons to learn there. And this isn’t really about newsletters, of course. We all have our own version of this. It could be in meetings or parenting or online.

At the end of the day, I need to be me. That’s the greatest value I can add. Not formatted or optimized or averagely mimicking someone else.

And maybe that’s the lesson for all of us. To focus less on performance and more on authenticity.

Learn from others. Be you.

Live above the line.
For you,
Kevin

Thanks for reading this. Share it with anybody you think would find it useful. And as a reminder, NO DRIFT is not mine it is ours. I want to know what you think, what you want to hear about, what you are learning. All feedback is welcomed.