You Are Not an Island
Hard things are easier when you stop trying to do all of them alone.
🌿 The Sweet Spot · Vol. 1 · Issue 018
Pivot With Purpose · Career Strategy · Macro Clarity · MyrtusHQ
THIS WEEK IN THE SWEET SPOT
We talk a lot about independence and being self-sufficient. I hear the term “Just figuring it out and do the hard thing.” But what I think people are missing is that you independence does not have to mean isolation. Some of the biggest changes in my career have come from other people. Lately I am thanks to so many people for accountability but I also have cheerleaders and people doing the hard work right alongside me. A quick shout out to you amazing people out there! You know who you are. So this week, I want to make the case for something very simple: Do more things with other people.
Essentially, find your study group, that amazing accountability partner or event ask the person who already knows how to do something to be your mentor or your teacher. You can also, talk to someone outside your normal professional circle. Sometimes, it just mans talking to a stranger at the next event instead of standing in the corner checking your phone………….. Just remember, you definitely do not have to do every hard thing alone.
THIS WEEK'S COMPASS
Don't confuse doing something difficult with having to do it by yourself.
Find the people who are moving in the same direction. You can also help somebody else and while you are doing all of that, remember to enjoy the journey.
There is very little extra credit for making the road unnecessarily lonely.
SECTION 01
Get Out of Your Own Head
Careers have a funny way of becoming individual sports. Think about it, you say My résumé, My certification, My promotion, My goals or My five-year plan but almost nothing meaningful happens entirely by yourself. This is especially important when everything around us feels like it is changing quickly and right now, a lot is changing. The U.S. economy is beginning to show more obvious sensitivity to higher interest rates. The average 30-year mortgage rate has climbed to about 7.4%, while October homebuilder sentiment fell to its lowest level in nearly fourteen and a half years. Builders are increasingly cutting prices and offering incentives because affordability is constraining buyers.
At the same time, September inflation came in hotter than expected, leaving the Federal Reserve with a difficult balancing act between persistent inflation and an economy in which credit-sensitive households and businesses are increasingly feeling the cost of higher rates.
Housing matters here for more than the obvious reason, for many households, the home is the largest asset they own. It is also collateral. When rates rise, it is not only more expensive to buy the next house. It becomes more expensive to access the equity in the house you already own. Add expensive credit cards, auto financing and other consumer borrowing, and tighter monetary policy begins traveling through the economy in ways that may not immediately appear in a headline housing statistic.
Everything connects. The economy isn't an island either and neither are you.
SECTION 02
The Signal From Sturnella
Nothing important is being built alone.
Gold provides an interesting example of the push and pull in the current environment. Higher Treasury yields and a stronger dollar remain headwinds for a non-yielding asset like gold. On October 19, spot gold was trading around $4,144 an ounce as elevated yields weighed on prices. But persistent inflation, fiscal concerns, geopolitical uncertainty and growing stress in interest-rate-sensitive parts of the economy continue to provide a competing safe-haven argument but the signal I really want to focus on this week is not gold. It is collaboration.
SIGNAL 01 · PROJECT VAULT IS A NETWORK
Project Vault is beginning to move from financial architecture toward physical execution.
EXIM approved up to $10 billion in long-term financing for the initiative, alongside nearly $2 billion in private-sector investment, to create a strategic critical-minerals reserve intended to help U.S. manufacturers manage supply disruptions but look at how the system actually works. A manufacturer needs a material someone then must know where that material can be sourced, procure it, finance it, transport it, store it, manage the inventory and eventually someone has to deliver it to the company that needs it.
In September, Glencore and Mercuria became the first commodity-trading participants in VaultCo, committing a combined $1 billion to procure and stockpile critical minerals. Their existing sourcing, logistics, financing and distribution networks are precisely what make them useful to the structure.
That is what makes Project Vault interesting to me.
The solution is not: Find one organization capable of doing everything but build a network of organizations that each know how to do something well.
Careers work like that too.
SIGNAL 02 · THE MIDDLE STILL MATTERS
This is another version of the theme we have been following in Sturnella Signals for months.
Mine the material, process it, separate it, refine it and turn it into something usable, then manufacture the component, put the component into a larger system.
Every arrow represents another company, another capability and another group of people. That "missing middle" is increasingly where both the difficulty and the opportunity sit and you do not need to personally understand every step. You need to know: Which step do I understand? then: Who understands the steps around mine? That is how an ecosystem forms.
SIGNAL 03 · CAPITAL NEEDS PEOPLE
Today, JPMorgan Chase announced that it has deployed or committed $5 billion of equity into companies tied to U.S. economic and national security through its Security and Resiliency Initiative, targeting areas including advanced manufacturing, energy infrastructure, supply chains and next-generation defense technologies.
Last week's Sweet Spot made the point that capability often follows a long middle:
decision → effort → repetition → capability → opportunity.
This week, I would add one thing. Almost every step in that sequence involves other people.
SECTION 03
The 1-Pomodoro Career Map
Map your people, not your tasks.
Set a timer for 25 minutes and get a notebook. This week, do not write another to-do list.
Put yourself in the middle of the page. Then start drawing outward.
1 · WHO IS BESIDE YOU?
Who is trying to accomplish something similar? Maybe you are studying for the same certification, trying to exercise consistently, l earning a new field, building a business, writing or looking for another role. You don't necessarily need a mentor. Sometimes you need someone at exactly the same mile marker.
Ask: Who could become my study partner, accountability partner or brainstorming partner?
Write down two names.
2 · WHO IS AHEAD OF YOU?
Who has already done something you are trying to do? Not somebody thirty years ahead. Someone close enough that their path still looks recognizable. Instead of spending three months trying to reverse-engineer everything yourself, ask them one question.
What do you wish you had known when you were where I am?
One conversation can save an extraordinary amount of unnecessary wandering.
3 · WHO IS OUTSIDE YOUR LANE?
This might be the most useful category. Find people who see problems completely differently from you.
- Finance + engineering.
- Cyber + operations.
- Marketing + manufacturing.
- Mining + technology.
- Legal + sales.
- Public sector + private sector.
The point is not networking for networking's sake. Different disciplines notice different parts of the same system. Find somebody who sees something you don't.
4 · HAVE ONE NEW CONVERSATION
Attend something, an association meeting, a lecture, a professional event, a class, a volunteer activity, a conference or simply introduce yourself to the person sitting beside you. Here is the important part: Do not begin by wondering what they can do for you.
Get curious. Ask what they are working on? Ask what they are excited about? Ask how they ended up doing what they do?..... Just see where the conversation goes.
5 · ASK FOR ONE SMALL PIECE OF HELP
This does not need to be a giant favor.
Try:
“I'm trying to understand _______. Is there someone you think I should talk to?”
Or:
“I'm thinking about doing _______. Is there anything you think I'm overlooking?”
Or simply:
“How would you approach this?”
Then listen. Your career map should contain people, not just destinations.
SECTION 04
AI That Helps
Use AI to find better conversations — not fewer conversations.
This week, use AI as a connector of ideas.
Start with:
AI PROMPT
“I am trying to learn more about [topic]. My professional background is [background]. Give me five different types of people who would each see this subject from a very different perspective.”
Then:
AI PROMPT
“For each of those people, give me three thoughtful questions I could ask that would help me understand how they see the problem.”
Then bring in the macro themes:
AI PROMPT
“I keep seeing investment and policy attention around manufacturing, critical minerals, AI, cybersecurity, infrastructure and supply-chain resilience. What professional disciplines intersect with these trends that I may not immediately think about?”
And finally:
AI PROMPT
“Suggest professional associations, conferences, university events, volunteer organizations or other communities where someone interested in these topics could meet people actually doing the work.”
Then close the laptop, because this exercise only works if you actually go out into the world and talk to people. AI can help you identify the room but it cannot have coffee or in our case hot chocolate with you.
SECTION 05
Recharge
🍂 THE DARE: MAKE SOMETHING FALL
Do something creative this week simply because it feels like fall. Write a fall poem. It can be terrible, laughing, in fact, maybe it should be.
Watch a movie that makes you think of autumn. Draw the tree outside your window or take photographs of changing leaves. You could possibly, make something out of leaves and I would love to see if you so.
Bake something involving cinnamon and put on music and dance to it. Go to an art store and buy something you haven't used since you were a kid. There is no productivity objective here. Nobody needs to see the result and you don't have to post it.
Creativity is allowed to exist simply because it feels good and because of this week's theme, consider inviting someone along. Invite a friend over for coffee while you both do something creative. Sometimes even recharge is better in company.
YOUR PRACTICE
One Small Assignment
01 · Ask one person for help.
Something small you have been trying to figure out by yourself.
02 · Find someone working toward the same goal.
You don't have to be at exactly the same stage.
03 · Meet one person outside your normal circle.
Get curious about how they see the world.
04 · Ask more questions than you answer.
Listen.
05 · Offer to help someone else.
Networks work in both directions.
06 · Do something enjoyable with another person.
Because the point is not simply to get somewhere.
You are allowed to enjoy getting there.
We celebrate independence and we should. There is tremendous value in knowing that you can figure things out, survive difficult periods and keep moving when something is hard. But being capable of doing something alone does not mean you always should. Some of the best things in a career come from conversations you could never have planned.
- Someone with a completely different background sees the problem differently.
- Someone knows the thing you don't.
- Someone introduces you to someone else.
- Someone believes in the idea before you quite do.
And sometimes someone simply walks beside you while you figure it out.
So this week, make your world a little bigger.
Find your people. Meet someone new. Ask the question. Offer your perspective.
See what happens. You are not an island.
🌿 THE SWEET SPOT
Read the signal · Find your position · Move with purpose
Myrtus
Career insights for people who want to pivot with purpose.
This newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment, legal, accounting or cybersecurity advice. Market information is time-sensitive and may change after publication.