58 days before I was laid off (the company was shut down months later).

So, here I am, about 15 months into what I imagine many of you are also navigating, about to navigate, or possibly trying to avoid:

• Being a “fractional” professional (in the midst of micro, meso, and macro chaos, complexity, and heartache - s/o Sam Spurlin for this layered framing)

Pioneered by “freelancers” and “contract” workers well before this moment, the idea that any -and possibly all- white collar jobs could be fractional is at once liberating (the freedom! the flexibility!) and frustrating (benefits, healthcare, taxes; context-switching, selling, invoicing, system-switching; feeling pulled to be always-on; hyper conscious of time away from family).

Just this morning in the Financial Times, global business columnist and associate editor Rana Foroohar posited this in her headline: “America’s gig economy: Self-employment, at both the high and the low end, is keeping consumption afloat — but for how long?” And in her piece notes:

While that implies flexibility and entrepreneurialism, it also may mean an economy in which labour markets — and growth — will be more volatile and precarious than in the past.

In the final sentence of Foroohar’s piece, a word I hadn’t seen before leapt off the page, in the context of cautioning what might happen to the economy if this class of people stops spending: the precariat class.

What I thought was a witty portmanteau she surely made up (combining precarious and proletariat - genius!), has actually been in circulation for the better part of the last 15 years.

Digging into the citations for precariat on Wikipedia had me encountering headlines like "Who will be a voice for the emerging precariat?" (2011, from what seems to be the originator of the term Guy Standing), “Plutonomy and the Precariat” (2012), “We’re All Precarious Now” (2015).

I mean, I know about Universal Basic Income and the concept of structural unemployment and rise of disaffected workers showing up as Sanders-Trump and Trump-Mamdani and all… but how the eff did I miss this word: PRECARIAT?

And, then it hit me. It’s so obvious with hindsight: my full time employment privileges. That’s how.

Full time in industries and companies who were in their “white hot space” (to quote Jay-Z) from roughly the mid aughts to 2019.

In industries and companies, who, in many ways, helped usher in this moment.

Ooof.

What a gift to be employed with a safety net of benefits during those years; and, also, how harrowing it is to look back knowing what I know now.

As with all of my posts here at Turtle Adventures - it’s my aim to share the ups, downs, and compasses I am using / have used to navigate a world not built by or for us… but that we will be damned if we don’t make it better for one another (as Turtles), while still trying to get the bag.

And so, let me share what I am taking forward into my second year in this liminal-but-could-end-up-being-permanent-space branded as “fractional” but could also be thought of as a part of the (growing) “precariat” class.

Here’s what I know so far:

1. I am built for going fractional. I have made a career out of moving between industries, social classes, and business models. In many ways, I feel built for this moment and am grateful that ladders gave way to jungle gyms long ago. I trust in what and who I know, and that when I swing and reach for the next rung, I will find it—and it will find me.

2. I am prepared for fractional. Before there was Slack and before there was the pandemic, I was running a distributed, virtual team to create amazing outcomes from 2006–2012. What I called “The Agency of the Future” in 2011 is, well, just how we work now. It feels like a homecoming to work across timezones, platforms, email accounts, projects, industries, clients, and contexts. I have also long been responsible for revenue generation, so this feels like the same song—just a different verse.

3. I am still trying to accept being fractional. Even if I feel built and prepared for it, not having the 3Bs (base, bonus, and benefits) of yore couldn’t have come at a worse time.

   A time, when, I have stepped into the primary earner role in my family, with a toddler at home and having not ruled out having more kids (s/o to my 36 year old self who gave me options). So now is when the ushering in of precarity is in full swing for white collar job? now it’s become unbundled, just like cable and our homes-as-b-n-n’able?

   Why couldn’t this cataclysmic shift held off another decade or two?

   I bet every generation of workers has wanted to stave off major shifts in some way, somehow - just like I do in this moment.

   
   It’s just now that it’s come for me and my career. How silly I was to think I could outrun it, with enough hard work and education.

   All that to say: I am choosing to embrace this moment, however long I am in it, and keep my FTE antennae up just in case there’s an opportunity to put down roots.

And so, how ever long “Fractional” stays in our lexicon, whether it evolves to become the new norm or whether we “go back to the old way,” here at TRTL I want us to be ever prepared, ever buoyant, and ever flexible in these choppy and chopped-up professional seas.

With this as a backdrop, I wanted to share 6 things that kept me afloat in the last 454 days in hopes that they may help, in some small way, midwife you through this season, too…

6 Truths as a Fractional Professional

From a hard-fought 2025 season out in these mean, unbundled streets, comes a stronger 2026 (so far).

1. Never say never.

There were industries I wasn’t sure I’d ever work in, or work in again, yet in 2025 and 2026: they came knocking and I answered. Similarly, I’ve had folks I’ve known for 10, even close to 20 years, re-cross my path this year that have turned into fruitful collaborations. I am glad I’ve stayed open and connected.

2. Develop and iterate your own digital & sales strategy.

For someone who has helped brands run their digital strategies and revenue for my whole career, it’s a little embarrassing to say: I had’t actually stepped back to architect my own approach to the socials + to ye olde sales in this modern moment.

• For my approach to digital platforms, I used something the ace team of NIKEiD folks and I came up with for myself here (“Purpose to Platform”).

• I also took the wise advice many have about problem-based selling and repositioned my services when I relaunched my website earlier this year: lesliebradshaw.com

• And, finally, I use my homemade Pipeline Tool on a weekly basis to track, qualify, and advance opportunities.

3. Package up and monetize your how.

I am turning some of my evergreen, ‘best of’ tools from the last 20 years into Figjam + Miro frameworks, GSheet + GDoc templates, and even AI prompts that have become ways of both delivering outcomes for my clients -as well as- themselves being the outcome.

• I’ve long been a fan of the “cookbook” model, in which you can give away your recipes to a broader part of the market -and- operate a few more higher-price point “restaurants” that you chef. Both channels serve each other with deal flow and in-market learnings, too.

• It’s a play I ran as a speaker/blogger/agency owner 2006-2016; and now I am adding some more scaffolding to further professionalize what know and want to share with others here in 2026+ (it’s also something Jesus stays be telling me - you are 100% right babe).

4. Create for exploration, not just for transaction.

Over the last year-plus, I’ve had a blast…

• writing things I haven’t yet published (drafts are my love language)

• trying out new platforms (like TikTok)

• making collages with my daughter out of magazines and ripped books

• propagating houseplants

• developing my Idea Garden

• being in community with thinkers and doers

• going entirely offline and analog whenever I can (weekends; no phone hangs, etc.)… though the ‘working for yourself’ makes this SUPER HARD

• executing my purpose to platform digital strategy referenced above - with various handles/profiles available to me as sandboxes without the pressures of performing on more familiar stages (i.e., LI, IG, FB).

• I’ve even been playing around with AI a fair amount (will share in another post at some point)

All that to say: It’s nice to do these things without pressure of a client, a deadline, or a deliverable.

I am making things that might not ever be seen or engaged with - and in lowering the pressure, I think I am removing (some of) the performative nature of creating for an audience.

What if you just created for yourself?

What if, like Jasmine Bina wrote over the weekend, when you write for the 5th or 6th time about something in public, you let it be confusing before jumping to clarity?

“What that teaches me is that if I really want to understand my thoughts, I have to be willing to be misunderstood by people.” -Jasmine Bina

5. Find and honor resonance.

There are rooms and people that feel like home, while there are others that feel like deserts (one S).

• I am tuning my practice of noticing: when am I hydrated vs. when do I have to contort to fit a situation?

• We can’t always be hydrated and fitting in without belonging is often something we must do in order to make a living - however, the older I get, the more careful I am about observing, managing, and even storing energy to move between these two poles. I feel so strongly about this point, I wrote up a “Recipe” list for Transformative Collaborations over on LinkedIn.

• Sit with this question: where do you go to (deep) think. And maybe put it in conversation (like I did here with and )

6. Commune, collaborate, connect with others.

Like many of you, I have been working virtually since mid-March 2020.

Though the rhythm of home has generally been a blessing—through postpartum, new motherhood, night owl’ery—I miss the office; I miss coworkers; I miss co-thinking in 3D.

As an antidote to these misses, I have jumped at the opportunity to travel for clients and industry conferences. I am also part of the Critical Business School faculty in April, where we meet in person in Greenpoint.

Having traveled non-stop for most of my early and mid-career, I welcomed the pause. Until it felt like pond water. Here’s to continued movement in 2026 (including my family coming along for some of the upcoming trips I have! s/o Brian Williams at Viget for the inspiration here)

And speaking of what’s to come in 2026 and beyond:

For now, I am thinking of them as communities and collectives.

These are not new, per se, but there does feel like there are a rise of the ‘leadership role’ collectives - most notably for me:

• ExCo Group, where I’ve been an executive mentor / coach since 2021;

• XcelerateOne, which has been an excuse to work with some of my favorite colleagues from my last full time job; and

• Uncommon, where I joined joining as a fractional Chief Growth Officer in January.

• Bradshaw Vineyards, which has been my family’s business since 1993.

• I continue my community involvement at Crossfit East River (where I met my now partner 10 years ago!)

• I continue to appreciate the curation of the ‘being in space’ communities has created (Thirdness, Group, Prompts, as noted above, Critical Business School)

When I look back at this piece in another 512 days, I wonder if I will see Fractional as an evergreen compass I am still using. Or if I will view these musings as a fossil from a time that has long since past.

Or, perhaps, it will be growing in meaning and be, in fact, a living idea.

In the Idea Garden, I am posting it in Evergreen for now.

Special thanks to , , , , and for being generous with their time and thinking around fractional / portfolio careers over the years. And to who has been adding her pen to this topic to much wit and communing, too!

p.s. as you go Fractional, if you need help tracking your time -or even benchmarking a week or a month to see how things are flowing- download John Davidson’s FRACT app. It’s the +6 minute billing chunks from my law firm days, but way more fun!

p.p.s. a day after publishing this, the great aforementioned declared: “Polyworkers are the new fractionals” (image below). Another great articulation of the career unbundling and the continued rise of “the precariat”.

AI was neither used nor harmed in the writing of this post. All em dashes and phrase flourishes are mine own.

1. Articulate the wisdoms I am discovering and holding true…

2. … so that I may find and nourish my highest self… and help others do the same.

As with many of my personal projects, I started out with an ambition for regularity that wasn’t realistic… initially aiming for a weekly post. I did this for a few months and then, well… life.

But looking back, I actually see a more interesting pattern: when I chose to write, I had something to say. And when I didn’t write, I was still in the process of sense making and making sense.

Said another way: I’ve settled into a pace here on Substack that reflects the pace at which I am meaningfully metabolizing my inner and outer worlds.

By being more generous with the length of my frame and epochs of time, I can see an interplay between personal and societal growth. Like geologic time, the glacier eventually carves a valley.

Panning back across the last 47 months here on Substack, I am reminded of a line I’ve been packing around since high school:

A few mid-thought Turtle Prompts for you:

• In your chain: what are the thorns, what are the flowers?

• In geologic time: what have you been carving?

And so, here are 15 links formed over the last 1,431 memorable days. Thank you for bearing witness to this journey and for allowing me to do the same with you, Turtle Team.

2025

• September. Over the summer, I wrote Translucency as a reminder to myself and others that we don’t have to publish every moment of our lives online. Some will pass through, some will be diffused, and the rest will be just for you.

• May. As I turned 43 in the Spring, I was longing to reintroduce friction in aspects of my life I had once harangued for being annoying (see esp. laundry, cleaning, cooking). As optimizations insist on optimizing further around us in 2025 and beyond, Unoptimized is an act of resistance to not flatten that which makes us human.

2024

• November. Weeks before being laid off at the end of 2024, I was getting ready to weather the storm of uncertainty with Optionality. A professional rebel who has prioritized intellectual agency and stalwart vision above corporate politics, I’ve long lived in a way that the fractionalized workforce is now requiring from more and more of us: ladders are giving way to jungle gyms.

2023

• I took most of 2024, all of 2023, and the last few months of 2022 off of Substack and social media. For an explanation, see especially:

  • Translucency;

  • and this gallery on TikTok.

2022

• September. It was right before Labor Day when I wrote Reasons & Seasons as an ode to ‘wintering in the summer and roots before fruits.’ It was also written days before I found out I was pregnant, which was four months into a six month medical leave to support a healthy pregnancy (and it worked!)

• June. Speaking of space and grace during my medical leave, a deep nostalgia for family names and commencement speeches came over me in:

  • Namesakes - Leslie Arthur Baskett is my great-grandfather and a prophetic word

  • Wear Sunscreen - The benefits are proven. The speech of the same name is indelible.

• May. One month prior, I was doing what millions of Xennials born in 1982 were also doing: turning 40.

  • My reflections came through in Steadfast Luxury - Your race, your pace

  • Life of Meaning - “That’s what you’ve got to figure out.” —Curly

  • I also was playing around with a paid tier in this season, as an outlet for my “spicier” work, life, and duck tales. Like the penguin, they never took flight. They still might. I decided I needed more narrative distance—and that I wanted to use this outlet to focus on writing to call out our highest selves and not get into any crosshairs or mudslides.

• April. Leading up to my 40th were three seminal pieces for my Turtle Table of Contents—which can also be read as before (Time Travel), during (False Prophets), after my trip to Peru (The Chosen).

  • In retrospect, I read clear micro-signals from each that explain so much of what followed then… and what continues to unfold for me now.

  • I also find myself referencing False Prophets and The Chosen most frequently in my coaching practice. (s/o to for bringing many of these concepts into focus for me in 2015)

• March. Another fecund month of publishing was March, in which I asked and announced:

  • What game are you playing? (The Score)

  • More zest, less conformity. (Dead Metaphors)

  • We only know it’s opposite in English: negotiation. (Otium)

• January. Last and least is my first entry in January 2022, done in the style of OG world wide webbing: Hello World. A pronouncement of my mission to “find and nourish our highest selves—and the highest in others” and request to “take me to your leaders in the making.” They both still slap - and I wouldn’t change a word, all these 47 months later.

Speaking of hellos, as I say goodbye… I am including a photo with my family on the steps of the Met in May 2025.

This photo is a part of my “no post” series I have on my phone, where I take photos for the memory and not to post it (realizing the irony, of course, in posting it). This project has helped me not nitpick angles and looks - and instead just be present to capture the moment.

Back when social media held my camera and my audience was an awkward amalgamation of people I used to know, go to school with, and / or date… plus new friends, random brands, and coworkers… I was a lot more self-critical; I was often “camera ready” with makeup and wardrobe; and I would art direct upwards of 50 shots to “get the one” like I was shooting for a Vogue cover or something. Ha!

Letting some light pass through… and holding the expression of my daughter back… as we all get ready to time travel ahead to the next turn on this wheel of life. May you take lots of photos you never post, just for you!

Happy New Year to you and to all a good night~*~*~* lb

AI was neither used nor harmed in the writing of this post.

If I use AI in any way, I disclose it based on my Ethics.

Human-only writing on the web and elsewhere will become a dying art if we are not careful, let’s do more of it in 2026 if we can <3

One of my most life changes began at the end of May 2022. I had just moved back in with my parents for a month. I took medical leave from my venture building job. My dad did the morning shift in the vineyard; I handled the closing shift.

In those golden hours, I walked up and down the rows that have watched me grow up. I played around a bit on TikTok. I ate home cooked meals and slept. A lot.

I got clear about what was to come next in my relationship to work on an old SlideShare account. It felt like a hug from an old friend to post to a forgotten channel. Having tested my outer limits in school and career a few times before, I was arriving at a familiar shore but with a new perspective. T.S. Elliot said it best when he wrote in 1943:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.

—T.S. Eliot, from “Little Gidding,” Four Quartets

Relatedly: during this time, I read a lot. And asked my parents to tell me stories about our family’s history. Related to this, I published a few things that had been hovering as drafts over on Medium and here, too, on Substack.

And then, slow at first then all of a sudden: my online footprint faded to black.

I stepped away from the channels and communities with whom I co-designed my career. The same spaces I evangelized for, designed with, and participated in, I became both tired from and increasingly dubious of their incessant invitation (and their diminishing returns).

In total, I took about three years off. (Give or take a few months, depending on the platform through which we know one another.)

In that time, I was able to sustain life and gave birth to my daughter at age 41.

I also worked on codifying some of my methods for building teams, leaders, and companies—and entirely blew up others. I read dozens of books hundreds of times to my little one. I got back to work and found ways to experiment with AI without losing myself.

And, now, as I’ve returned to a more rhythmic, ‘crop-rotation-inspired’ approach to content creation and online community involvement, there has been an idea has been shining brightly for me I thought worth sharing.

I am in my Translucency Era.

Originally prophesied in the summer of 2009, I am now fulling living into something my younger self felt was coming:

In reading headlines… and in between the lines… it feels like many of you might be there too. We went from anonymity, to transparency, to authenticity, to intimacy… and back again.

The thing about trends is that their counter-force is usually present, as are other dots on the continuum. A well argued keynote from Jasmine Bina I attended last week heralded intimacy as the new thing, while there are still folks finding new ways to repackage authenticity as the thing we all ~*really want*~ from brands; creators; each other.

And anonymity, while hard to hide behind in the age of cutting edge sleuthing tools, is still alive and well. Just check the comment sections of contentious -or even mild, but well traveled- content.

For me, translucency means I can let some light pass through, but hold back some of my magic…my soft parts… the parts of me still healing and making sense out of situations not yet ready for public consumption. Those parts are for me; my family; my close friends. And perhaps, someday, they might appear in a love letter or two I’ll publish about the life I’ve lived. Or not.

Translucency also puts a soft haze, diffusion even, over that which I put out. Said another way: I publish without over-thinking or over-optimizing for an algorithm that was written to privilege enraging over engaging.

Okay turtles, time to sign off to head out to Harvest 2025 at Bradshaw Vineyards. But before I do, I’ll leave you with one question…

• What would being translucent look like for you?

… and a beautiful line from ’s piece some parts of you only emerge for certain people (Aug 14, 2025):

Which is to say,

our sense of self is a collaborative fiction,

drafted in the space between your gaze and my interpretation of it,

and love has a way of making that fiction more generous,

more daring,

more alive.

Each act of seeing draws up another hidden self from the depths.

Author’s notes:

• AI was neither used nor harmed in the writing of this piece. For more about how I use AI and participate online, check out my Ethics page.

• Translucency is one of my 13 “Living Ideas” that continue to grow in meaning for me. These 13 are a part of a larger Idea Garden project, which is free-for-all and braiding together 18+ years of my thoughts in one perfectly imperfect digital home. Visitors welcome <3

I’ve had some of these thoughts rattling around for a while—and last week, a friend’s post on LinkedIn and another here on Substack finally booped me to get them out.

Motherhood has also made me slow down.

And somehow, between the two, I’ve landed on a meditation about “efficiency”, labor, and the everyday tradeoffs we’re all making (and may want to unmake).

It’s a tad long and windy on purpose. A’la Ovid.

I hope you find it worth the ride, Turtle. So let’s do this… ✊🏻

Happy birthday to (taur)us.

With a little pomp… and in the midst of wild macro circumstances… I celebrated my 43rd birthday at the beginning of May. A week later, my daughter turned two.

“Walk, mama. M‘ria walk.”

“Scoot, mama. M‘ria turn, scoot.”

She’s mostly over her stroller and wants to use her scooter and / or legs more and more (that big girlie life!)

Sometimes we are in a rush to get somewhere (like when I had 11 minutes to get her to swimming and Google said it would take me 15 minutes, at an adult stride… you know ya girl put on the fire boosters and made it in 9!)

Sometimes it’s not safe (big city life… cars, bikes, electric things, dogs).

But a lot of the time, doing the most inefficient thing on paper has been more meaningful.

Yes she’s slow, but she’s learning! and if we only use the stroller all the time, she won’t get the exercise, practice, and confidence doing something else. (I’m learning that this is the case for everything- she needs to learn it all, practice it all, go slow with it all…🥹).

Knocking the (convenience) hustle.

This moment with my daughter echoed something a close friend and brilliant cultural anthropologist, Shelley Sather, said a while back—shared in response to the constant drive by companies to gain an ‘edge’… (paraphrased):

When I first got into the digital product game, the words “optimize,” “convenience,” and “outsource” felt like magic…propositions that promised real value. And admittedly, in most of my roles over the past 20+ years, I helped shape the very language and many of the products that sold those promises. Maybe you did, too?

Clients would hire my team to surface unmet or underserved needs. We’d prototype a solution, and bam—we’d meet those needs with something that inevitably gave you better, faster, cheaper, more time back, etc.

Time is valuable. And yes, we’ve gained leverage from these advances. But I’m no longer willing to overlook the downsides for the sake of convenience (which itself isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, either). There is always a catch.

And so I give you:

7 Myths of Optimization.

I am writing for my own growth, for my daughter as she grows up in this world, and maybe for you, too?

1. Outsourcing is the solution to the woes in your life and schedule!

But really: we’ve risked learning less, growing less & losing depth.

The more we outsource, the less the experience moves through our fingers, our minds. The more “strollers” we use, the less we develop and nurture essential components of our intelligence. Discernment. Judgment. Motor skills. A T T E N T I O N S P A N S. Being confused so we can eventually find meaning. Doing things “wrong” so we can feel our way to what is “right”.

In big and small ways we are relinquishing hands-on experience and getting further away from holding on to an understanding of how and why. We are losing critical experience we could pass on to our teams, to our children, and to future generations.

AI has only accelerated this shift—making the risks feel more imminent and extractive. Ugh.

2. We used the JTBD (jobs to be done) framework to hire and fire things.

But really: we’re becoming shut-ins & hermits.

I like my alone “shell” time as much as the next turtle. But I’ve found my limit.

My breaking point of optimizing everything (body, mind, schedule, career) came after the pandemic paused my oh-so-busy life in March 2020… one I’d been optimizing to the heavens since the late aughts when I would blow dry my hair out a cab window while managing projects and taking calls in DC when I had a 9-to-5 and a 5-to-9 (at a supernova ag3ncy).

Then the pandemic happened and I was no longer on planes or in cabs.

I was home.

Almost entirely available to do all the things I used to pay other people to do.

And what started as a pandemic necessity became something much cooler:

This includes but is not limited to:

• Cooking with my partner through the pandemic, and now with our daughter? Priceless.

• Passing down family recipes and connecting her to where food comes from—as the granddaughter of farmers on both sides? Life-giving.

• Stepping away from my WFH computer zone to do laundry in our building’s shared room—and striking up conversations with neighbors as we all move from washer to dryer to folding table? Life-affirming.

• Taking a bike or the subway, being a part of the rhythm and blooms of a city and not multitasking every second of my life? Lovely, actually.

As simplistic as it sounds (and as late to the slow-foods movement as I am), I actually think a lot of our crisis-of-community could be solved if we all just decided on a few days a week where we’d stop using apps and do things, together, “the old fashioned way”.

3. We were promised more time to enjoy things.

But really: The jig is up. we optimized lots, we enjoyed less.

At a certain point, it all started to feel like a trap.

Articles and thought pieces about: Strategy. Optimization. Productivity hacks.

TBH, it now feels like a hamster wheel dressed up as self-improvement.

Lord knows I’ve prayed at the altar of biohacking and proselytized their gospels (and the Step Counters and Macro Followers said: amen!)… I don’t reject all of it, but I do think way more critically and am consciously moving away from how I was moving through life.

As put it beautifully this week over on The Wild Way:

4. Faster and more were positioned as better.

But really: The case for going slow and steady.

For most of my adult life, I had been measuring, and optimizing, and strategizing, and outsourcing, and Google Doc’ing so much that by the time I turned 40, I felt a bit scrambled. Like I had a thousand browser tabs open and an equal number of spreadsheets tabulating it all.

We’re told to plan our lives with the precision of a product launch (careers, family planning, etc.). To optimize every routine, habit-stack every “atomic” task, and have some sort of real or imagined dashboard to track it all. But for what? As commented on Shawna’s post above:

“The goal of the strategy is usually optimization, not enjoyment or fulfillment.”

Because here’s the truth: behind every request for speed lies the physics of first going slow. I wrote about that in 2022 when I was just beginning to untangle how much I’d internalized urgency as a measure of importance.

Slowness felt inefficient and everyone around me was asking for faster!

But slowness, I’ve since learned, is a kind of secret weapon.

It’s something I bust out as I focus in. It also helps me make sure that when it is time to speed up that I am going in the right direction.

5. Gig work means you’re in charge of your destiny!

But really: If the jig is up, so too is the gig.

If you zoom out, it’s clear: a lot of the so-called “advancements” we’ve made in the name of convenience or innovation are just new wrappers on old systems of exploitation (see also from the TRTL archives: The Chosen).

Tech didn’t invent the gig economy—but it did give it branding. And venture capital. And billboards that made precarity look aspirational. Be your own boss! Set your own hours! Work from anywhere! Right… as long as you don’t need healthcare, paid leave, or the security of a paycheck that doesn’t fluctuate with an algorithm.

I’ll never forget being told during the pandemic by an executive how great it was that he was “leveraging the flexible workforce model” to deliver on some of his largest—and growing—contracts. I know he meant it to sound strategic, but it left me feeling a certain way.

No healthcare. No parental leave. No paid leave. No 401k plan.

Instead, they have to self-fund and self-manage it… more burdens as your own boss, without any IPO or exit upsides of a company owner.

We’ve effectively privatized the social safety net and informalized entire sectors, while pretending it's to be celebrated as flexibility.

6. I was going to build and do things differently!

But really: Yes, but…

I say all this not as someone above it, but as someone who once did the exact same thing when it came to our creative labor-force. From 2006 to 2012, I co-founded and ran strategy, client services, and operations at j3, a creative agency that thrived during the rise of the gig economy.

Our model was largely contractor-driven and easy to support thanks to sites like Behance, Cargo Collective, Dribbble, and even Flickr and Blogspot. We scaled quickly, worked globally, and relied on a vast bench of freelance talent.

While we bonused people often and did everything we could to bring folks on full time with benefits once we had the footing, I still feel like if I were doing it all over again knowing what I know now, I’d build it differently.

What felt innovative then—fast, lean, decentralized—now feels incomplete.

We created beautiful work, but we didn’t build enough long-term security and upside into the system for the people who made it possible.

My hindsight makes it impossible to ignore:

Flexibility got rebranded as freedom.

The model may scale, but the heart is missing—and the overhead (invoicing, quarterly taxes, benefits) lands squarely on the individual, most of whom are hobbling along with a patchwork of solutions, at best.

And to be fair—not all independent work is broken. Plenty of freelancers do thrive. There are folks who genuinely choose this path and find autonomy, purpose, and creative joy. I think I might be one of them?

Yes, but… the problem is when “choice” becomes a cover story for systemic risk transfer—a way to strip out safety nets, avoid long-term investment in people, and keep power squarely with platforms and employers.

7. We are working in new ways that empower people!

But really: Same playbook, new tools.

We’ve all seen the shift: fewer full-time employees, more contractors, freelancers, and gig workers. Permalancing, as it’s come to be known (aka temp-to-never-FTE-hire).

Even the way we talk about “optionality” and building a “portfolio life,” as I did here back in November, reflects the new normal we’re all navigating.

That shift didn’t stop at job titles or employment types. It’s now shaping how entire industries think about labor itself. Plus, with AI entering the chat, some execs act like replacing labor is inevitable. As pointed out in her recent commentary on Klarna and Duolingo’s AI stumbles:

“It doesn’t matter what the industry is, or what decade it is… There is a group of people who want to accumulate all the wealth… They don’t want to pay you.”

And the tools just keep evolving to serve the same old aim. First it was temp work. Then it was TaskRabbit. Now it’s AI support agents and Uber-style customer service setups—where companies like Klarna can advertise “human support” while quietly replacing salaried roles with a rotating cast of 1099s.

But this isn’t new. It’s just the latest chapter in a very old playbook—one that began with piece-rate textile labor, evolved into Fordist assembly lines, reemerged through post-1980s neoliberal deregulation, and now thrives in today’s algorithmic gig platforms. The through-line is clear: maximize output, minimize obligation.

But tbh, companies are doing what the system tells them to do: cut costs, boost returns, stay competitive. This isn’t always a moral failing—it’s often the rational outcome of a system that rewards short-term margins over long-term investment in people.

It feels like “optimization” isn’t just about efficiency. It is instead becoming a tool for labor arbitrage. For control. For subtly shifting more risk onto the people doing the work.

And that’s the part we have to name. Because once you see how easily optimization slides into exploitation, it’s hard to unsee. Especially when it’s all happening at scale, across industries, across decades.

It’s all one machine: deregulation, disconnection, tax avoidance, wage suppression. Efficiency, yes. But for whom? And at what true cost?

And to be clear, I don’t want to go all the way and say efficiency is inherently bad. But efficiency that extracts value from labor while hoarding gains at the top isn’t innovation… it’s bad economics. Bad ethics. And short-sighted. If we can optimize for shareholder value, we can optimize for worker upside, too✊🏻

I think about all of this. A LOT. As both a past participant and pioneer; as a current portfolio life’r; as a mother and as a mentor. And, as the saying goes: once you know better, you must do better.

🐢Slow & Steady: For the week ahead

Okay turtles, let’s do like we used to do more regularly… let’s land this flying saucer!

A few questions I’m sitting with and I invite you to do the same:

• What have I inadvertently “flattened” in the name of optimization?

• What do I want to do inefficiently next week?

• Who benefits from what I optimize?

• What would it take to build an economy that values slowness, security, and shared upside?

If you’re bringing back some friction, let me know what shape it’s taking.

Author’s notes:

• How AI was used in this post: tightening a few sentences throughout, helping me brainstorm section headers (that I mostly hated and edited a bunch), and generally guiding me to connect some dots more explicitly that were otherwise floating 💛 beep, boop, beep.

• On August 23, 2025: I’ve updated the “7 Myths” section to read a bit more clearly with a myth and then a “but really” statement. Most of my “myths”, when I re-read them months later, felt more like statements about the downsides, leaping past the statement of the myth.

As the Fates would have it, I was able to conceive at 40 without interventions. And on the precipice of turning 43 next spring, I still have options for growing our family if that’s what we decide we want to do.

My experience further reinforces for me that there is no one, single path… or age… or set of steps… that will guarantee success, happiness, or favorable outcomes. The myth of the career ladder is all but dismantled, thanks to widely-resonant concepts like career jungle gyms and career / life portfolios (shout out ). There’s even an eponymous Substack / community called , co-founded by the wonderful dynamos Elisa Camahort Page and Jory Des Jardins, which asks us to reflect: “Is your relationship with work evolving? Is your definition of success changing?” I am pretty sure most people would respond: YES and YES (I know I sure do).

And with that as our backdrop today, I invite you to (continue to) challenge the systems designed to create a monolithic worker and rebuke the words of false prophets. You have agency and options. Now let’s dig in.

As a mom of a toddler (oh my gosh is it amazing and hard), it’s really something to re-read my egg freezing story five-plus years later. I want so badly to tell my younger self: It’s going to work out, you’re doing great, and—hot damn—thank you for making sure that you gave future me (you?!) so many options.

I feel a lot of the same feels—swelling gratitude, awe, and even a bit of disbelief (I did that? that was me?! where is she now?!)—when I think of a younger me, who:

• in 1993: showed up in a rural Oregon classroom as a transfer student in sixth grade from California with only a pen pal (Steph) and two new homeroom friends (Jess & Matt)… I would go on to run for class office and win in nearly* grade thereafter (*except for a rough but instructive defeat as a freshman, a story for another time—I’d still go on to be a class representative that year) and join (the same) Matt, Steph, Ali, and LesP. as co-valedictorians on stage in the year Y2K.

• in 2001: transferred colleges after my freshman year, realizing that while the full ride tuition was amazing, I had made the wrong choice for me. So I reapplied to my second choice because I decided I’d rather be in a smaller classroom that engaged me more deeply (even if it meant taking out loans and breaking out in hives the first week because I was so intimidated by my peers). I would go on to graduate Phi Beta Kappa and be one of the few undergraduates to get in not once, but twice, to the same academically rigorous college.

In both instances, I found a way to create community and thrive. Even when it felt like my middle school life was over (so very Inside Out of me lol). And even when I was intimidated about the change to the UofC—both the costs and the cohort overwhelmed me. These new options gave me an even better version of my life than I could have ever imagined.

Two questions for you:

• What comes up for you when you look in the rearview mirror of hard fought lessons? grit-n-grizzled wins? at-the-time-felt-like-defeats but were really just redirects to a now-with-hindsight much better position?

• What might you be inspired by to pull forward from your past to support you in what you need now?

Speaking of college, nineteen days after I graduated from the place I was accepted into twice (which was 20 years ago as of last June-!!), I wrote myself this one pager simply titled: “What I Want in a Job” (below). I held firm to my insights about what I needed, but stayed flexible in how those values were fulfilled.

Aside from reading it and nodding “yep, still tracks”, I am moved by my clarity in purpose and how open I remained to whatever was to come. What a lesson for me to be reminded of in this moment.

As we await the results from Tuesday’s Presidential Election; as we look ahead to what we want and need out of our careers; and as we consider making changes to our lives to optimize for the wealth we need most in this moment (of time, of community, of capital, etc.) I want to leave you with one thought and four prompts:

The thought:

“…when you’re young, it feels like those sorts of details aren’t critical to think through. Looking back, I would say: actually, they are important. They are important chiefly to ensure you have agency in your life and options about the future you want to create for yourself.” [emphasis added; excerpt from I Froze 22 Eggs at 36. Here’s What I Learned.]

The prompts:

1. Which details do you need to think through so you have more agency and more options in your life?

2. What does agency in your life mean for you? When did you feel you had a lot of it in your life? Not enough? What was the difference?

3. What sort of optionality do you want to create for yourself in this next season? Which details, what sort of agency, and what kind of mindset do you need in order to make these options a reality?

4. Looking back at the tapestry of your life, what are 1-2 moments where you are proud of your younger self? What are the lessons, reminders, habits, or skills you want to pull forward from your archives to meet this moment with all that is you?

And with that, happy Sunday. May you find calm in the storm knowing—like Dorothy in Oz—you contain multitudes, you have overcome change and challenge before, and your answers are in your options.

Author’s note: Thank you for bearing with me as I dust off the crust and rust of this treasured place online. Wise words from my sister as I became a mom “it takes about two years postpartum to ‘reconnect’”—where she left that open for me to apply to a variety of things… reconnect to my body (check, especially after a c-section)… reconnect to a sense of who I am / was (amen)… and reconnect to my community / career / friends (also yes). I look forward to reconnecting with all of you here on this wild and beautiful Turtle Adventure.

The day itself—first declared in the late 1800s—marked a point in time “when labor activists pushed for a federal holiday to recognize the many contributions workers have made to America’s strength, prosperity, and well-being.”1

If you’re like me and live in the Northern Hemisphere, Labor Day also ushers in a shift in the weather. The sun sets earlier. The nights are cooler. Fall is around the corner.

Schools welcome back students. Workforces welcome back workers. Learning and productivity march on, only temporarily inconvenienced by the seasons.

Before pursuing college and my career in some of the most urban hubs in America—Chicago, Washington DC, Oklahoma City, LA, Miami, New York City—my roots were in nature.

My parents raised my sister and me in the Sierra Nevadas and Oregon’s Willamette Valley. And when we both graduated, they spent seven years in the Grand Tetons for my dad’s career before moving back to our land full time in Oregon.

As naturalists and farmers, my parents raised us to flow with nature’s circadian rhythm. It’s in my cells.

When I close my eyes and think of childhood, I can still smell the vanilla bark of Tahoe’s Jeffrey Pines. It’s the kind of nostalgia that makes my eyes involuntarily water and my heart long for biking around the neighborhood in the 1980s like a character from Stranger Things.

Every time I come back to Oregon, I am reunited with the farm chores and vineyard tending I’ve been doing since I was 12. The older I get, the more I appreciate it.

When I see a horse, I think of my mom and how she taught me to balance authority and trust with subtle cues.

And in connecting me to the great outdoors, they connected me to the way each season impacts everything from animals, to temperature, to what we have available to eat, to how our own bodies feel.

Returning to the origins of Labor Day, with a focus on you, the reader:
how is your strength?

your prosperity?

your well-being?

Let’s dig in the dirt here a bit more…

Blessings & Discernments for Thought

• Bless: May you find the rhythms of what your body needs in this season. Not what your job or family asks of you, but what you need from you. Even if the calendar and weather say otherwise. (heck, since late May I’ve been in an inward sort of “wintering” that’s been as Katherine May promises: R E P L E N I S H I N G)

• Discern: There is an artificial pressure to always be producing, productive, in production. But look at nature, what does it teach us? That we cannot in fact always be in a season of harvest.2 What's more, we’ve got to work on the roots before we can enjoy the fruits. Modern life asks us to skip this step at our own peril.

• Consider: People come into our lives for a reason, a season, and sometimes a lifetime. I’ve found great peace in accepting this and pain in fighting it.

Prompts for Thought

• Where might you need to lay fallow and let the nutrients return to the soil?

• Anything not growing as you had hoped? Is it time to replant or to try planting something new altogether?

• Before seeing growth from your figurative trees, fruits, flowers, and veggies: What are the roots that need tending in this season?

• What are your rituals for welcoming a new season? for letting go of a season past its time? for summoning a season-like change against the forces of inertia? (asking for a friend)

• If your life was a TV show, who are the new characters this season? who will be returning from previous seasons? who won’t be? what are the storylines you are working on in the writers’ room?

It is great to be back with each one of you. Here’s to many seasons together, in whatever form and frequency they take.

And with that, I leave you with The Bryds singing Peter Seger’s Turn! Turn! Turn! 3

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven.

[…]

A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time for love, a time for hate
A time for peace, I swear it's not too late.

One such relic is the history of my mom’s side of the family, dating back to their trek across the Oregon Trail in the mid-1800s.

And it goes back even before that, to 1717 when my (believed to be) ancestor John Baskett of Oxford (who was alleged to have) printed a King James Bible full of errors. It became known as the “Vinegar Bible” because of the heading for St. Luke 20 which read “The Parable of the Vinegar” instead of Vineyard.

Jump ahead 276 years to 1993 when we moved to Oregon to officially start Bradshaw Vineyards with Baskett roots and I look forward to having the time for this, a story for another time.

Another tale that I do want to share now because it is shining so brightly for me is the tale of my namesake: Leslie Arthur Baskett. I am gearing up to do some vineyard—not vinegar!—work in the rain with my dad, so I am making it brief.

In reading what my mom’s cousin Rebecca Ann Eastman Ward has compiled, I have come across an entry about my namesake, great grandpa Leslie Arthur Baskett. Leslie is in the back row, far right:

From Rebecca (Becky’s) research in the aforementioned book, I am sharing here the words dedicated to him in the 1960 Nezperce High School Warrior, the year after he had passed in 1959:

Seldom, indeed, does one find in the life of a single person both diversity and superiority in services to mankind — in professional, civic and religious fields. Add to such achievements an exemplary character — honest, just, moral, tolerant and understanding — and one has the essential ingredients of greatness.

Embodying all of those qualities, Leslie A. Baskett gave to Nezperce Public Schools two decades of the best years of his life in the outstanding instruction of music.

The memory of Leslie Baskett will ever be enshrined in the hearts of those who knew him. We the students of Nezperce High School, proudly and lovingly dedicate this book as our memorial to a distinguished teacher, a true friend and a dignified great man.

I am going to sit with these words about Leslie A. Baskett again and again. And I look forward to making the trip up to his hometown of Nezperce and his gravesite. I went to a family reunion in Nezperce in the mid-90s and got to learn more about where my mom spent a good part of her childhood. I look forward to returning before too long.

Prompts for the week:

• What is the origin of your name?

• Are there any prophecies or etymologies that have revealed themselves about your name?

Discernments for the week:

• Is there anything about your name that you want to reexamine or change?

• Is there anything about how others engage your name that you would like to course-correct or re-direct?

To bring it to a close so I can do my chores (I know, I know: I said I would be away! I am in many ways and in others, I am still here reading, journaling, meditating, and philosophizing) from my Medium blog:

Here’s to the etymologies and prophecies embedded in your name.

May they continue to call out your greatness and arc your path towards joy, abundance, and a just life filled with respect, reverence, and peace.

Forever and ever, amen.

• Boxes out in the barn overdue for sorting. Keep, pass on, upcycle, toss. Same goes for the storage unit my parents graciously and patiently have kept up for us.

• The fields where I played softball with some of the greatest teams to have ever played, cheered, chanted, won, drew, and lost.

• The parking lots where I sat and listened to my BMG discs and homemade mixtapes. The parking lots where I cried, dreamed, parked, and carpooled. Et cetera, et cetera.

And then there are the nostalgias with which I am mixing my time and labor. These concoctions are shaping up to be transformative and healing. For example:

• The farm chores and rural home once perceived as barriers to my so called (social) life, are now the lifeline I need in this season to let the nutrients return to my figurative soil1.

• Slowly reaching out to friends and teachers who knew me when. Hoping to meet up in some near future, on a front porch or a back lawn. Maybe under our walnut tree. Or over a slice of banana cream pie at Shari’s. Or at The Festival—so long as aebleskivers and community dance are involved.

• Hearing graduates rejoice in multiple languages at the UofO, jogging by them on our way to rushing Willamette waters and calm deciduous leaves whispering in the wind: you belong here.

And so, on this otium-filled, first-Sunday-in-June, I leave you, my treasured co-pilots in this Turtle Adventure, with two important messages:

• One: I am going to be offline for a while. To take care of health and family. To be present in the season to which I am called. You’ll be among the first to know when I am back. You have my word on that.

• Two: Among the hurt, injustice, and sorrow in this moment there are millions of graduates progressing from one stage to the next. And with their progression comes hope, courage, and the promise of liberating, decisive action. To ring in this momentous moment, I share the message from one of my most favorite graduation speeches “Wear Sunscreen” by Mary Schmich in June of 1997.2

I highly recommend listening to Lee Perry’s reading in one of the forms below. The first video rightly credits Schmich and includes Spanish subtitles:

The second video appears to be the ‘official’ (??) music video from the Baz Luhrman production (popularized in 1999):

• Any prompts come to you from listening?

• Any discernments come to you?

• Where were you in 1997 when this was first written? Where are you now, 25 years later?

Author’s note:

Schmich’s text is available in its original form behind the paywall on the Chicago Tribune here and reposted on Genius.com here (« Genius has a bit of a confusing attribution with Baz as the headliner)

It came to me during one of my time-traveling archaeological ‘digs’—part of a larger project of revisiting 20 years of my public writings.

Even when I have felt like I am sharing the more real aspects of my story, turns out:

I hold back.

If I were to walk through why I do this—and ask you why you might do the same—three reasons come to mind:

• I hold back to negotiate with single-gravity realities… at work, on the stage of business, with certain in-groups. Containing multitudes can be both confusing and disruptive to norms. Anchoring to a single point of view… a listicle here or there… just seems… well… easier.

• I hold back to stay within an acceptable box… in a career; in a male-dominated industry; within companies where I’ve never been the majority shareholder; within pre-2020s gender norms.

• I hold back to appear “easy” and “normal” to work with… women and minority groups are not given the same affordances as savant eccentrics like Charlie Kaufman (fwiw: I see this tide changing—and am grabbing my surfboard to ride this wave with my divergent, queer, non-confirming, and non-white brethren—surfs up, Turtles).

What have I lost in holding back?

At the core of the filters I’ve used, two things come to mind: I collapse my multitudes and I silence my intuition.

More specifically:

• We live in certain single-gravity realities—and yet contain multitudes. We are asked for minimum viable products and 160 character responses. We are time poor and attention starved. We advertise in 2-7 second bursts to our lowest common faculties. We scan, we don’t read.

• I have had to often go against the grooves and grains of my intuition. I have had to give ground on my vision and ideas when I shouldn’t have—and in ways my male colleagues and male co-founders wouldn’t have. It’s not all the time… and I fully accept it has to be some of the time… but it has been in enough times that I am deciding to make some changes.

Who doesn’t hold back?

There are many things and people I could list here. Essentially any artist or great thinker to rise to our attention would be a candidate.

I will use two examples that hopefully open the door in your mind to many more:

• It's no surprise to me that Sci-Fi has only grown in popularity. It represents a series of realities; of Universes; of possibilities; of personhood. Of empowered agency. Sci-Fi venerates those of us at the edges and questions why those in the middle don’t wake up. Keep writing, keep watching. Rise up.

• It’s also no surprise that Harry Styles resonates with so many. Look at how he dresses, carries himself, sings, and lives. He contains multitudes. He is steadfast in who he is. That’s the luxury. What’s your version of containing multitudes? of standing steadfast in who you are?

To sense-make, a few Discernments & Prompts:

• We all operate in structures e.g. matrices, grids, and boxes in order to negotiate with realities of life. And in some cases, we in fact want to work across, cut through, go off of, and think outside of these realities.

P1: Which structures do you want to explore the edges of? outside of?

P2: Where is it safe and inviting to do so? where is it dangerous? why?

P3: Who / what invites you out? holds you back? what are their agendas?

• We also exist in spaces that allow for more permeable boundaries: e.g. communities, friend groups, chosen family, bio family, neighborhoods, offline, tech-free, non-streamed gatherings. Related: I am building some TuRTLe CiRCLes this summer, stay tuned for IRL invites.

P4: What are your permeable spaces?

P5: Could you replicate these permeable spaces elsewhere?

• Our beliefs and principles show up in all of this somewhere, too. Structured and steadfast; yet, if we're open to it, emerging and evolving; permeable, interactive, responsive.

P6: Which beliefs-principles-values are challenged most by reality?

P7: What’s the utility of steadfastness? of permeability?

To land the saucer for the week, I leave you with the wise words of a friend-mentor (Dom) on my birthday:

May you find and be: steadfast luxury.

For me, this evokes:

Slowing down is my new going fast. Craft over hack.

Containing multitudes and complexity is my new default state.

Growth that is with nature, seasonal and not exponential.

Here is to standing steadfast in
your vision;
your agency;
your principles;
your luxuries;
your pace;
and to working as a team
to achieve more.

This week
and always.
<3 lb

ps: Two related pieces orbiting the Turtlesphere I thought you might enjoy…

• Scale yourself while developing others [by lb on Medium, 6 min read]

• Apprenticeship: Reflections on gathering power [by JJH, one of my role models]

In fact, this is so common that my friend Simon and his coauthor Jay have written this secret into the cannon (among many other great minds who have discovered this across the millennia).

Being hidden in plain sight also means it’s hidden to plain sight.

As the 1991 hit City Slickers put it:

Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is?

[points index finger skyward] This.

Mitch: Your finger?

Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean shit.

Mitch: But, what is the “one thing?”

Curly: [smiles and points his finger at Mitch] That’s what you have to find out.

I remember the first time I watched City Slickers. I was 9.

It was both of my personalities, on the silver screen. The Sierra-Nevada-high-desert-far-west-raised-Oregon-Trail-roots cowgirl and the wannabe urbanite.

I revisited it on the eve of my 40th birthday. Mitch, played by Billy Crystal, was on the eve of his 40th year. Mitch and I have everything in common—and yet, nothing in common—all at once.

I am not the only one turning to this classic in a time where nostalgia is at a premium—arguably, because it “is an emotional experience that unifies” in the words of Dr. Krystine Batcho.

I arrived here, with this movie, because I am looking back at my first 40 years with so much joy and gratitude and liberation—and I cannot wait to keep going. And be a lighthouse for those in need of light; a greenhouse for those in need of nutrients; a turtle shell for those in need of protection; and radical kindness for those in need of salvation.

So, back to a universal City Slicker nostalgia. As one [unfortunately named] publication captured it 30 years since it first aired (circa September 2021):

When Billy Crystal turned 40, he wasn’t happy about it. “I was gripped by a very cloudy mood,” he wrote in his 2013 memoir, Still Foolin’ ’Em. So he did what comedians do when faced with anxiety: He set out to find the humor beneath the heartache.

First would come his hilarious star turn as what the Los Angeles Times called “a reluctantly romantic leading man” in 1989’s When Harry Met Sally. Then he hit on a winning idea for what would become another iconic role.

“City Slickers,” he scribbled. “Three friends go on a fantasy cattle drive” — a metaphor for what was missing in their lives. “My character, like me, in his 40s ... midlife crisis.”

Gonna be honest, Billy: I can relate and don’t relate, in equal parts.

I don’t relate because:

• I am not in any way, shape, or form in a ‘midlife crisis’. I am in a midlife Genesis, if anything.

I don’t relate because:

• This movie made me curious about what was wrong with people from cities, because my parents were the same age as Billy (!!) when City Slickers was released—and they were at the cusp of moving to Oregon from Lake Tahoe to continue to build their dreams in the Far West. Twenty-nine years after we broke ground and 34 years after they put the first $ in, we now are the dream @ Bradshaw Vineyards. (Maybe this was their midlife Genesis??)

I don’t relate because:

• I figured out a long time ago what I wanted to be when I grew up. It’s been building this whole time. I don’t currently have a miserable job or toxic boss or a morally exhausting environment or taker colleagues from whom I would need a break. I am off the grid while I am on it; I know where to find the oxygen, breaks, and renewable energy. I am blessed. I am grateful. I also put up with a lot, navigated a lot, and failed miserably at getting this right a lot, too.

I do relate to Billy because:

• I just got back from a hiking / writing / yoga’ing retreat in Peru. This could absolutely be considered my cattle drive with friends.

• At times, especially when things were hardest in my 20s, I got lost in the sauce. I saw those playing the finite game of hoarding wealth, objects, status—and like a kid breathing on cold glass as she peers at something too rich for her blood—I couldn’t help but want those things, too. I bought a lot of second hand luxe pieces from Chanel, YSL, Gucci, Prada. After some big wins, I even bought a few firsthand pieces, too. I blend in better. But I prefer to stand out.

• For the past 10+ years, I have had the honor of coaching 100+ executives and leaders on the come up. Getting lost in the sauce is #1 thing I find myself treating.

So many of these leaders are struggling to find ‘the one thing’ and looking in all. the. wrong. places.

• I have lived in Manhattan since 2014 (SoHo and Alphabet City); Miami before that (2013-2014); LA / DC before that (2005-2012); and Chicago before that (2001-2004). In each of these cities, there are so many souls who think that if they pray to the altar of TED-celeb sightings and The Hamptons and Tesla, they’ll find redemption. I wish them well with these reliquaries of the bourgeoisie.

Prompts for Thought

• What is the right ‘one thing’? what’s the wrong one? which are you chasing? which gets your best time?

• Are you playing a finite game? or an infinite one? what’s the utility of each?

Discernments for Thought

• Whose game are you playing—are you winning? are you losing? what are you trading off? [See TRTL Archive: The Score]

• To whom are you listening? do they have your best interests in mind? or theirs? can they ever be the same? [See TRTL Archive: The Chosen]

• Are you inadvertently discouraging someone else’s journey by giving all the answers? what would trading answers with questions look like? [See TRTL Archive: False Prophets]

40th Bonus Birthday Sagacity

Going from 30 to 40: Top 10 Learnings & Next Steps

She loves a good recap. Born in 1982, she has a few things to share with yew:

1. Go on the adventure. Stay late. Stay up all night, even. Ask meaningful questions of those whom others ignore—listen, really, truly listen, when they answer. Befriend everyone behind the scenes. Go. Deep. Get lost in your mind. Confuse yourself to make sense. Explore like your life depends on it.

2. You’re not a #2, you’re a #1. But you also love a good assist / teamwork moment, so you can also not even have a number. Privacy and much more discernment around what I publicly post / who is in my inner circles has been liberating AF.

3. You have abundant creativity and ability. You are magnificent. Even when the myopic can’t see the forest when they stare at single-gravity trees. You operate in multiple gravities, zero gravity, and other dimensions.

4. Deep roots, protected shoots. Build community, support networks, and mutually beneficial, non-transactional relationships. Be sincere, keep it real. And anyone who comes in trying to monetize you before the second date, don’t let them go past first.

5. Beware of late stage Capitalists (and Takerists, as coined by Scott Galloway). They will use the language of the zeitgeist to lure you into their oppressive systems, built to vulture your culture and exploit your labor. And while going entirely off grid sounds appealing in the face of this noise, I must also call up the words from my coach Nitzan: we must all negotiate with reality. So when it comes to their Matrixed organizations: know what you are getting into; rent your labor; sell big; get royalties; and get out. Let them play checkers and chess in their finite games. We, Turtles, are playing the infinite game. We fight to play another day and find abundance through what we give (not what we take).

6. It must check the big box. As one of my wisest collaborators Joe Chernov once told me on a walk around Boston in 2013: he can check all the small boxes, but if the one big box isn’t checked, it doesn’t matter. I get that now. Especially because this isn’t just a meme, it’s my life. It’s also not just applicable to romantic love—it’s life.

7. Choose consciously your words & your timing. To go further and make bigger impacts, it takes longer to refine your evidence and build coalitions. It’s also totally OK to be direct in the moment if something / someone violates your core beliefs, principles, ethics, and values. If you are ready for the consequences, then full steam ahead. Even if it means losing your job (a privilege I had in 2020 because of savings, which I realize is a privilege enjoyed by some and missed by many).

8. Don’t debug your features. You’ll be a bug in systems that don’t understand how to interact with your features. Don’t let this discourage or diminish your greatness. It’s also for the best—save your energy for the real ones.

9. You stay young by doing these things. You age by ignoring them. You also age faster if you act as a False Prophet in someone else’s universe. Tread carefully, for you tread on Turtles.

10. Not everyone can handle the uncertain, emergent spices of life. For those who are ready to take the next step with me, join the paid TRTL here. Not for the nominal money exchange, but because I am using the paid service to indicate your interest in hearing what will be hard to share—and, sometimes, hard to hear.

If you’ve made it this far, you’re a real one. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Leslie Turtle

ps: I believe it was Fate that I was born on the day known as International Workers' Day. I receive this responsibility.

So here we go…

In the many seats I sit in and hats I wear (some from privilege, some from hand-making) something that comes up almost weekly is this:

• Hands-on doers are generally labeled as not strategic enough.

• Not ‘strategic enough’ according to whom? The Chosen.

• Not ‘strategic enough’ for what? To lead key initiatives.

And to be clear:

• These doers do not lack strategic abilities1.

• Rather, what doers tend to lack is some combination of: (1) time and brain space to step back to strategize, (2) time to further develop, test, and sell the strategy, and / or (3) permission to redefine2 what “being strategic” looks like. And if the doer operates in a capital-intensive industry, they might also lack: (4) ownership of the means of production and (5) capital.

• Doers are also typically grinding in a ‘back of house’ capacity and not given the time, invitation, training, platform, air cover, support, and / or permission to come front of house the same way thought leaders are (see also my 2016 piece: Do Leadership is the new Thought Leadership).

• Doers might also not have the same bona fides3 as The Chosen, therefore, are looked at differently. Doers tend to be the ones who go back to get an advanced degree mid-career just so The Chosen will give them their rightful platform.

A close relative to False Prophets and oftentimes the ones keeping The Score are The Chosen. That’s today’s topic for reflection.

Quick Review: False Prophets

Before we get into The Chosen, as a quick review from last week for anyone new or catching up:

• False Prophets can speak damaging words into our lives that, if we believe them, can be detrimental to our too-per-powers4.

• We must use discernment to listen for the ‘why’ behind the feedback: is it meant to genuinely help or hurt? how do you know? does the feedback guide you into an acceptable box? do you want to be in that box? are you okay if you’re not in the box?

Today’s Focus: The Chosen

A few things I’ve come to observe about The Chosen in my 39.98 years on planet earth:

• The Chosen are often born on third base.

• The Chosen are Kingmakers.

• The Chosen are Insiders.

• The Chosen chase exits, status symbols, exponential growth, and 10x’ing things.

• The Chosen keep The Score.

• The Chosen make The Rules. They are also known to bend and break The Rules, while simultaneously enforcing The Rules.

• The Chosen credential. They seek credentials. They question credentials they don’t deem worthy.

• The Chosen hold and revoke memberships to Exclusive Clubs.

• Sometimes there is a single Chosen One, a character in a narrative work, who is predestined to save the world or do some other grand and heroic accomplishment. (spoiler alert: you are The Chosen One of your own narrative work, Turtle)

• The Chosen are as powerful or as meaningless as we let them be.

What should a Turtle know about The Chosen?

First and foremost: As Turtles we must know the Rules. And which ones make sense for us to obey, given the goals we have. We must also know the consequences of not following.

A few more things a Turtle might want to know about The Chosen:

• The Chosen are confident about what you, Turtle, should be doing. Sometimes warranted. Sometimes dogmatic. Sometimes a bit of both.

• Some Chosens are consciously nefarious. A prime example of this would be: those who built wealth and status through dishonest, exploitative means.

• Not all Chosens intend to be nefarious. Some Chosens are not conscious of the fact they cause harm.

• Sometimes the call from The Chosen is coming from inside a Turtle’s own head. A pre-programmed voice that plays on repeat, long after it was planted; long after it served you (if it ever did).

• A Turtle knows they are capable of something, but The Chosen hasn’t or won’t “knight” them as such. They are a gatekeeper to a Turtle continuing a journey that matters to them.

• The Chosen takes credit for discovering something that was clearly invented / discovered by someone with less money, power, pedigree than The Chosen (see also: Columbusing and Culture Vulturing5).

Prompts for Thought

• Who chooses?

• What are they choosing?

• What are they missing?

• If you were Chosen, what would you choose? what would you miss?

Discernments for Thought

• Just because The Chosen are in a position of authority or power doesn’t mean they are impervious to fault. And just because they are Chosen, doesn’t mean all they do or say should be discarded, either.

• Listen for when The Chosen gets something wrong about you. Chances are, they are missing more than just your gifts. When you can, look out for their blindspots despite their treatment of you. The Chosen needs our help. Give when you can, where you can.

• Check in with yourself: have you accepted what The Chosen has said / not said about you? Are you inadvertently The Chosen in someone’s universe? Your words have power. Use them kindly.

• If you are Chosen: spend some serious time with the concepts of Columbusing and Culture Vulturing. Know better, do better, be better.

• Like False Prophets, there’s always something to learn and discern behind a Chosen’s words. Also like False Prophets: The Chosen are only prophetic or chosen if you let them be.

This week and every week: Go forth and choose what chooses you.

ps: I am experimenting with TRTL every other week after experimenting with weekly editions for the past five weeks. Let me know your preference and I’ll keep making adjustments.

A wise colleague used this metaphor to describe product-market fit (PMF) the other day and I can’t stop thinking about it.

Not only is this the most evocative and truthful description I’ve encountered of PMF, but I am also starting to think:

• His words might be even bigger than products and markets. This rope-push/boulder-guide theory could be…well… a metaphor for everything.

And if not everything, at least for how we find fit in the relationships and environments around us.

How do you know if you’ve got a rope-push or a boulder-guide situation on your hands?

I know I’m in a rope-push as soon as someone says one word attached to any of my essential qualities:

• too

I have been too something for plenty of someones. Maybe you have, too?

In annual reviews, informal feedback sessions, and professional + personal break ups, a small sample of what I’ve been told I am “too much” of:

Personal

Grateful

Inquisitive

Thorough

Muscular

Generative

Dramatic

Direct

Intense

Idealistic

Impractical

Goofy

Generous

Quirky

Youthful

Concerned

Colorful

Cheesy

Complex

Those who think a turtle’s too is a bug to be smashed are the same people:

• Who are driven by a system* designed to deliver repeatability and conformity (*which I will sometimes broadly refer to as the Matrix, inspired by the film of the same name).

• Who find your abundance to threaten their lacking.

It’s really too bad for them, because those are our best features.

While we’re on the topic, I have a confession to make:

• Nineteen days before my fortieth birthday, I’ve managed to never grow up. And I don’t plan on starting.

Most of the ‘too muchas’ listed above I’ve been purposely cultivating since kindergarten.

They are my superpowers. (Or my too-per-powers if you’ll allow me to coin a new term1 😉)

My too-per-powers have been nurtured by nature, my parents (especially by my mom), listening to my intuition, and by many teacher-guides along the way.

My too-per-powers have opened doors and minds across aisles and industries.

Protecting and standing for my too-per-powers has shown me that:

• Shining my light invites others to do the same (the higher I climb, the further the light can carry✨);

• When others shine—without absorbing false prophecies—outsized impacts are had;

• When outsized impacts are had, there is actual magic that vibrates across space and time. More is possible. Joy is abundant. Belonging is infinite. 🪄🕰 🛸

Okay turtles, let’s land this saucer for the week…

Prompts for Thought

• What are you potentially discouraging when you give feedback? how might you rework your approach so you don’t inadvertently curb someone’s magic?

• How might you re/frame feedback around your ‘too-per-powers’? What’s the ‘why’ behind the feedback? 1-what might be a false prophecy? 2-what might in fact be helpful?… and how might you discern between the two?

Discernments for Thought

• Listen and feel for the rope-pushing moments (e.g. draining, combative, obtuse). Don’t let them last too long. Don’t let them distract, derail, or diminish you. Deselect, deprioritize, and play through them when and where you can.

• Listen and feel for the boulder-guiding moments (e.g. such ease, so engaging, very energizing). Who is present? How are you showing up? What are the outcomes? How can you design more of your life to feel this way?

Okay turtles, let’s close it out with help from one of my most favorite musicians singing one of my favorite bops:

I need to know that you will always be
The same old someone that I knew
Oh, but what will it take till you believe in me /
The way that I believe in you?

I said I love you, that's forever
And this I promise from the heart, mmm /
I couldn't love you any better
I love you just the way you are, right.

–Billy Joel

You are wonderful, just the way you are.

❤️🐢

I don’t actually believe in time travel.

But… if I did believe… this is how I know I’m doing it.

I timestamp everything.

My file names. The spines of moleskins; journal entries; work notes; musings.

As Bradshaws do, I couldn’t help but wonder…

• Are my timestamps my version of crop symbols to the celestials?

• Or are they a trans-galactic phone number a’la Stargate?

• Are they here to help me collaborate across time and space?

• And if not huge leaps, at least a night-to-day moment?1

My family’s barn in Oregon houses a few of my most precious time capsules (as barns do so well). One such capsulette is a “TOP SeCReT” note from summer 2000 (note the stamps held up by Piggy Doll above: June 20 @ 3.22am, July 5 10:51-11:03pm, July 29/30 @ 1:20am).

I had graduated from Junction City High School earlier that June… class of two triple zero, everyone’s a hero. Based on the contents of this top secret missive, I can tell you it was a multi-layered farewell gift for someone special. I’m going to tell my grandkids this was project management before Asana and Monday dot com.

Anyway, I wish I could tell you more, but as the file says, Leslie only.

What I can share is: past Leslie often leaves notes for future Leslie. Do you ever do this? If I were to reflect on why I do this, a few things come to mind. Revisiting my “small data”2 helps me to:

• Remember what hurt and what was wonderful.

• Follow a thread, a scrap, a breadcrumb.

• Stir my thinking again and again.

• Metabolize my experience into wisdom.

• Bear witness to my growth, evolution, resilience.

• Share it at the right time, with the right audience, someday.

Like many good sci fi’s have modeled, you go back in time to sense make of the present. To do this, I’ve been tracking and exegeting meaning from my digital metadata. I may not be able to collect and process data at the scale of BiG TeCh, but they can’t decode me and make sense of me like I can.

For context about this self-archeology thing I’m doing… it’s in a Google Spreadsheet (I call her my “Digital Inventory Universe”).

There’s about 6 tabs in this GSheet, which I like to call “planets”. A tab for:

1. blog posts I’ve written

2. media interviews in which I share my opinions, stories, team wins

3. Slideshare decks I’ve presented

4. books I’ve contributed to

5. bios that speak about me like rings around a sequoia tree (or portfolio)

6. domain names and @vanityurls I “own”

7. Eventually, I’d like to have a Galaxy of content that not only brings each of these digital planets together in one view, but also adds my analog content (e.g. college + high school papers; my journals dating back to 1989; work notebooks starting from 2001)

8. And if I were to tap some APIs and AIs, I’d want to see what I could pull in from Tweets, IG posts, emails, GDocs, the list could go on and on. I divergently digress… Anyway. Back to the show…

As an example, here are 19 of my 38 Slideshares sorted by living, evergreen, and fossil3.

I enjoy playing around with the column views. I also play around with other metrics and ask myself what it means to have a lot or a little: views, likes, words in a title, entries in a year. Even the /vanityurl contains interesting metadata: my former screenname; former company; current legal name.

What’s the so what for this exercise? So far, I am:

• strengthening ties to who I was and wanted to be;

• bearing witness to my own evolution;

• discerning between my metrics that matter (and don’t);

• shining light on dusty albums; and

• remixing hit singles for the times.

And, yes, this is taking a lot of time. That’s the magic. I have to go slow.

A few months and 6 tabs in… I’ve laughed, gasped, cried, and smiled. A lot.

I see essential parts of myself.

I see the filters I used

in order to negotiate

with professional realities.

When it’s all done—if there is such a time—I want to leave it somewhere special, for another turtle to discover it some day. Like a treasure chest.

In the years and decades that lie ahead, should I be so lucky, I will continue to collect, analyze, add, sense-make. I’m in no hurry. This is, afterall, a turtle adventure. Slow and steady wins the race.

My voice, my philosophies, my principles, my experiences. They feel so grand in my spreadsheet; they make my heart feel so full. And, at the same time, I feel like a Who in Whoville, trying to get Horton to hear me. Does anyone even care? Do these musings move any needles anywhere?

Whether they are grand or small, I do wholly believe they are—we are—all connected in some invisible way. In the words of author Gregoire Bouillier:

“And I jotted each of these items down in a little notebook so I could remember them later on, because that whole week I never lost the feeling that I was participating in world events and was linked in a tiny invisible way, to everything that took place everywhere.”
The Mystery Guest, p. 38

Which reminds me of a related thought, in a book review by G.R. Hallberg:

The Mystery Guest isn't a symphony of missed connections after all,
but a kind of hymn to possibility.

May you write and rewrite your hymn to possibility—across time and space. With others, and alone. With your past self, and your future aspirations. With those who will sit in the shade of the trees you plant today. And with our ancestors, who did the same for us.

Poet Francisco X. Alarcón writes:

I carry my roots with me all the time rolled up, I use them as my pillow.

A few thoughts to carry through the week:

Who are you collaborating with across space? time? What are your pillows? what are your trees?

Playing sports in elementary school, I didn’t investigate the mechanics of a game much past knowing the rules and making sure everyone was included (thank you mom for teaching me this). But as I got older—and the stakes seemingly higher—strategy was introduced.

Zone defense was the opponent and coach Mike Campbell2 had a whole book of plays to throw at them. Our strategies relied on each playing their part: setting up the pick and roll, faking a pass, boxing out, drawing the foul.

Then came college. Not balling at that level, per se, but rather taking a class called Sport, Society & Science3.

We flowed from the economics of building a stadium (negative, usually); to how Cubs fans demonstrated traits of tribalism; to the kinematic sequence; to the Law of Averages; to, well, flow itself.

Either a year prior, or that same year (Alexa: find my college transcript) I took a class about the Olympics with John MacAloon. We explored symbolism in the Olympics (and, I think, other sports), asking things like:

• What does it mean for Puerto Rico to be recognized as a nation on such a global [Olympic] stage, when normally it’s treated as an “inincorporated U.S. territory”?

• What does it mean for a female performer to wear all white—as she’s escorted by an older man in military service uniform—on her way to sing their nation’s anthem?4

• Which coporate sponsors inadvertently offend from country-to-country with their symbols and translations?

As I go on this journey, I am reminded that we can broaden the definition of games. They can be metaphors. They can be digital simulations. They can be those we play at work and in life.

There are many paths that aren’t the main one.

There are many definitions beyond the obvious one.

And so, as I hike around the backcountry trails of my mind, philosopher C. Thi Nguyen appears. He writes extensively about games and, while his analysis is deeply instructive, I don’t plan to engage it here. Instead, I am going to use Nguyen’s philosophy of games as an invitation to philosophize about games.

You in?

Philosophizing: Greek, the love of wisdom

We ask our minds to be so pinpointed these days, we rarely get to experience an education worthy of a free person.

So when I find one of these rare moments of otium, I let my brain open ALL THE TABS. I am overwhelmed, opionated, and confused. It’s disorienting for me and for anyone who joins.

But before I force quit, I bring out the prompt method by Nitzan5. I’ve been experimenting with the technique since taking a class on it earlier this year.

What prompts have taught me so far:

• Prompts hover above my fuzzy-yet-pinned memories; beliefs; references. They don’t ask for a single answer; they contain multitudes.

• Prompts help me connect with what and why something is shining brightly for me on a given day; week; season. Why this, why now; so what, now what?

• Prompts unearth deeper meaning. I can use them on my own and in dialogue with others; both circumstances work in and as spades.

• Prompts provide nourishment to a mind otherwise in negotium.

Let’s give it a try.

Step 1: What’s shining brightly for you? Which related words come up?

For illustrative purposes, call games the subject.

• I write down: rules, scoring, game day, practice, referees, prizes, rituals, winners, losers, sportsmxnship, jerseys, teams, courts, stadiums.

• What does the subject of games bring up for you?

Step 2: Grab a few ingredients from what comes up and start cooking.

Resit the gravity of a question that only has one answer.

Here are a few from my sketching:

• What game am I playing?

• What game is playing me?

• Who is keeping score?

• Who is the audience?

• Who is the referee?

• Is the game writer playing the same or different game?

• Are you winning?

• What is considered a penalty?

• What game are you practicing for?

• Will you ever retire from this game?

Step 3: Land in a single gravity or keep the tabs open. Or both.

This is by no means the Magic 8-ball of your mind. Rather, it’s a jungle gym and some backcountry trails. There’s zero gravity, which means no anchors.

And with that, I better get some sleep to show up well in the game tomorrow.

My blessing for TRTLs this week:

May you hike on untraversed trails in your mind;
May you be confused, before sense-making & making-sense;
May at least one game in your life bring you bliss-joy;
May you help others win—wherever & whenever you can.

Known for evergreen zingers like Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, George Orwell has a different target in Politics and the English Language. In his cross-hairs? verbal laziness and conformity.

To resist becoming an object at rest, Orwell warns against:

• Dying metaphors - such as the five above

• Stale imagery - women laughing with salad, I think he means you

• Lack of precision - root word: to cut (cf. scissors)

• Pretentious diction - #dontquotelatin #idefinitelyquotelatin

• Meaningless words - if you can cut it, cut it (scissors!)

• Lifeless orthodoxy - Orwell targets politics; I’d add corporate speak

• Verbs to phrases - e.g. make itself felt, have the effect of

• Passive voice - see: Hamilton’s 7 Sins of Writing

Orwell’s list is great. What would make it greater? Being bold and avoid…

• …thinking your voice doesn’t matter (it does)

• …assuming what you have to say has already been said (it hasn’t; you’re the Only you)

• …letting “Thought Leaders” and “Influencers” crowd out Do Leaders

If we avoid the above, then we can absorb this Orwellian list1:

1. What am I trying to say? Which words can best express it?

2. What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. (already said this, so, scissors!)

4. Have I said anything avoidably ugly?

5. Never use jargon if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

Take a word from Nilofer Merchant and ponder:

• What are people getting wrong about X? What’s your take?

• What do most people miss that you don’t?

• What does your unique experience teach the world?

As for being evocative with living metaphors, imagery, and words… a few spices from the the autobiographical coffee table book I will write someday:

• The Zeitgeist. German for ghost or spirit of our times, ask: what’s on everyone’s hearts, minds, memes? Summon it, engage it, be it.

• Generational Zeitgeist. When was your audience born? Play their karaoke go-to; namecheck their Bop Magazine coverboy crush; fire up the VCR to play their ‘when I’m home sick’ VHS.

• Memorable Word Play. Two birds, one scone. Great minds like a think®. Illustrious aliterations; lucious language; be’a’onomatopoeia.

• Nature & Science. Seasons. The Elements. Botany. Zoology. Space.

• Arts & Humanities. Quote n’ quotables. Potent potables. Movements, moments, makers.

• The Simone Biles. Combine the hardest moves. Nail the landing.

Lest you be discouraged, Orwell motivates us all:

But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you—even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent—and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself.2

Invite your intuition to speak. I can’t wait to hear what it has to say.

And if you prefer another medium of expression, count me in there, too.

p.s. thank you for letting me try new things.

This is a little of both.

Otium:

… withdrawing from one's daily business (neg-otium) or affairs to engage in activities that were considered to be artistically valuable or enlightening (i.e. speaking, writing, philosophy).

Sometime after 9/11 changed travel forever, but before Alicia Keys dropped If I Ain’t Got You, my Latin teacher introduced otium to us with a caveat emptor learner:

Otium is one of those words whose original meaning doesn’t survive the translation to English. It generally gets translated to leisure or inactivity, which fails to capture how the Romans used it.

Study the ancient texts and you’ll see otium used when the mind and body were often times plenty active—so long as they were actions free of obligation and tedium. No debating in the Senate. No haggling in the market. No expectation on your time from Responsibilities.

On Saturday afternoons, such as now, I ask:

• Who is my otium?

• When do I feel otium?

• Where is my otium?

• Can work be otium?

• What’s otium’s utility?

• What does otium cost?

A few of my responses to the ‘who, when, where’ prompts above:

• Getting in flow with an idea

• Talking with my sisters; by blood and by bond

• Time with my mom

• Time with my dad

• Koala’ty with my man

• Crossfitting with friends

• Sleeping in

• Reading for fun

• Reading for enrichment

• Being in repose

• Being in nature

• Rain on the window as I curl up on a big chair with a book

• Being in water

• The sun’s shine

• Color-coding my handwritten notes to match my daily planner

• Stickers

• Beads

• Crafting

• Dressing up

• Listening to my version of “the oldies”

• Revisiting my old journals

• Visiting with old friends

• Discovering each snowflake is unique

• Igniting childlike wonderment in those who need it most

• Getting the band back together again

• Silent Google Doc’ing with Becca

How about you, what’s your otium?

• What lights up your room?

• When does your soul exhale?

• When does time stop?

• Where is your greenhouse?

• What’s it like to discover a ‘favorite ____’?

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Hence the word negotium—to negate otium. In a country founded on ascetic Protestantism, it should be no surprise that the only place you’ll find otium is in the word negotiation. Ooof.

Just as:

…rules express the basic conditions of collective life for each type of society [1];

I would posit: so too do words.

For my practice, I explore neg-otium by prompting myself:

• Who negotiates with you?

• Why do you negotiate?

• What’s the utility of negotiation?

• What are you negotiating? (h/t to my coach Nitzan’s newsletter and courses, where ideas dance in a zero gravity soup)

Grip and pry open the edges of your schedule: let there be otium-nourishing practices, people, and places in each of your days.

Create otium greenhouses oxygenated for the humxn “turtles” you encounter.

Pay less and less mind to that which neg’s your otium; support the turtles you encounter as we, together, make our way through the Matrix.

May you find and protect your otium—and help others do the same.

This is Turtle Adventures by Leslie Bradshaw, a newsletter about finding and nourishing our highest selves—and the highest in others.

This newsletter is also a branch in the tree that is Turtle Academy & Ventures—a school and a fund committed to developing and investing in the talent most algorithms were programmed to exclude.

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