Next month I’ll be on a panel at SXSW called “Authority That Drives Change: How Leaders Shape Societal Impact.” Here’s the honest story of why this topic hits close to home, and why it took me this long to feel like I had the right to talk about it.
I’m retiring next month.
Not in the way that word usually lands. I’m not done. I’m not tired. I’m not heading for a rocking chair. I’m retiring from something I helped build over 12 years with some of my closest friends at Agile Six, and I’m stepping into something that feels less like a career move and more like finally becoming myself.
That distinction matters. And it’s exactly what this panel is about.
From Scarcity to Something Else
I grew up poor. Not just financially, though that too, but poor in the way you think. When you come from scarcity, scarcity becomes your operating system. You assume the world is a zero-sum game. Someone else’s win is your loss. Someone else’s light dims yours.
My family worked hard to escape poverty. But looking back, I can see that the obsession with escaping it was, in its own way, keeping us inside it. The mindset of scarcity is its own kind of trap.
The thing that cracked that open for me was Norway.
I lived there for ten years. Raised my kids there. And something subtle but profound shifted in me during that time. Norway operates from an assumption of abundance, not wealth exactly, but a cultural belief that there is enough. Enough esteem, enough opportunity, enough room. People work to live. They don’t live to work. Being inside that every day, raising a family inside that, changed something fundamental in how I see the world.
I came home and wrote a book about it. About what I learned. About the journey from a literal and figurative scarcity mindset to one where abundance isn’t something you earn. It’s something you recognize was always there.
The Ego Problem (And Why It Connects to Authority)
Here’s the thing about authority that doesn’t get said enough: ego competes, humility shares.
When you grow up in a scarcity culture, and American professional culture is deeply scarcity-driven, you internalize the idea that esteem is a limited resource. My shining injures your shining. So leadership becomes performance. Authority becomes posturing.
I know this pattern well. I lived it.
As I got closer to what you might call success, I found myself paralyzed by a strange fear. Not fear of failure. I’d already survived plenty of that. It was the fear of being seen. Specifically, the fear of being perceived as a braggart. Someone showing off.
Because I know both worlds. My old friends, the ones still operating in that competitive scarcity mindset, would see sharing my story as arrogance. And my newer friends, the egalitarian, humble ones I found along the way, might be put off by anything that smells like ego.
So I stayed quiet. Stayed small. Called it humility. But honestly? It was fear dressed up as virtue.
What This Season Taught Me
I’m older now, and I’ve learned to let that go.
Not because I stopped caring what people think. But because I finally got clear on why I want to share what I’ve learned. It’s not to impress anyone. It’s because the thing that actually brings me joy is helping people. Specifically people who look like my younger self: under-resourced, under-credentialed, and deeply capable.
My whole thing is breaking complexity down to something simple. Talking to my young, undereducated self with empathy, and trying to open doors that weren’t open for me.
That’s not arrogance. That’s service. And the difference matters.
Three Things I’m Building From That Place
Right now I have three projects that feel less like work and more like joy flowing naturally out of who I’ve become.
A new book. I’m writing about what it means to be human in an increasingly automated world, how we find ourselves, and each other, in the age of AI. Not a techno-panic book. A co-human book. About the space between the machines. I’m thrilled to share that it’s been picked up by the new SXSW Books imprint and will be launched at SXSW next year. So this panel feels like the beginning of something bigger, not just a conversation but a full circle moment.
The Archipelago is a resource companion site I’m building that uses AI and personal references to create an exhaustive toolbox for people looking to find space to be human. Think of it as a map for leaders creating room for the things that matter.
Handlekraft.ai is brand new and close to my heart. My son and I are in the discovery phase of a nonprofit that will provide free software tools to under-resourced nonprofits, and training to new product builders without formal education or traditional opportunities. The name in Norwegian means “the power to act,” which feels exactly right.
I’d love to talk to anyone about any of these. Seriously.
See You in Austin
This is why I said yes to the SXSW panel. Because the question of how leaders use their authority to drive real change isn’t abstract to me. It’s the question I’ve been living.
Real authority, I’ve come to believe, doesn’t come from position or credentials. It comes from earned trust, genuine transparency, and the willingness to share what you know from a place of care rather than competition.
That’s the conversation I want to have in Austin.
If you’re going to be at SXSW, I’d love for you to join us. The panel is “Authority That Drives Change: How Leaders Shape Societal Impact” and you can find it on the SXSW schedule here.
And if you’re not going to be there, that’s okay too. The conversation doesn’t stop in Austin. It’s just getting started.
Want to follow along? Check out The Archipelago and Handlekraft, and keep an eye here at betterplaces.blog.
Better Places 