Natalie Audelo

The good listener: someone who has learnt how to find bits of themselves in the experiences of others.

– Alain de Botton

Sometimes, when I’m feeling especially brutal about something I’ve done or failed to do, I imagine I’m one of my own girlfriends, someone I love and who loves me in a way that’s expansive and forgiving. Then I reassess whatever I’m being mean about, through her borrowed POV, or by way of asking – what if she’d done or failed at this thing, how... See more

She defines taste as “a deep internal coherence. A way of filtering the world through intuition that’s been sharpened by attention.” It isn’t about aesthetic snobbery or cultural capital – it’s about developing an internal compass that can navigate the endless noise.

Life has gotten very chaotic incredibly quickly. It has become increasingly difficult to parse anything from the static. People started coping with this lack of meaning through a kind of ironic detachment (which is very much still around), but it has matured into a pervasive cultural apathy, a permeating numbness. This isn’t nihilism per se. (Even... See more

A bunch of studies show that when we witness acts of kindness and pro-social cooperation by others we experience something called “moral elevation” - we are lifted into optimism and altruism and feel inclined to spread kindness onwards. I referred to the way awe works to connect us into our humanity a few chapters back. A global study showed that... See more

Instead, I stopped trying to fit myself and Every into an old model of what a founder, software startup, or media company needs to look like. Those are all old ideas, from an older context. They can be useful when needed. But they’re dry and dead.

I’ve just tried to be honest about who I am, what I want, and what I believe to be true about the... See more