Crackerjack
n. Something that is exceptionally fine or splendid. Also, a person who is exceptionally skilful or expert.
adj. Exceptionally fine or good; of marked excellence or ability.
Crackerjack is a weekly newsletter about the angst that gets wrapped up with using our brains and talents. It’s for everyone who worries they’ll die with their potential untapped, or is exhausted by the daily fight to engage their work. And it’s also for everyone who struggles to take time off or enjoy it, because they think their only worth lies in chasing an ever-receding goal post.
And it’s for those of us—the majority, I think—who somehow manage to have both those fucking problems simultaneously.
We wind up in this boat because of what I call internal resistance. That’s the thing in our brains that makes something that on paper should be easy and fun—doing things we are good at—inexplicably difficult and miserable.
Eradicating internal resistance became my specialty because a) it nearly defeated me and b) as a professor I saw it taking out immensely talented people on a daily basis—and not just the students. I also saw it blighting the life of friends with very different skills and goals, from software developers to song writers to entrepreneurs.
One of my missions in life is to enable other people to escape this struggle for good. So I share writing about it for free here and elsewhere, and I also help people directly in my ultra small-group programme, Blazing Talents. If you want to know more about my coaching and the kind of results people get working with me, you can check that out here.
I’m also a professor of contemporary literature, culture and theory in London, though I’m originally from Michigan. I’ve been in the UK for about 20 years, and I still sound like I just left a Midwestern-mall foodcourt yesterday. I am also Gen X to the bone (I was born the same month and year as Jay-Z, Jennifer Anniston and Spike Jones), and I will never, ever, ever stop saying ‘fuck’ on the internet (sorry, Dad).
My writing here ranges from practical analysis and advice to more exploratory essays on how we think about talent, through media like songs. For more cultural type stuff, you can check out Perceived, my other still nascent newsletter.
You can also read more from me in the practical vein over on Medium. If you need a non-paywalled link for any of my Medium stories, DM me.
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