Lone Wolf, Letting Go – by rob hardy ????
Eight months in the past, I used to be sure of my path. I’d spend my life as a solo creator, making my dwelling as a lone wolf with a small, however mighty web enterprise. For the higher a part of a decade, I’ve reveled in that feeling of being unemployed and unemployable, a feral free agent who’d resist getting a Actual Job with all his may. I sincerely believed the one means for me to offer my presents, and revel in my life, was to go my very own means.
But right here we’re, mere months later, with me heading up advertising and marketing and storytelling for Foster. Full time. My very own enterprise is on the again burner. And who is aware of, I’ll not return to it any time quickly. If ever. On this rising season of life, I’m all-in on Foster. It’s work that brings me alive, and I’m doing it alongside a handful of my closest web homies.
There’s one other life replace that’s related to this story. Simply as I’ve lengthy labored alone, so too did I consider I wanted to dwell alone. But as I write this, I’m packing up the one-bedroom condominium I’ve referred to as residence for 4 years, and on the brink of throw all the pieces in storage. After that, I’ll be heading off to a semi-monastic co-living hub within the south of France. I don’t know once I’ll return.
It seems my Lone Wolf Period is coming to an in depth. The tales of self I’ve been standing on my whole grownup life are dissolving beneath my toes. That floor has been shaky for awhile, however this summer season I stated “fuck it” and commenced making leaps of religion into my subsequent chapter.
After I replicate again on these seismic adjustments, I can hint their origin again to a single query I started exploring three years in the past. Questions, I’m starting to be taught, typically have latent transformational magic buried inside them, ready to be harnessed by anybody who devotes themselves to dwelling stated query absolutely.
Over on Foster’s new Substack, we’ve coined a time period for these large, formidable questions that defy simple solutions, but nonetheless captivate and compel us to discover. We name them Frequently Unanswered Questions, or FUQs (pronounced “fux”).
Our rivalry is that FUQs, after we start to dwell them as an alternative of merely intellectualizing them, can snap us out of the patterns of sterility and malaise that always accompany trendy life. Inhabiting our FUQs supplies an plentiful supply of gasoline for artistic and profession pursuits, after all. However it additionally places us on the trail in direction of individuation, or the method of changing into most absolutely ourselves. Inhabiting questions will help us come alive, discover new allies, and start rewriting the tales that preserve us caught.
With out fairly realizing it, I’ve spent the previous couple of years turning myself right into a case examine for this speculation.
There are a number of large FUQs which have lengthy lurked beneath the floor of my work. Chief amongst them, “How can I be the change I wish to see on the web?” That query has spurred each big leap I’ve made in my work life during the last decade. It’s been the impetus for side projects I’ve launched. And it’s on the coronary heart of a e-book I simply began writing (extra data quickly!)
However there’s one other FUQ that’s been fueling my journey this 12 months—the one which’s at present serving to me shut the door on my Lone Wolf Period.
One of many lovely issues about formidable questions is that they beget extra questions. You observe the path, staying open to no matter crosses your path, after which growth, there’s one other query, and one other—every extra particular and finely grained than the final.
Even if you happen to’ve solely adopted me for a bit, you most likely know I’ve a bone to select with the advertising and marketing business. I’ve lengthy been inquiring into how advertising and marketing may really feel much less like a zero-sum warfare of attrition, and extra like a pleasant infinite sport. From that line of inquiry, new questions emerged. How would advertising and marketing technique change if it wasn’t rooted in countless short-term development, however as an alternative within the disciplined pursuit of sufficient? How may I have to alter and develop to implement such a technique?
Someplace alongside the best way, I grew to become fascinated by the mechanics of trust. Our world is caught in a downward spiral of escalating mistrust, fueled partly by tradition wars and a fracturing media ecosystem. This dynamic is paralyzing our establishments and making it more durable to handle the numerous interrelated crises dealing with our species. My hunch is that rebuilding our capability to belief is on the core of what heals people, communities, and civilizations. How can belief be regenerated after years of atrophy? How may we rebuild belief each inside ourselves, and at scale? What function might advertising and marketing play in all of this?
By following that path, I ended up on the doorstep of the query that might change all the pieces for me. What would advertising and marketing seem like if it regenerated our potential to belief?
Like most large questions, this one began out as an mental puzzle. I used to be compelled by the query, captivated even, however I wasn’t able to dwell it but. However nonetheless, I began my means down the trail, studying far and broad on the intersections of psychology and sociology and relationships.
After which, my questions developed in surprising methods as soon as once more, this time main me into the realm of spirituality and faith. Belief, I started to be taught, isn’t so completely different from religion. We are able to by no means know with 100% certainty what’s in one other’s coronary heart, nor can we ever be unconditionally secure and in management. Nothing within the universe works that means. At a sure level, we’ve to let go, give up, and select love despite the chance that we could be damage. That’s belief.
Regardless of believing all of this intellectually, what I didn’t see on the time was that my very own life was radically out of integrity with these beliefs. As a lone wolf, my life was a shrine to mistrust. I spent years actively selecting to chop myself off from the world as a result of I used to be too scared to belief anybody else with my wellbeing. And I didn’t simply select the lone wolf path. I lionized it. I informed myself a narrative that my way of life was good and righteous and true.
Trying again, this sample makes good sense. As a child, we moved round lots. My stepfather managed high-end inns, so we jumped from state to state, and even to Russia for a number of years, as he received new gigs. I used to be by no means actually capable of type deep, lasting connections or really feel a way of rootedness. Someplace alongside the best way, I started telling myself a narrative that I didn’t want different individuals in my life. In spite of everything, they’d simply disappear like they at all times had. For me, it was at all times simpler to not belief than to threat getting damage.
My behavior of mistrust goes one layer deeper, proper down into my relationship with myself. For the final 15 years, I’ve used meals to numb myself, and to run away from issues I don’t wish to really feel. Everyone’s received their coping mechanisms, and mine has at all times revolved round consuming copious portions of unhealthy meals.
By all these years of binge consuming, I developed a perception that I used to be essentially untrustworthy, that one thing in me was damaged and twisted, and that it wanted to be managed by drive. In order that’s what I did. I allowed my “greater self” to place excessive dietary restrictions on my “decrease self,” and enforced them as militantly as I might. It by no means labored, although. Not for lengthy. Finally the a part of me that hates being distrusted and managed would insurgent, main me again into binging. And the cycle would repeat, many times. So it goes.
Final 12 months I had what can solely be described as an Oh Shit Second. I noticed one of many greatest underlying drivers of my binge consuming has at all times been loneliness. Go determine, proper? I’d lengthy informed myself a narrative that I didn’t want individuals, and I used to be nice at rationalizing that story and dwelling it. However some deeper a part of me was at all times screaming out for connection and companionship and intimacy. This dynamic created a poisonous stew of loneliness and cognitive dissonance, which as an alternative of acknowledging and resolving, I ran from. I used meals to numb it away and ignore it for nicely over a decade.
Whether or not with myself or others, I’ve realized that mistrust solely ever begets extra mistrust. It creates a self-fulfilling prophecy that, if left unchecked, results in a lifetime of disconnection and bitterness and apathy. The one factor that may break this cycle is selecting to belief once more. Selecting belief when you’ve little purpose to feels naive and harmful. However more and more, I consider it’s probably the most brave factor any of us can do. The trendy world makes it appear so smart to double down on mistrust, and additional isolate ourselves in our snug little bubbles. However, as I’ve realized the arduous means, that’s no option to dwell.
A bit over a 12 months in the past, I printed a complete essay concerning the philosophy of non-coercive marketing.
This was my first actual try and articulate a solution to the query of what advertising and marketing would seem like if it regenerated our potential to belief. And let me inform you, it’s one of many scariest issues I’ve ever hit publish on. I anticipated individuals inside the advertising and marketing business to hate it, to tear it to shreds, to chortle at my naivety. I went out of my option to hedge by saying it was particularly aimed toward solo creators like me. Not for anybody doing “actual advertising and marketing.”
However then, the damndest factor occurred. The essay caught hearth, and began to unfold. Inside per week, it was featured in a pair of fashionable newsletters, racking up tens of hundreds of views within the course of. Entrepreneurs of all stripes began emailing me and sending DMs. Some had been impartial, or engaged on their very own companies. Some ran companies. Some labored in startups and tech. Hell, a few of them even labored in B2B enterprise advertising and marketing.
All of them stated some variation of the identical factor. “I really like the philosophy you laid out right here, however how do I implement it in a bigger firm just like the one I work for?” To which the one truthful means I might reply was, “I’ve no clue. I’m only a lil solo creator man lol.”
Onerous as I attempted over the subsequent few months, I couldn’t shake that query. It caught in my mind, nagging at me. What would non-coercive advertising and marketing seem like in bigger organizations? How may it scale?
It might have been really easy and handy for me to maintain doubling down on the creator house, and on making use of non-coercive advertising and marketing to the paradigm of 1,000 true followers. That’s my bread and butter, and one thing that might have resulted in a wildly profitable little enterprise for me. However that line of inquiry misplaced its spark someplace alongside the best way. I felt myself being pulled to have interaction with the bigger, scarier query. Resonant FUQs are like that. They’re seductive, magnetic even. They’re like an intriguing glowing doorway you stroll previous daily, making an attempt to disregard, till sooner or later your curiosity will get one of the best of you and you’ll’t assist however crack it open and take a peek.
As soon as once more, I began studying extensively, this time diving into the depths of developmental psychology and organizational design. However it shortly dawned on me that if I wished to totally inhabit this bigger query, it wouldn’t be sufficient to only learn and write about it. I wanted pores and skin within the sport. Nor would I be capable to do it alone.
The time had come for me to decide on between my Lone Wolf Period or stepping onto a brand new relational frontier. The time had come for me to select belief.
I’ve been a part of Foster since its early days in the summertime of 2020, again when it was a bootstrapped Slack neighborhood for writers. Since then, I’ve been alongside for each step of the journey because it’s raised cash, pivoted, and veered into software program and cohorts and retreats. There was even a crypto section the place we began laying the groundwork to turn into a DAO. It’s been a wild journey.
However one factor has by no means modified; Foster serves writers a lot in the identical means I at all times aimed to serve creatives with Ungated. It’s about serving to writers come alive, and categorical what’s uniquely true and resonant inside them. I’ve lengthy been curious concerning the hyperlink between authentic expression and individuation. Foster is inhabiting that very same query, however exploring it with extra assets and collaborative firepower than I’d ever have alone.
It’s not simply the what of Foster I discover magnetic, although. It’s the how. As a corporation, Foster lives on the frontier of developmental tradition, decentralized coordination, and collective possession. Foster is actively weaving extra belief into the inspiration of its work tradition, and dealing to rewrite the underlying story of how corporations and establishments are constructed. It’s inhabiting one other one among my favourite FUQs, “What would enterprise seem like if it nourished the human spirit as an alternative of degrading it?” I can’t think about extra fertile soil during which to plant the seeds of non-coercive advertising and marketing.
When Dan Hunt, Foster’s founder, opened the door to me doubtlessly taking possession over the corporate’s advertising and marketing earlier this 12 months, I used to be each thrilled and extremely anxious. It felt so resonant, but I used to be carrying a decade’s price of gathered mistrust on my shoulders and in my physique. I used to be nonetheless wrapping myself in a tapestry of tales lionizing my very own individualism. In addition to, my Lone Wolf Period wasn’t simply an aesthetic selection. It was an emotional safety technique, designed to maintain me secure. I knew I wouldn’t be capable to snap my fingers and alter this dynamic instantly.
All of which is to say, this summer season has not been enjoyable. In some ways, it’s been one of many extra annoying, emotionally fraught seasons in current reminiscence. With every passing month, I discovered myself being pulled nearer into the guts of Foster, and wanting to devote myself to it, all whereas there have been fixed warning sirens blaring by way of my head and physique. Seems, it’s not simple shedding the snug confines of longstanding tales. It’s not simple untangling the methods mistrust and concern dwell within the physique, wreaking havoc on new relationships. However I’ve been doing the work—emotional, somatic, non secular—to step into this new period gracefully and compassionately.
Six weeks in the past, I made the official leap to full time.
These previous few weeks of full time work for Foster have been a whirlwind. It seems, inhabiting large questions collectively could be much more enlivening than inhabiting them alone. The artistic potential will get amplified to a exceptional diploma. As such, I’m blissful to report our non-coercive advertising and marketing efforts are off to at least one hell of a great begin.
Up to now, we’ve changed our web site with an ever-evolving, collaboratively-written google doc referred to as The Book of Foster. That is precisely as insane of a advertising and marketing choice because it sounds, whereas additionally being the best integrity means for Foster to communicate its essence. We’ve began working free, artfully-facilitated writing groups, that are shortly changing into one among my favourite elements of the week. We’ve determined to be the change we wish to see on Substack by fostering an intimate conversational scene as an alternative of presenting ourselves as Consultants with Solutions. And as I write this, we’re gearing as much as run one among our signature cohorts—this time centered on the facility of inhabiting questions as a writer. Having been on this journey myself, I’m so excited to assist information different writers by way of the method of discovering and dwelling the questions that matter to them.
And naturally, over on the private facet, I’ve begun packing my whole life into containers, and I’m preparing for an prolonged keep at a co-living hub within the south of France. Whereas there, I plan to make new associates and go to previous ones who dwell throughout Europe. I plan to meditate lots, particularly specializing in somatic consciousness and coming right into a extra trusting relationship with my physique. I plan to write down greater than I ever have, and make enormous progress on my e-book. My greatest purpose, although, is to work on creating a more healthy relationship with meals. I’m so excited to find how dwelling in neighborhood adjustments how I method consuming, and see how more healthy consuming ripples by way of each different aspect of my life.
In different phrases, I’m not simply fascinated by the questions that matter to me. I’m dwelling them as immediately and ferociously as I can. After a decade of being caught in my head, and rationalizing away my fundamental wants as a human, I’m able to care for myself and embody my values extra absolutely. In fact, I don’t know the place any of that is main, which is quite uncomfortable at occasions. However even in my moments of doubt, I can’t shake the sense that I’m heading in the right direction. I belief my questions will proceed guiding me down the trail of changing into the person I do know I could be.
Onwards.
On October sixteenth, Foster is kicking off Season 4: A Extra Lovely Query. “Seasons” are considerably like cohort-based programs, however they’re extra vibrantly experiential, extra communal, extra magical. Within the upcoming cohort, we’ll method our writing not as a method of offering Solutions, however as a means of inhabiting the Questions that matter to us. We’ll search to bop with uncertainty as an alternative of treating it as an issue to be solved. We’ll discover, play, and be in dialog with one thing bigger than ourselves. And when it’s all stated and completed, we’ll every hit publish on an article that’s crackling with our vitality and humanity, a lot as I hope this essay was. Care to join us?