Now · November 2026
The bets I was making in November 2026.
An archived entry.. what I was actually changing, focused on, and being changed by that month, kept exactly as it was written.
The bets
What I am changing this month.
Work is enforced by a machine now, not by trust
The morning brief showed up thirty days out of thirty without me touching it. Not glamorous.. it means I can stop checking. Then I told Meera the briefs were so long they were getting ignored, and we moved to one item at a time, like texting. Shorter, and each one gets an answer. I am learning to let a machine hold the standard so I do not have to hold it in my head.
I kept moving, even on the go
I was traveling for a good part of October and still shipped. One hundred and sixty one pull requests merged under my name across eight repos.. most of them in The Cooling Company gateway and in Elysium. Petunia got work on days I was supposed to be off. I did a few more workouts than normal and want to keep that going. Overcoming the moments where I am not proud, or do not feel like it, and still moving. Showing up day after day, especially when it is hard.
Let one true thing be seen
I spoke at Bloom in Las Vegas, about fifty people in the room, about building with agents. And I published Unwitnessed, the second of the three Stakes in the Sand essays. Both were the same move.. say the true thing out loud instead of rounding it up or hiding the parts that do not fit.
Composure is the whole game
The thing I am working on that I do not love admitting: when I lose my cool, or lose the approachable version of me, it costs me my self respect. It makes me question myself. So this month the practice is noticing it sooner. I set a bar so high I sometimes forget to witness, or acknowledge, or appreciate what I actually got done. Going back and reading the record helps.
We have to start making money
I say it to Meera and I say it to myself. Petunia answers real calls for a real company, and the pieces for agents to earn and pay for their own work exist. What is missing is the first dollar that arrives without me pushing it. That is the bet for November.
The questions
What I am focused on.
Why do I care so much about what people think?
I asked two neighbors for a recommendation and neither answered, and it bothered me for days. I do not think I am afraid of opinions. I think I am afraid of being misread. Unwitnessed, not unlovable. Those are different fixes.
What does it mean for an agent to actually understand me?
Not one that does what I say. One that knows what to do before I ask, and sometimes does it better than I would have asked. We are not there yet. I can feel the distance between every message I send and what comes back.
Why does each message feel so expensive?
Speed, quality, memory, cost. A regular conversation with my own system should feel light. It does not yet, and I want to know exactly where the weight is.
Reading
Thinking about
- And more work on Elysium, the thing running underneath all of it.. it is getting good
This is the current month. See the live /now page.