Staring at the mirror, focusing on our appearance. It’s an empty pursuit of a not-very-worthwhile goal.

But modern vanity is amplified. Culture hooked the toxic emotion of shame to vanity. Now, instead of a chance to be seen and admired, vanity is mostly about avoiding the risk of being shamed for not being enough, not successful enough, or, worse, of failing.

This new version of vanity isn’t about being the prettiest, it’s avoiding being not-pretty.

If we erect the deal-killer of shame around not-pretty, then society can extend that shame into all sorts of not. Not-competent. Not-respected. Not-fit. They call social media numbers “vanity metrics” for a reason.

It’s selfish. Not the selfish of hoarding resources, but the defensive decision to hold things back. To sabotage our process and our practice so we’re not exposed.

And it scales:

Aspiration has a ceiling. You can become pretty enough, accomplished enough, respected enough — and stop. There’s a destination.

Avoidance has no floor. The threat of not-pretty (or not-competent, not-respected or any other imagined failure) is always right behind you. You can never outrun it permanently. Every achievement resets the clock. It can feel like a useful fuel, but it’s not.

Society industrializes this. Once we’ve established that not-X is shameful we have a permanent threat that leads to self-policing behavior. We enforce it on ourselves and those we care about.

If you didn’t care about blame or credit, what would you ship? What would you teach, invent or contribute?

The answer tells you what you’re withholding — and from whom.

Disappearing into apparent safety isn’t safe. It’s an empty and selfish way to make yourself small.

        

When Sony launched its cheap portable radio more than sixty years ago, it came with a headphone. For the first time in history, teenagers could listen to music without their parents eavesdropping. This opened the door to Chuck Berry and then the Beatles.

AM radio needed hits, the top 40, mass music, and the Beatles made it work.

Steely Dan came from FM radio. Once the number of stations doubled, these new stations needed an alternative to the more common AM hits. And so we get the Doors and Jimi Hendrix.

Rap and hip hop had a hard time getting past the primarily white program directors, and it wasn’t until MTV began featuring it that it spread to millions.

And Taylor Swift and Elle Cordova would have had a hard time catching on without YouTube.

It extends far beyond music. The launch of the Gutenberg press changed the politics of Europe for a century, and the rise of radio in the 1920s did the same. The smartphone has transformed our discourse and created division in the same way.

We’re now facing the biggest shuffling of media in our history. The messages will inevitably change as a result.

Full credit to McLuhan.

        

On the other hand, the model for a brand or a community or a movement is to relentlessly generate value, connection and possibility. Growth can be sustainable and occasionally exponential.

Too often, we slip into the lazy mindset of extraction. Take a great brand and milk it as it fades from neglect. Stop reinvesting in assets because it’s cheaper in the short run to simply take profits. Coast on a hard-won reputation because it feels safer.

When we wring our hands about private equity ruining organizations, it’s mostly because they often follow the lazy and fearful path of extraction instead of committing to generating something new.

Sometimes, extraction is our best option. But it probably pays to call it that to eliminate frustration and confusion.

        

Don’t put kerosene in an electric car. It won’t work. Don’t give your dog dark chocolate, it’ll make him sick.

And yet, we often hesitate to be honest about what gets us moving.

What puts something at the top of your priority list, or pushes you to put in extra effort? What challenges or rewards do you keep coming back to, gig after gig, job after job?

Here are few to get you started:

• Extinguishing emergencies
• Going a little faster than the person next to you
• Pleasing the boss
• Undermining the boss (class clown)
• Establishing a web of safety
• Running away from safety
• Earning trust
• Getting your way
• Feeling safe
• Feeling alive
• Feeling vindicated
• Showing the skeptics that we’re right
• Staying out of the spotlight

Someone who is free climbing at Yosemite probably has different fuel than the person on the treadmill at the gym. The emergency room doctor is not the same as someone working in public health.

The structure, shared measurements and near universal recognition of a quest for an Olympic medal can capture an athlete’s life for ten years–but then, once they retire from this special condition, it’s possible that they’ll never again find this sort of motivation.

“How are you?” is a benign question, but the honest answer might reveal which fuel we’re focusing on, helping us see what we’re drawn to–and it’s rarely universal. That’s part of the hiding. We’d like to believe that anyone else facing the same choices we have would use the same fuel and demand the same priorities we do. Look around. Fuel isn’t universal.

If the fuel you’ve chosen is helping you get to where you want to go, that’s fabulous. For most of us, though, it might be worth a pause to consider whether it’s what we really need to fill our days or create the change we seek.

        

When this occurs, most then take profits. They decrease service, increase pricing and generally seek payback for the work they did to get to this position.

But there’s another path.

Every change creates tension. And if you’ve got lock in and loyalty, you can create that tension without losing too many customers.

What if you use that tension to persistently and markedly improve the experience? Not to make it more convenient, but to make it worth the effort to learn to do better?

On a good day, that’s what companies like Apple do.

Most of the time, the MBAs push for the short-term profit taking we’re all used to (and tired of).

But if you get the chance, perhaps you can help people get to where they seek to go, even if the journey requires effort for you and for them.

        

The opposite of mass is special.

People who have chosen not to be in the mass market. People who want something else. Perhaps something better, certainly something interesting.

You can seek to serve the masses.

Or you can make something special. For people seeking special.

        

Danny Meyer has changed the way we think about hospitality and what it’s like to eat out. His new book comes out in a few days, and it was a great excuse for two friends to sit down and talk about solving problems.

Your turn. Go host your own KnotChat. Thanks for reading and for leading.

        

Or do the very difficult work of changing their state.

        

Our work, though, does have a purpose. The change we seek to make. The people we’re here to make it for.

When we commit to work with purpose, it transforms us as well as the people we’re engaging with.

Who’s it for, what’s it for… if we can continue to return to the purpose of this product, this meeting, this ad–then we can find a common language and coordinate our efforts to make a difference.

Resistance pushes us in many ways. It pushes us to imagine that our work isn’t for us, we’re just biding time until we get to the real stuff. It pushes us to deny responsibility or to blame the system. And mostly, it pushes us to refuse to name the purpose of how we’re spending our time.

Stuck is just another word for being conflicted about our purpose. The knot holds us back because we’ve become entangled in goals that are mutually exclusive.