The Preserve
Come See What We're Exploring
Some of it starts with business advice we've heard so many times that we've stopped questioning it. Some starts with an advertisement or offer that makes me curious about what's being promised, what's being assumed, or who it might actually work for. And sometimes, the most interesting discoveries come from talking to someone whose experiences and perspective are different from my own.
The idea is to look a little closer, consider what we might be missing, and see what turns up.
The Investigations
Advice Investigations
You've probably heard business advice like you need to be consistent, batch your content, develop a morning routine, or just keep showing up if you want your business to succeed.
But what does that advice actually mean? What assumptions is it built on? Under what conditions does it work beautifully, and when might following it create more problems than it solves?
That's what I explore in the Advice Investigations.
I'm not setting out to prove that conventional business advice is wrong. Some of it is genuinely useful. But usefulness depends on circumstances, and advice that works for one person may be impractical, unnecessary, or even counterproductive for someone else.
I pull apart the assumptions, examine the conditions, and explore other ways to reach the intended destination.
Public Ad/Offer Investigations
Every advertisement and offer tells us something about what a business believes its potential customers want, need, understand, or are willing to do.
Sometimes those assumptions are obvious. Sometimes they're buried in the details. And sometimes an offer raises interesting questions about who it's really designed for, what someone needs to have in place to benefit from it, or what possibilities might exist beyond the ones being presented.
In these investigations, I examine advertisements and offers from the outside, using only what's publicly available. Unless an investigation is paid and explicitly identified as public, I remove identifying details from the ads and offers being examined. I'm not auditing someone's business or pretending to know what happens behind the scenes. I'm exploring what the material communicates to me, what I think it assumes, and what else might be worth considering.
The point isn't to declare something good or bad. It's to notice things that might otherwise go unquestioned.
Business, Actually
I also happen to love interviewing people.
Business, Actually is my podcast, where I sit down with entrepreneurs and other interesting people to explore a single piece of advice they've received, given, followed, rejected, or reconsidered. I also talk with entrepreneurs whose businesses, offers, or ways of operating appear to work particularly well for people navigating constraints on their time, energy, health, resources, or predictability.
We get into the circumstances surrounding that advice, what happened when they put it into practice, and what they think about it now. We also explore how businesses and offers are structured, what makes them workable under different conditions, and what other entrepreneurs might find useful or interesting about those approaches.
It's an opportunity to hear how different people have navigated their businesses, what they've learned along the way, and how their experiences might complicate some of the tidy answers we're accustomed to hearing.
You can listen to the conversations through The Preserve on Substack or find Business, Actually on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
And Then There's Instagram
Not everything I notice turns into an investigation or a podcast episode.
Sometimes it's a photograph from one of my walks, a video of something interesting happening in the woods or along the shoreline, or an observation that doesn't need several paragraphs to make its point.
Instagram is where I share my nature photography, short videos, observations, and occasional business-related content. It's another way to follow along with what catches my attention, whether that's an interesting business assumption or a roseate spoonbill having a particularly enthusiastic bath.
Go Explore
The Preserve lives on Substack, where you can browse the investigations, read whatever interests you, and listen to the conversations. Everything there is free, and you can subscribe if you'd like new pieces delivered to your inbox.
Or you can simply wander in whenever you're curious.