🌱 How a LinkedIn comment turned into a real friendship

Here’s your 3 insights in 3 minutes.

👋 New LinkedIn Homie

Did we just become best friends?

My friendship with Morgan Johnson started the most modern way possible:

A comment thread on LinkedIn.
Then a DM.
Then a Zoom call.

We originally connected over a shared obsession with the personal annual review process. (I wrote about that here.)

But once we started talking, the conversation went somewhere else fast.

We ended up talking about discomfort.

Not in the “motivation quote” way.
In a real way.

Morgan moved to NYC from Wales and has worked at hedge funds and startups.

Quickly into our Zoom call, he shared a story that stuck with me... and I appreciated how quickly he opened up. (also: he has A+ Welsh accent)

His prior company went bankrupt.

So badly that Harvard wrote a case study on the failure.

For a long time, he wanted nothing to do with it.

Then he got invited to speak at Harvard 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 the failure.
He almost didn’t go.
But he decided to lean into it.

That single decision became a lead domino.

It started with him posting about it on LinkedIn.
Which led to a VC friend reaching out.
Which led to a keynote and a facilitated session with 120+ CEOs.

All because he walked straight toward the thing he wanted to avoid.

In the words of Yo Gotti, “it goes down in the DM”

🧠 Three Takeaways

After the call, I had 3 big takeaways.

𝟭) 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗲𝗱𝘀 𝘂𝗽 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽.
When you consistently share ideas, you skip the small talk. You’ve already “met.”

𝟮) 𝗚𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲.
Commenting, DM’ing, and suggesting a Zoom call lands differently when you’ve already shared how you think.

𝟯) 𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲. 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗶𝘀.
AI can summarize anything. What’s rare is lived experience and the willingness to share what actually mattered.

🤔 Avoidance

“Most people spend their lives avoiding the very things that would set them free.”

— David Foster Wallace

Morgan stopped avoiding the thing he didn’t want to touch.
And it changed the entire trajectory of his work.

I noticed something similar when I stopped living in contrast.

Full-time job on one side. Side projects on the other. Always half-stepping.

Different examples of the same pattern.

Salud,
Mitchell

Ps. What are you avoiding? (hit reply and let me know)