🌱 The note you don’t want to write
Write the uncomfortable note, make one small promise, and keep a receipt by day’s end.
🌱 Welcome to this week’s issue of Clarity Letters from Mindset Rebuild, providing you with a small, honest move to start the week.
✌️ One idea you can run today.
🙌 One useful page and one quiet win.
🫶 You’re on the free plan: Monday’s Clarity Letters and Friday’s The Shift. If you want the mid-week build notes and copy-ready cards, upgrade for Wednesday’s Leadership Architecture.
Some Mondays bring noise your calendar didn’t schedule.
Nothing’s on fire, yet a few decisions feel heavier than they should. When that happens, I’ve learned to look for the thing I’m avoiding writing down.
Lately, I’ve been borrowing a small move from Charles Darwin.
In his notebooks, he made himself a promise: when a fact contradicted his favourite idea, he would write it immediately, because if he didn’t, he knew he’d forget it.
Not because he lacked discipline, but because our brains protect what they already believe. He treated the uncomfortable note as a kindness to his future self.
Different century, same usefulness. Most founder weeks don’t need a bigger plan; they need the sentence we don’t want to admit yet.
the quiet inventory
I’m running a lighter version of Darwin’s move this week. It’s not homework; more like a quick truth you can live with.
Pick one area that keeps dragging (message, handoff, price, hiring; it’ll be obvious). Ask two lines:
What am I saying out loud?
What did last week actually show me?
Fragments count.
You might find, for example, that your “clear” message only exists in a draft no one has read.
Or that your “simple” handoff always begins with a question no one writes down.
Or that “everyone agrees” survives only inside the meeting where it was born.
None of this is failure. It’s what you see when you allow one note to be more valid than your wish.
the small promise that changes the feel
After the note, I make one promise for the day:
By 5 p.m., something will be available for another person to use.
Not a performance challenge. A re-entry point.
One short paragraph you actually send, and someone replies to.
One line that names who owns a recurring choice and when you’ll look again.
One page that prevents the Tuesday question. Small, specific, visible.
Darwin would have called it an observation. I think of it as a receipt.
Daylight typically appears once a receipt is available.
a story to carry into this week
Darwin wasn’t collecting contradictions to feel clever; he wanted to be less fooled by himself.
That posture works in our world, too. If the line that people answer isn’t the one you loved, keep the line they answered.
If the “ugly” checklist prevents rework, keep using it until you learn to make it simple and straightforward.
If a decision only travels when it lives on a small page with a review date, give it a home and a date. Just so you know, no speeches are required.
Relief sets in the minute observation takes over. Not because the puzzle is solved, but because you stopped paying a tax to pretend.
questions I’m carrying (borrow any)
Where am I confident out loud but uncertain on paper?
What did I expect last week that never happened, and what actually did?
If I could keep one receipt from today, which would deserve the folder?
a simple way to close the loop tonight
Before bed, look once. One line is enough:
Did one valuable thing exist?
What did it teach me?
If nothing existed, that’s a note too. You’ll see why by mid-week.
If something did, paste the link where you can find it tomorrow without thinking. That’s how a week keeps its edges.
why this matters now
This season carries its own weather: year-end lists, early closures, family rhythms.
It’s tempting to declare a new system and then disappear under it. A single honest note and a small promise will travel through noisy days better than a clever plan.
With a clear head and a lighter grip,
~Warren
P.S.
If you’d like a quiet 90 minutes to examine one knot with me—no slides, just clear observation and a workable next step—the Clarity Sprint is open. Unsure if it fits? Reply with one sentence about the knot, and I’ll point you to the simplest first move.