Strategy is Your Words
In December, 2025, I flew from Nairobi to Abuja. Three months before, I had no idea I would even come to Africa. Then my first time in Kenya slingshotted me to my first time in Nigeria. I passed through one of the worst airports I’ve ever set foot in. It’s in Lomé, Togo. Few electronic signs or televisions worked so it was difficult to know where to go. The lines made no sense. The loud speakers…
Years ago, I worked with an agency on a pitch for an alcohol brand. We were in Manhattan but the brand was based in a conservative state. The beer was drunk by people who might never travel to Manhattan and, if they did visit Manhattan, they’d probably marvel at it while also scoffing at things that fit the conservative propaganda about how broken Manhattan is because it’s a blue state, not a red…
I love business. When I was a kid, I’d buy rugby league cards before school and resell the popular ones at a markup. Sometimes I’d put a bunch of packs in a plastic bag and charge people to pick one or two at random, like a lottery. As a teenager, I watched my single mom run a singles club. She’d place ads in the newspaper, people would leave messages on our answering machine, she’d filter them,…
Last week, I was in the bathrooms of a fancy club in Nairobi. While I was taking a piss, a guy confronted me:
There are two truths about metaphors that are awkward bedfellows:
The Last Job I’ll Ever Have
Often I catch myself wondering, “Is this really how I want to spend my time right now?” It happened when that older Kenyan banker followed me around a club asking me if I knew who he was. It happened when I chose to spend my first New Years Eve, Thanksgiving, and Christmas alone. It’s happened many times in Nairobi when I’ve been out and seen everyone sitting at high tables with their bottles of…
In my teens and 20s, I didn’t feel I belonged in this world. I didn’t like the systems, the conformity, the establishment. Maybe because I shifted between my parent’s two homes and I was often not at home from a young age, I felt more comfortable roaming Sydney than in rooms I take for granted today. This caused a lot of internal turbulence. I literally didn’t feel I was built to be here. And I…
“I fell into strategy” is a common strategist refrain. “I was working in an agency in another department and someone said I might be better suited as a strategist” is a sentence that often comes next. Truth is, a lot of people who end up in strategy didn’t know it was a career until they were in their twenties. Yes, the USA has a lot of advertising courses in college (or, university) so it’s…
Sometimes, I shut down and disappear. As a child, I disappeared into writing poetry and raps and journaling. In my twenties, I disappeared into work. I published a magazine while often also working a job. For years, I worked until I fell asleep at my desk then I woke up and I kept working. Many nights, I could only fully fall asleep on the floor in front of the television with the sound of a…