(Applied) knowledge is power.

I’ve entered a few new eras in 2026, as the kids would say. Dancing exclusively to Dua Lipa and Olivia Dean music, trying to eat slightly less croissants per day, and finally, reading lots of autobiographies from prominent media personalities of the 20th Century.

I’ll admit, I often romanticize the media landscape of the 60’s and 70’s, in particular in the golden era of Hollywood. Perhaps my soul was meant to be a busker on Sunset Boulevard, though I can’t imagine navigating the 3,000 serial killers estimated to be active during that time.

In an age where storytelling is a sought-after skillset, we can learn a lot from the titans of storytelling from a bygone age.

Anyway, I’ve kicked off the year reading the books of two legends in the field of media. First, I read Cameron Crowe’s The Uncool: A Memoir, which chronicles his real-life teenage story of reporting on up-and-coming musicians for magazines that include Rolling Stone. Crowe also was the writer/director of many hit films including “Say Anything,” “Jerry Maguire,” and “Almost Famous,” the latter of which was inspired by his early life.

Next, I read Graydon Carter’s When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines. Carter, the founder of Spy Magazine and later the famed editor of Vanity Fair, talks about his rise during the heyday of media in New York (which represents a truly unrecognizable period if you operate in media today).

I would recommend them both as each are incredibly intuitive storytellers, and amongst many lessons, there were two broad, but related, ones that stood out to me for those of us trying to build careers today.

Act like a home run hitter.

Crowe talks about a meeting early in his career with Jann Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone, who more or less called him out for what was a highly successful profile of the band Led Zeppelin. Wenner asked, “what would a real writer have said?” The biting commentary is remembered by Crowe as a turning point in his career - less an indictment on his talent than on his lack of grit and journalism in the piece.

Similarly, Carter speaks about his early days in journalism, when he founded a general interest magazine called The Canadian Review. The magazine ultimately failed, he recalled, because it didn’t take a position. It was neither right nor left, it didn’t focus on a specific topic, and it didn’t pick a unique story to tell. Stuck in the middle, it was both everywhere and thus nowhere at once, and it became tough to answer the question why should someone read this?

Later, as the editor of Vanity Fair, he recalls a young, talented journalist who would come to his office every day with a new idea.

“I told her ‘you’re a home run hitter,’” he said. Some of the ideas she was bringing him only had the potential to be a double. If it can’t be a home run, don’t waste your time on it.

Hopefully the baseball metaphor translates for everyone, but the mantra resonated with me - Carter was speaking about a time before constant connectivity and always-on media, but the lesson is even more critical today.

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Investigative journalism, the kind that captivates people and transcends traditional channels, takes focus and time.

The first season of the “Serial” podcast drove an entire new market of true-crime, but took more than a year of research to prepare for.

Similarly, “Making a Murderer,” the Netflix phenomenon, was reportedly in the works for more than a decade before it was released to viewers.

“Random Family” by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, a book that follows a family through their trials and tribulations, became a bestseller after more than an 11-year embedded investigation led to its publication.

On and on, you get the picture. Great work takes time (though admittedly, 11 years is more than I can spend on a project), often requiring the proverbial blood, sweat and tears. The good news is we all have it within us if we’re so moved to find our focus. We all can be home run hitters in our own game.

Like a great hitter in baseball, wait for your pitch and take a big swing.

(Applied) Knowledge is power.

The internet age was meant to democratize access to knowledge, to give people tools to research and identify solutions on their own without having to rely solely on costly expertise. Remember Google’s mission statement: to organize the world’s information. The internet undoubtedly led to unparalleled access and innovation, creating wealth and igniting entirely new industries. I don’t have to tell you that the internet was successful…

And yet, like any good recipe, eating too much will still give you a stomach ache. Today, the confluence of social channels (where people often look for recommendations and peer-validation), search tools, and now artificial intelligence has led to a world where knowledge - or the appearance of knowledge - has blurred the lines between true expertise and capitalistic opportunism.

This is true on channels like TikTok or Instagram where you may see ads like “the one secret doctors don’t want you to know about!” but it also goes beyond just consumer goods. On LinkedIn, we are hit with a deluge of “how to” and “best practices” content consistently from people telling us how we can do better if only we listen to their processes.

I don’t mean to downplay legitimate consulting, executive coaching, or thought leadership with real merit - there are numerous experts in all industries that offer valuable insight and I surely follow many myself. And I also realize the irony of touching this topic in a forum where I (checks notes) share thought leadership designed to support my industry. But we’ve lost the very reasonable ability to say, “you know, I don’t actually know the answer to that.”

What am I talking about and how does it relate to Cameron Crowe and Graydon Carter?

These writers were not just a mirror on the culture they were actively living and working inside of it. And the best lessons come from doing the work.

By comparison, when I wrote my first book, Funny Business, I was 24-years old. There’s nothing wrong with writing a book at that age, but it was meant as a “thought leadership” book about the lessons learned from the intersection of comedy and business.

I received some criticism at the time from people in my orbit that I didn’t have the credibility to write such a book. I still think the exercise was worth it - it opened lots of doors and became a hook that enabled a new professional path - as I have taught many “corporate improv” trainings for teams and companies, including a national tour for a division of the Hearst Corporation. But it is probably true that I didn’t know enough about either comedy or business to add much value to the conversation.

Today, the ease in which “expert” content or advertising can be spun up and distributed at scale is both empowering and a cause for concern. Perhaps, like me, you’ve noticed in some forums very obvious use of AI-generated “frameworks” and “strategies,” all perfectly sound but when put under a microscope offer very little in the way of revolutionary purpose.

Just because you “can” do something, doesn’t mean you “should.”

So, what should you do. Well, for starters, don’t stop sharing your insights and your wisdom and your lessons learned. You never know who they might resonate with at just the right time. Especially if you’re a human, because people-based insights will become increasingly a scarce, and therefore valuable, resource in the months and years ahead.

But also, and it might sound obvious, remember that the best insights will come from doing the work - living your life - making mistakes.

Think of the leaders you admire in whatever field you operate in. I would bet they have stories that are filled with nuance and detours and the kind of lessons that only come from taking chances.

So, in 2026, what is one big swing you’re going to take? How will you focus on applying your knowledge rather than just distributing it?

I’ll be challenging myself in the same way. More on that as we go.

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash.