How do you meet the moment?

It takes so much effort and energy. To show up regularly – and just write. 

But not unlike the gym, using some of that energy has a way of giving some back. 

After feeling straight up annoyed last week, I was somehow able to have a few solid sessions that actually reenergized me this week. 

Check the scorecard:

I should be writing more than 744 words per week, but at this stage, I’ll take what I can get. 

And what I was digging into felt meaningful.

Internal vs. External

After four chapters of pointing the reader towards inner work – which I realize may not sound all that compelling to a marketing leader already at capacity – I finally wrote the chapter that acknowledges the impact of external conditions. 

If you’ve spent a few minutes in marketing, you know what I’m talking about. 

Anything from big CEO decisions and AI transformation to what might seem like smaller day-to-day papercuts – they all affect us. I’d never pretend otherwise.

Having been through some tough stretches in my career and not yet seen the kind of success I had envisioned, I can now admit there was a part of me that felt like I had suffered enough and that I shouldn’t have to carry whatever this was.

The closer I got to realizing this was a real issue, the more resistant I grew to the idea of even engaging with it.

At the same time, here’s the reality:

Although we can’t control external conditions, our internal architecture is the only thing that can reduce the impact those external conditions have on us. 

What shifts when you commit to a certain kind of inner work is that the person who shows up the next time the ground moves is different than the person who used to show up. And that makes all the difference. 

This is why your internal architecture is something to intentionally build.

I’m still working on mine – while I continue to also work on this book. 

Let’s keep going.

– Joergen