This ode did not happen by accident.
It showed up in a conversation with my friend, Shelley Paxton .
Then in another with Carolina Migliaccio .
And, just yesterday, in this note from Tamara .
When the muse speaks, we listen.
And, with that, I give you…
An Ode to Bro-etry
Bro-etry works.
This is the hardest thing to admit.
It stops the thumb.
It sells the dream.
It mints the guru.
It pays the rent.
You’ve seen the shape.
One line.
Then another.
A punch.
A pause.
A close.
Often a lesson.
Usually a hustle story.
Always the word “grind.”
Every sentence fights for the next.
No clause hides.
No idea earns a paragraph.
The format strips argument to bone.
Call the work what the work is.
A masterwork of attention capture.
The algorithm rewards the format.
The writer feeds the format.
The reader trains on the format.
Engagement flows. Notifications ping. A small economy hums.
Now the confession.
I’ve played my version of this.
I’ve written posts I would not read.
I’ve adopted what did not fit.
I’ve measured a sentence by engagement, not truth.
I’ve served a success someone else defined.
The feeling matched corporate.
Selling a piece of me for the revenue.
I didn’t like the feeling then.
I don’t like the feeling now.
A job doesn’t have to be perfect.
A platform doesn’t have to be pure.
You do have to watch what you trade for the money.
Most of us in our fifties don’t fit this costume.
We left one kind of b.s.
We walked into another.
Short lines. Big claims. Questionable advice dressed as wisdom.
And we, the readers, nod along.
We double-tap.
We comment “This.”
We share.
We quote post.
We feed the format.
The format feeds on us.
Look at what the format does to the writer.
The format rewards the boldest claim.
The format punishes the careful one.
The format demands a story of hustle whether the hustle happened or not.
The format flattens twenty years of hard-won experience into a three-line anecdote.
The nuance loses.
The grift wins.
Look at what the format does to the reader.
The format trains you to agree before you think.
The format trains you to double-tap what feels familiar.
The format trains you to mistake rhythm for insight.
The format trains you to confuse confidence with competence.
Here’s the part being left out.
The format isn’t the enemy of thought.
We are.
The writer writes what we reward.
The reader rewards what the writer writes.
The loop closes.
Nobody reads anymore.
Everybody nods.
Here’s the call.
No likes.
No comments.
No shares.
No quote posts pretending to push back.
Pushback is engagement.
Engagement is fuel.
Starve the format.
Scroll past.
Close the app.
Read a paragraph someone took a week to write.
Read a sentence with nothing to sell.
Read something ending without a link.
Without our attention, the format ends.
Not because we fought the format.
Because we stopped feeding the format.
Most of us in our fifties are tired.
Tired of performing.
Tired of optimizing.
Tired of selling a smaller version of ourselves for a bigger version of something we don’t truly desire.
The answer isn’t louder noise or better bro-etry.
The answer is quieter rooms.
Quieter rooms where the sentence matters.
Where the reader does the work.
Where the writer has room to be wrong.
Where nothing is going viral.
Where we mean what we say.
I’m Kevin and I’ve supported more than 17,000 senior professionals through career transformations since 2008. I write here for “The Quietly Ambitious” who are creating what’s next beyond corporate.
If this resonated, please share it with someone who needs to hear it.
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