Field
Notes.

The most important thing you bring to work isn’t your strategy. It’s your state. And your state walks into the room before you do.

When I was in my early twenties, I managed Hooters restaurants. Fifteen years later, I was leading go-to-market teams for SaaS companies. At the core, the job was the same: read the room, set the tone, and do my best not to be the reason people dreaded showing up to work.

I got good at the things you can measure: forecast calls, SKOs, quarterly reviews. What I didn’t track was the energy. One Tuesday, a rep closed the biggest deal in company history, and the room felt dead. The numbers looked good, but something was missing. I realized that the missing piece was me.

That experience took me in a direction I didn’t expect. I began to notice what I brought into a room before anyone said a word. My body seemed to know things my calendar didn’t. There was a gap between the version of me leading the meeting and what was really going on inside.

I’m writing a book with Dr. Carlos Warter, a psychiatrist who has spent 50 years studying consciousness through clinical practice. He earned his PhD at Harvard, traveled through the Amazon, befriended the Dalai Lama, and has written 22 books in 6 languages. Despite all that, he doesn’t lead with his credentials. Our book will be published by Park Street Press in spring 2027.

Field Notes is where I’m working it out before I have the answers.