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Happy Holidays to all. Wishing you a healthy and prosperous New Year!
The newsletter team does not sleep or take vacations so welcome to your 34th issue of the Quiet Empire Newsletter. Your newsletters will be arriving in your in box every Tuesday and Saturday (Specifically chosen because for most of us, Mondays are chaos and Saturday is a good catch up day)
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In today’s issue:
For a long time, I believed that if something was well thought out, well built, and genuinely helpful…
people would recognize it.
That turned out not to be true.
Years ago, I released what I still think was a good program.
Carefully designed. Thorough. Responsible.
No one bought it.
At first, I assumed the usual explanations—timing, pricing, visibility.
But the real issue was quieter than that.
I was explaining what it was…
when people needed help understanding what it changed.
In hindsight, the mistake seems obvious.
People don’t make decisions because something is complete.
They decide when something feels relevant to where they’re stuck.
Features feel safe to talk about.
Outcomes feel personal—and therefore riskier.
I was hiding behind the former.
What I’ve learned since is simple, but uncomfortable:
Clarity isn’t about saying more.
It’s about saying the one thing that matters.
Not everything your work includes.
Just the part that helps someone move from where they are to where they want to be.
That applies to programs.
It applies to careers.
It applies to decisions we postpone because they feel too large to name.
When something isn’t resonating, it’s rarely because people don’t care.
It’s usually because they can’t see themselves in it yet.
If you’re working on something you believe in—whether it’s a business idea, a transition, or a next step—try this:
Describe it without explaining how it works.
If you can’t, that’s not a failure.
It’s information.
And information is what allows you to simplify.
If you’re curious how I think about this in my own work now, I keep a longer explanation here.
No pitch. Just context.
Wishing you a calm close to the year.
—Patrick