Looking to spend more time with people who are present with themselves and present with others?
On October 7th, I’m running Coffee & Conversation — the real questions I use in Field Notes sessions, why they work, what I listen for. Then we practice on each other. Strangers, coffee, a little nerve. Free, at Fabrik in Tribeca. Details →
And on November 3, some of these Field Notes go up on a wall for the first time — The Work Before the Work, opening night, also at Fabrik. I’ll be shooting new portraits that night too, so come with your ears and a pen and plan to stay longer than you meant to. Free, RSVP required. RSVP →
If you’re not in NYC, but want gatherings like this, respond to this email and let me know.
There’s a pattern I keep running into after two years of doing this: people show up to a session ready to talk about the job, the title, the thing on their resume. And every time, what actually matters shows up sideways — a rule they broke without meaning to, a thing they kept doing long after anyone was watching.
That’s the whole premise of Field Notes. The work that gets seen was never the interesting part.
Two Ways to Measure Your Work
Every one of us is running two economies at once.
The first keeps score — the number in the report, the only one anyone gets paid in. The second runs on who you asked, who stayed, who's still carrying something you gave them years ago. That one issues no receipts. So most people run it for years, never check it, and take the first economy's word for how they're doing.
Caitlin Kawaguchi checks both.
For six years, her version of this has played out inside Brooklyn politics. By taking stock of the second economy, she found that it matters more than any number the first economy could produce.
What she found turned out to matter more than the win everyone was waiting for.
🎧 Listen to the full story → — a parenting tactic that backfired, a meeting that ran eight hours and decided nothing, and the second ledger Caitlin’s been keeping the whole time that nobody asked her to keep.
If this is the kind of thing you want more of in the world, help make more of it — that's what patronage actually does here.
Until next time,
Lindsey
P.S — This one's coming to you on Sunday instead of Friday. Call it the Sunday Slowdown — an experiment in giving this a little more room to land before the week picks back up. Let me know if you like it more than Friday.
