For everyone who loves strategy, storytelling, making an impression, and making money, from a writer with 20+ years of success in building brands with words.
Oh my goodness!! Celebrity follower! YOU taught me how important it is to know, to love, and to break the rules. I hope I do your teachings justice! xoxo
Welcome to Substack, Nora! You are so right about the importance of knowing the rules as the first step to breaking them—the “where they came from, why they exist and the context they operate in.” I worked in local government for almost 30 years. The first thing I did before starting a new job in a new city was to read the “municipal code,” the document of governing laws (rules). I realized that every law was there for a reason—either to prevent something bad from happening or to incentivize something good. But some were no longer relevant or applicable in an ever-changing world. They were crying out to be broken—or at least modernized. I applied continuous improvement to my work—making rules better, making them make sense, making them work for the communities I served instead of forcing the community to work for them. It took analysis, thoughtfulness, and a lot of public input. I like to think I helped make those communities better because of it. So here’s to breaking rules—not by taking a scorched earth approach, but by deliberately looking for the new — the better.
BTW, I started a Substack newsletter on my birthday too (yesterday). Happy Birthday to us!
Yes!! Exactly this. Kudos to you for actually digging through the municipal code, that's no small feat. I worked briefly doing environmental research for Georgia and at the end of my term, I remember talking to my program director about how arbitrary it all seemed--but in an empowering way, because then there was room to change or modernize the laws, as you say. Which we need!
I'll check out your stack! Happy Birthday Capricorn!
Love this line: “Finding a way to express the thing that has yet to be expressed, but exists; is absolutely a truth of real human experience.” A good way to name exactly what AI cannot do! Excited to read more of your lines to come.
Thank you Elizabeth! You are so right--there are still some things only us feeling, living beings have in our toolboxes! For now... (more on that later ;)
I am so excited!!
Yes to knowing the rules well enough to break them on purpose and purposefully. I look forward to following your exciting new blog, Nora!
Oh my goodness!! Celebrity follower! YOU taught me how important it is to know, to love, and to break the rules. I hope I do your teachings justice! xoxo
Welcome to Substack, Nora! You are so right about the importance of knowing the rules as the first step to breaking them—the “where they came from, why they exist and the context they operate in.” I worked in local government for almost 30 years. The first thing I did before starting a new job in a new city was to read the “municipal code,” the document of governing laws (rules). I realized that every law was there for a reason—either to prevent something bad from happening or to incentivize something good. But some were no longer relevant or applicable in an ever-changing world. They were crying out to be broken—or at least modernized. I applied continuous improvement to my work—making rules better, making them make sense, making them work for the communities I served instead of forcing the community to work for them. It took analysis, thoughtfulness, and a lot of public input. I like to think I helped make those communities better because of it. So here’s to breaking rules—not by taking a scorched earth approach, but by deliberately looking for the new — the better.
BTW, I started a Substack newsletter on my birthday too (yesterday). Happy Birthday to us!
Yes!! Exactly this. Kudos to you for actually digging through the municipal code, that's no small feat. I worked briefly doing environmental research for Georgia and at the end of my term, I remember talking to my program director about how arbitrary it all seemed--but in an empowering way, because then there was room to change or modernize the laws, as you say. Which we need!
I'll check out your stack! Happy Birthday Capricorn!
Love this line: “Finding a way to express the thing that has yet to be expressed, but exists; is absolutely a truth of real human experience.” A good way to name exactly what AI cannot do! Excited to read more of your lines to come.
Thank you Elizabeth! You are so right--there are still some things only us feeling, living beings have in our toolboxes! For now... (more on that later ;)