Essays on creative leadership,
culture, and the human side of work.
Becoming
These are personal essays about growing up as a fostered, then adopted child — and about what that does to a person over the course of a life and career. The passivity you develop to survive. The shame that shows up uninvited in elevators and conference rooms decades later. The moment you finally recognize the bully pattern, in a boss, in a father, in yourself.
The most-read piece opens with a meat cleaver. My wife, coming down the hall. Me, curled under the covers at thirty years old, having just been fired and not yet told her. It’s not a comfortable essay. But by the end, it explains — more directly than anything else I’ve written — why I understand what happens to people when they’re made to feel small at work, and why that understanding is the foundation of everything I do professionally.
These essays aren’t separate from my advisory work. They are the source of it.
Advisory Notes
These are essays about the emotional realities of creative professional life — the anxiety of leadership, the psychology of negotiation, the particular ways creative people get in their own way, and the particular ways organizations let them down.
One of the most-read pieces, “Why Creative Firms Break Differently,” argues that creative firms don’t fail from bad strategy — they unravel from the inside, through fatigue, misalignment, and a gradual loss of trust no one can quite name. That piece captures what all of these essays are reaching toward.
I write from four decades of experience inside creative firms, but I write the way I talk: directly, without jargon, with stories. Each piece includes one of my own illustrations. If you work in a creative firm and ever feel like the game is rigged against you, this series is for you.
The entrepreneurial experience… My feet touch the ground with a light tap-tap-tapping sound. I love that feeling I get when I run. It’s a lightness. I’m alive, moving myself through the air, passing walkers and some runners. I’m running for the joy of it. The balls of my feet tap-tap-tapping my body along. Breathing deep,…
It was an acoustic guitar Drinking Black Russians in a room full of cigarette smoke. I must have been 23 or 24. A small dark room. The stage was only one step up from the floor. The room so small I could smell the performer’s sweat. The only light was a couple spots on him…
“Anna? Anna Foley?” The rain pounded. The city was a mess. Wet garbage everywhere. Tent cities filled the parks, and anyplace else the homeless could get away with. “Yes, who’s calling please?” Late for her appointment, Anna was madly trying to get a note off to let the prospect know when the call came in.…
Angry that my creative energy has been used to build, sell and enable things that don’t make the world better. Angry that we helped create an idealized reality that isn’t sustainable. Angry that I and all creatives have been getting an increasingly smaller and smaller portion of the wealth this economic system provides. Angry at…
Yes, I’m creative. But I have to make a living, too. How? When I was running The Leonhardt Group and waxing fancifully about some new opportunity, our CFO Tracy Wald used to say, “show me the money.” That always jerked me back into the reality that we were a cash flow business. If the cash…
Our personal stories are our source of power as creative professionals. I’ve drawn and told stories for as long as I can remember. When I was little I knew that I’d have to make my way in the world with my talent. But how? I had no idea. Reflect on it for a minute: How…
“Security!” They must have used a ram to hit the door. Bam. Down it went. “We are under contract with Homeland. Freeze! Put your hands on your head.” Waving some official-looking documents, the leader and what looked like 10 soldiers – all in protective gear with the Homeland logo on their white chest plates –…
New essays, every week.
With an illustration.
No noise. Just the writing — delivered to your inbox when it's ready.
"*" indicates required fields
Also available on Substack.
You never cease to amaze me with your willingness to make your life an open book — especially the more hurtful parts. And I'm amazed by the lessons you draw from all of it.
— Larry Coffman, PublisherYour writing has revealed some very intimate, powerful lessons. You are a source of inspiration both professionally and, increasingly, on a personal level.
— Rick GoreWe can discuss the ugly, uncomfortable truths while always circling back to what matters: the people, the underdogs, the work we get to do, and the magical existence we get to share as creatives.
— Sarah EskandarpourI loved your article about how clients' emotions affect briefs. It's a huge part of the creative industry and it's always good to see somebody so knowledgeable write about it.
— Vuk Bojovic, JKR Account Director, Singapore