| 🌿 The Sweet Spot |
Vol. 1 · Issue 010
Monday, August 24, 2026 |
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| Pivot With Purpose · Career strategy · Macro clarity · MyrtusHQ Career Signal · In Your 30s |
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This week in The Sweet Spot
Your 30s:
Find Your Pacers.
You are no longer trying to get into the race. In your thirties, you get to decide who you want running beside you because the opportunities that matter, and the encouragement, increasingly travel through people.
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This week's compass
Do not wait until you need people to go and meet them. Build the circle now, while there is nothing you need from it.
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Section 01
Find Your Rhythm
By your thirties you are a few miles in. This is a good point in the race to look around.
I recently turned fifty, and I have been thinking about what I wish I understood at each decade of my career. For your twenties, my advice was get the first foothold. For your thirties, it is much simpler: go meet people. Lots of them and have fun doing it.
Think about your career as a marathon. Your twenties were the starting line too much adrenaline, people sprinting who absolutely should not be sprinting, and no real idea yet what the next twenty-six miles are going to feel like.
By your thirties, you are maybe five miles in. (I love marathon analogies.) You have found something resembling a rhythm. You know a little more about what you are good at. You have made a few mistakes. Some early ambitions have survived contact with reality; others have quietly disappeared.
So look around. Who is running beside you? Who makes the miles more enjoyable? Who knows something you don't? Who is a little faster than you not so far ahead you can't imagine catching them, but far enough that watching how they run might teach you something? Who is standing along the course cheering loudly enough that, ten miles from now when it gets hard, you will be so glad they are there? Not just mentors. Friends, colleagues, former coworkers, clients, competitors you genuinely like, people you meet by complete accident. Build a big circle, the stronger the connection the bigger the verity the better.
Your thirties are the decade to find your pacers (your people).
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Section 02
The Signal From Sturnella
You don't have to predict the next decade. You only have to notice where momentum is gathering and go meet the people already there.
SIGNAL 01 · WHERE MOMENTUM IS GATHERING
The industrial-base rebuild keeps widening.
The activity tracked in Sturnella Signals increasingly reaches past mines and factories into the middle of the supply chain processing, recovery, transmission, research, manufacturing capacity and the infrastructure around it. You do not need to quit your job and become a metallurgist. But if an industry is gaining momentum, this is a wonderful time to know a few people who understand it.
SIGNAL 02 · THE COMPOUNDING ASSET
Relationships compound like nothing else.
Attend the panel. Go to the association event. Ask the person working in the field if they'd like coffee not because you need something from them today, but because they are working on interesting problems. Ten years is an extraordinarily long time for that kind of relationship to compound.
The opportunities that matter increasingly travel through people. So does the encouragement.
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Section 03
The 1-Pomodoro Career Map
Spend 25 minutes mapping the people around your career — not the jobs.
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Your current pacers. Write down five people you genuinely enjoy talking to professionally. Who makes you smarter? Who encourages you? Who tells you the truth? |
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The runner slightly ahead. Find three people three to seven years ahead of you. Not the famous CEO but someone whose career makes you think, I could imagine getting there. |
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Your outside lane. Pick one industry, profession or subject adjacent to yours that looks interesting. Find one organization, event or gathering where those people spend time. |
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Your internal network. Look inside your own organization. Who works in a department you barely understand: finance, operations, engineering, legal, sales, technology? Ask one of them for coffee and learn what their world looks like. |
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Your cheerleaders. Who can you call when the marathon gets ugly? Career infrastructure is not only professional expertise. It is the people who remind you who you are. |
Careers are built on jobs but they are carried by people.
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Section 04
AI That Helps
Use AI to find the room. You still have to walk through the door.
AI is very good at helping you discover where interesting people gather. Try this:
“I work in [industry] and live near [city]. I want to expand my professional and social network without attending generic networking events. Find industry associations, lectures, professional groups, volunteer organizations, conferences, meetups and recurring events within reasonable travel distance that attract people interested in [three areas]. Prioritize places where conversation happens naturally rather than large expos.”
Then narrow it down:
“Which five of these would actually be enjoyable for someone who likes [your interests]?”
The goal isn't forty-seven events on your calendar. It is to find one room you would genuinely like to walk into. AI can find the room. You still have to walk through the door.
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Section 05
Make It Doable
Networking gets unpleasant the moment it becomes a transaction. So don't make it one.
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Meet one person for coffee, tea or hot chocolate (the house favorite). Preferably somewhere you wanted to visit anyway. Let the setting do some of the work. |
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Say yes to one gathering. An exhibit, a talk, an industry breakfast, a volunteer shift. Proximity to interesting people is the whole point. |
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Message one old coworker you actually miss. No agenda. No ask. Just a genuine reconnection with someone you were glad to know. |
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Ask one person how they got involved. Find someone working on something interesting and ask how they got there. People love telling that story. |
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Go somewhere simply because it sounds fun. Some people you meet become colleagues, clients, or your next job. Some become lifelong friends. And plenty are just interesting people you were lucky to know. That counts too. |
You are building a life, not populating a CRM.
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Section 06
Recharge
Careers turn our attention relentlessly inward. This week, point some of it back outward.
🌳 THE DARE: FIND A TREE OR SOME WATER
Am I progressing? Am I earning enough? Should I be further ahead? What is everyone else doing? This week, quiet all of that. Find a tree. Or a river, a lake, a pond laughing, maybe even a fountain will do. Sit down.
Read a fiction book that has absolutely nothing to do with improving yourself. Watch a duck conduct whatever important duck business is happening. Look for fish. Listen to a waterfall. Notice the wind moving through the leaves. For a little while, there is nowhere else you need to get to.
Even marathon runners stop at the water station.
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Your Practice
One Small Assignment
01 Write down five people already in your life you want to keep running beside.
02 Find one person slightly ahead of you whose career you would genuinely like to learn from.
03 Find one organization or event outside your normal professional circle.
04 Ask one person to coffee, tea or hot chocolate.
05 Reconnect with one old colleague or friend without asking them for anything.
06 Find a tree or some water. Sit there for twenty minutes.
That is enough. Find your rhythm. Find your pacers. Build your circle.
Your thirties are not only about building a career. They are when you start building the community that may carry you through the rest of it. Next in the series: your 40s, when the race starts asking a different question.
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THE SWEET SPOT
Read the signal · Find your position · Move with purpose
myrtushq.com
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Sturnella Signals
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