Some of you have been here since The Excellence Factory was a a concept on the back of a Starbucks napkin.
Some of you bought the book.
Some of you I met once, in a room you've probably forgotten.
I haven't.
So before anything else: thank you for still being here.
A lot has changed, and I never really stopped to say it out loud. Let me catch you up.
A few years ago I bluffed my way through an interview at Brown. They asked me which CRM was best. I didn't really know. So I named the one I knew, looked the whole room in the eyes, and promised I'd move the university over to it if they hired me.
They did.
Brown is one of those places where opportunity comes knocking just because you're standing there. I went from watching Game of Thrones at night to tea time with U.S. ambassadors. It cracked open a world I didn't know existed.
I started calling it the invisible economy.
The unwritten rules. The relationships. The timing that quietly decides who moves up and who keeps waiting.
Once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it. And I knew I had to leave higher ed, the only world I'd ever built an identity in.
It took 20 interviews to get out.
Twenty. (One percent hire rate, if you're keeping score.)
What those interviews opened up still doesn't feel real to type. Pitching the CEO. Building an HBCU strategy across a whole company. Work that touched the White House, the Olympics, the Alvin Ailey team.
I don't tell you that to flex.
I tell you because one leap showed me the whole game. And I'd rather hand you the map than keep it to myself.
That's what all of this is now. One thing with one job: bring you into the rooms.
The Invisible Interview is the book. The rules under the rules of how careers actually move.
The Excellence Factory Show is the new part. I'm done reaching up for the biggest voice in the room. I'd rather reach across.
Issa Rae put it better than I could:
"We have a tendency of trying to network up, but it's really about networking across. Who's next to you? Who's struggling? Who's in the trenches with you? Who's just as hungry as you are? Those are the people you need to build with."
That's the whole show. The people building something real all around you, the ones nobody has handed a mic. So I'm handing them one.
And this newsletter is where I think out loud between episodes. One email a week. Sundays. No fluff, and I mean that.
Episode 1 is the whole story of those 20 interviews. It's the right place to start.
▶ New on The TEF Show: Episode 1 — The 20 Interviews （Dropping Tomorrow)
One question before you go.
What's the leap you keep telling yourself you'll take "someday"?
Hit reply. I read every one.
— DéRecco
The Invisible Letter
