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Hey Everyone,
Within the last year we kicked off The Niche Is You community — a place to clear the noise, refine your work, build more intentionally and create with conviction.
If you want to connect deeper — a true algorithm-free space — come join our ever growing room of 330+ creatives, entrepreneurs, writers, makers and path builders from around the world. You’ll get instant access to our private group chat, quarterly challenges & workshops, our weekly LIVE gatherings & conversations (plus special guests), and exclusive in-person events on the way. Would love to have you in the room.
The Rundown — Here’s what I found over the course of this week that has helped me, inspired me or gave me some creative pushes…
On why your greatest contribution might not fit the current system — “The real flex isn’t playing the game better… it’s showing people there’s a whole different game to be played.” (—Matt Gottesman) — The older I get, the less interested I become in learning how to play someone else's game better. I find myself asking a different question altogether: what if the work we're here to do was never meant to fit inside the systems we inherited? So many of us spend years trying to optimize for rules we never chose, wondering why something still feels off even when we're doing everything "right." Every meaningful shift I've witnessed has come from people who were willing to trust what they couldn't yet prove. They built something that didn't have a category until it existed. Maybe that's the invitation for more of us now—not to become exceptional at what's already here, but to have the courage to build what we wish already existed.
On why the future belongs to people, not platforms — “Trust is becoming the most valuable asset in business. Build community before you build companies.” (—James P. Crane on IG) — I've found myself thinking less about audiences lately and more about relationships. The platforms will continue to change. The algorithms will evolve. AI will reshape how quickly things can be made. But none of those things replace the quiet confidence people feel when they know who's behind the work. That's becoming the real asset. Long before I ever thought about products or offers, I thought about publishing honestly and consistently. Looking back, I was never just building content… I was building familiarity… a body of work… a reputation… a place people could return to. Maybe that's what we're all really building now. Not bigger platforms, but deeper trust. Everything else has a way of growing from there.
On why stability can sometimes be a creative advantage— “Stability can be an unfair advantage” (—David Kyle Choe for Rocky Xu on IG) — I've never believed there's only one right way to build something. We often celebrate the founder who burns the ships and goes all in, but there are seasons where keeping one foot planted creates the very freedom the work needs. Stability has a way of changing your decision-making. It quiets urgency. It creates space to think longer, choose more carefully and build without feeling like every move has to produce an immediate return. I've found that some of the strongest businesses were more so built from enough steadiness to let good decisions compound over time. There's wisdom in knowing when to leap. There's also wisdom in knowing when the runway is still serving the vision.
On why the best ideas live between disciplines — “When the process is no longer the bottleneck, what gets rewarded is the novelty of your idea.” (—iamrwan on Instagram) — What happens when the distance between an idea and its execution almost disappears? For most of history, the hardest part was making the thing. Today, that barrier is shrinking by the day… which means the conversation is changing. The question is becoming less, Can you build it? and more, Can you imagine it? To me, that's exciting because it invites us back to something deeply human… curiosity, taste, perspective… the ability to connect ideas that don't seem like they belong together until someone has the courage to bring them into the same room. Maybe the future won't belong to the people with the most resources, but to the people willing to imagine what doesn't exist yet… and then trust themselves enough to make it real.
On why making things comes before mastery — “The work doesn’t need to be good… it just needs to be made.” (—Matt Gottesman) — We tend to believe good work comes first and confidence follows. In reality, confidence is usually the byproduct of making enough work to discover your voice. This is also why perfectionism is so deceptive… it convinces us to wait until we’re ready, when readiness has always been earned through repetition. Every creator you admire has made work that never saw the light of day, and every one of those pieces quietly shaped the work that eventually did. Most of that progress happened long before anyone else was watching. That’s the part we rarely give ourselves permission to embrace. We only see the finished work, forgetting there were years of drafts, experiments and ideas that existed simply to move the creator a little closer to themselves. So, we show up often enough, stay close to the process, and the quality has a chance to catch up. Our work doesn’t ask for perfection… per se… but it does ask us to keep making it. — My latest podcast on this can be found here (APPLE, SPOTIFY)
On why connecting the dots is becoming a discipline — "The people who are winning right now… can see the whole picture, connect the dots, and still bring something only they can. (—Andrea kohisocial on IG) — For a long time, we treated interests as if they competed with one another. If you loved writing, stay with writing. If you loved design, don’t get distracted by business. If you loved business, don’t wander too far into philosophy. Somewhere along the way we started believing clarity meant becoming less of ourselves, but that’s never been my experience. The more I’ve allowed my interests to speak to one another, the more coherent my work has become. Writing sharpened my strategy. Design taught me taste. Faith changed how I built. Business gave all of it somewhere to live. What once looked scattered slowly became a language. Maybe that’s why the people creating the most original work today aren’t the ones protecting a single discipline. They’re the ones allowing seemingly unrelated parts of themselves to finally meet.
On the moments that almost change everything — “It’s never over till it’s over… keep the faith.” (—Calum Johnson on IG) — There are moments in life where the evidence looks final. The thing you’ve given yourself to suddenly feels like it may never become what you hoped it would become. I think that’s what moved me about Rafa Nadal’s story. Before all the titles, before the legacy, before the version of him the world came to know, there was a season where the whole thing almost ended before it fully began. Sometimes that’s the part we forget when we look at people who have built something extraordinary. We see the outcome, but we don’t always see the fragile middle… the part where everything could have gone another way. Faith doesn’t always look like having certainty. I can truly attest to this. It more so looks like taking one more appointment, trying one more solution, staying close to the dream for one more day and refusing to call something finished before God has. It’s never over until it’s over… and sometimes the breakthrough comes through the smallest opening you almost gave up looking for.
On why certainty becomes quieter — “The goal isn’t to convince others of your path… it’s to walk it with such certainty that explanation becomes unnecessary.” (—Matt Gottesman) — I think a person’s conviction becomes quieter the longer they walk their path… Earlier in life, I felt the need to explain my decisions, defend my direction or help people understand why something mattered so deeply to me. Maybe that's part of growing, but eventually, something shifts. You begin trusting what God has been showing you more than you need someone else to validate it. You still listen, you still remain teachable… you just stop looking outside yourself for the final answer.… and that simply changes where your confidence comes from. The people meant to walk with you won't need a perfectly crafted explanation. They'll recognize the integrity of your life, your work and the way you carry yourself. There's a certain freedom that comes when you stop negotiating your identity with the world and start living from it instead.
On why endurance shapes the work — “The most talented people don't win. It's the people with endurance that give themselves a chance.” (—Frank Have Mercy on IG) — The excitement of starting something has never been the hard part. Staying with it has always been where the real work begins. Every body of work eventually asks the same question: Will you still be here after the excitement fades? The artists, founders, writers and builders I admire most aren't extraordinary because they never lost motivation. They're extraordinary because they kept returning to the work anyway. The were so deeply devoted and they respected what they were building enough to give it the years it deserved. There's something beautiful about that kind of consistency. Over time, it becomes very difficult to distinguish where discipline ends and identity begins.
Playlist — GOLDEN HOUR DEEP HOUSE JAZZ | Soulful Mix for Long Drives & Easy Moments — A great playlist from Mariu Barcena via Deephoria_Sessions on YouTube of Chill House to work to… great for creating, designing, writing, computer work.
I’ve been thinking about how often we mistake explanation for conviction.
Maybe it’s because so much of modern life rewards visibility.
We feel pressure to explain ourselves, defend our choices, justify our pace and make sure everyone understands what we’re building before we’ve even had the chance to build it.
I don’t know if that’s where confidence comes from.
The people I’ve found myself returning to lately move a little differently.
They aren’t louder. They aren’t rushing to persuade anyone. They simply keep showing up for the work they’ve been entrusted with. Year after year, decision after decision, they let the consistency speak long before they do.
Put simply… they stop measuring their life by how well it’s understood and start measuring it by how honestly it’s lived.
And I think there’s a certain freedom in that.
So… for all of you creators… make the work become less about proving you’ve chosen the right path… and more about honoring it.
The niche is you.
Until next week,
– Matt
P.S. If you found value in this week's insights, consider sharing this post with someone who might need this reminder about the power of individuality. ↙️
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