When Your Purpose Is 1-of-1

you must be able to live inside of your vision in such a way that you can communicate its emotional essence, its core truth, to the immediate world around you.

It was a years-long process of trying, failing, and iterating to find the language and expressions that would make what felt clear to us obvious to others.

What they don’t see, and what we continue to experience, is that while collaborating can be hard, it’s also a more rewarding, fruitful, and uplifting experience than doing things on our own. Yes, it’s true that groups of people collaborating will run into some well-known problems, but it’s also true that we see ways to make that experience better,

In each of these projects I regularly found myself trying to convince friends, family, and potential future participants on the merits of these ideas. It was an uphill search for the words, frames, themes, and execution that would help others see it the way I or we did.

In the short term a 1-of-1 purpose will almost always fail. Every day is yet another moment that people didn’t follow your vision and the world failed to transform according to your ideas. The failures are literally limitless.

With a longer view, however, this process looks different.

Be the thing — Don’t just theorize about release clubs, actively be one every day. By doing things we want as a release club, we learn what others might want. This act of progressive productization, where we first do the thing for ourselves and then make it available to others, has repeatedly revealed valuable truths that have helped us bring this

Have fun — There’s a version of this work that’s hyper-analytical where we try to Moneyball our way to success. There’s another version where we’re living it, enjoying it, and having fun with it. Our best work comes when we’re having fun and enjoying what we’re doing, not when we’re overly analytical. Analytical thinking creates fear and uncertain

We see each release as a chance to increase the surface area of our purpose.

Following your own ideas and instincts is how we create genuine confidence and craft in our work. True satisfaction is achieved by liberating ourselves from desiring the approval of others. While others might triumphantly social climb into various inner rings, it’s only from pursuing our own path that we find lasting fulfillment.