What If You’re Not Behind?
A kinder framework for progress, inspired by Ben Kuhn’s brilliant essay—and lessons I’ve learned the hard way.
This guys had no idea what he was doing, but he was having fun while he was making it up
TL;DR:
We live in a world obsessed with speed and impact, but what if the real leverage isn’t about rushing to be first or fastest? Ben Kuhn’s essay made me rethink everything. Real impact comes from slow, deliberate mastery—not from hacking your way to success. It's about doing the quiet work that builds deep relationships —something you can't rush, but that compounds over time.
For too long, I chased quick wins. Now I realize it’s the work that no one sees—like late-night decks or unglamorous conversations—that truly shapes lasting impact. And the quieter, slower questions—like, “What skill am I mastering today?”—are the ones that guide me toward becoming someone who can’t help but make an impact in the future.
So, the real leverage? It’s not about being first. It’s about being the kind of person the room waits for. What’s your "quiet craft"?
Main Article:
We (or maybe just I) live in a world obsessed with leverage.
Build fast. Scale quickly. Make an impact—now.
This week, I read an essay by Ben Kuhn (who works at Anthropic) titled “Impact, agency, and taste,” and it landed like a well-aimed pebble in a still pond. Quiet, simple, but it rippled through everything I’ve been thinking about lately. Kuhn’s central argument is that the path to meaningful impact is less about finding high-leverage opportunities early on—and more about developing deep mastery over time.
It was a kind of relief to read. And a kind of rebuke, too.
Because if I’m honest, I’ve spent a lot of time chasing leverage.
The Allure of Early Optimization
A few years back, I took on a role that looked, from the outside, like a perfect launchpad. Big-name company. Bold mandate. Awesome title. A chance to “make an impact.” And for a while, I convinced myself I was doing just that.
But beneath the surface, I was winging it more than I wanted to admit. I hadn’t earned the depth required for the moment. I was still early in building the core muscles—of judgment, of presence, of process. I was trying to optimize for outcome before I’d done the quiet work of mastery.
Ben Kuhn warns against this exact trap. He writes about the myth of early leverage—the idea that if you’re smart enough and strategic enough, you can hack your way to significance. But true impact, he says, is the byproduct of craft. And craft is slow.
This line stuck with me:
“Mastery multiplies impact.”
The Quiet Work That Counts
When I think about the seasons where my work has had the most long-term value, they’re rarely the most visible ones. It’s not the big launch or the standing ovation. It’s the behind-the-scenes sessions. The late-night strategy decks. The coffee meetings that led to nothing…and everything.
But more than anything else, it’s the relationships.
If I have one superpower, it’s that. Building deep, real, human connections. Listening. Asking better questions. Seeing someone (or something clearly), before they’ve even figured out how to name what they need.
For most of my life, I didn’t see that as a skill. Certainly not a valuable one. In a world that rewards efficiency, scale, and metrics, relationship-building can feel…soft, like a footnote to the “real” work.
But I’m finally old enough to believe it is the work.
We live in a culture that often encourages us to move fast and not care. But the ability to slow down, to see people, to meet them where they are—that’s not fluff. That’s a kind of mastery. And when I think about the compound impact of the trust I’ve built over the years—not in a spreadsheet, but in hearts and minds—I realize how wrong I was to ever underestimate it.
Taste is a Kind of Mastery
There’s another quiet force that’s been showing up in my work as we pivot our company, and Ben’s article reminded me of its name: taste.
Not taste in the sense of fashion or food—but creative discernment. The ability to know when something is off, even if you can’t yet articulate why. The subtle, sometimes frustrating sense that something could be better.
The strange thing about taste, as I’ve learned, is that it doesn’t feel like genius. It doesn’t feel like confidence. In fact, having good taste often feels like being vaguely annoyed all the time—because you keep noticing how things could be sharper, cleaner, more aligned, more resonant.
I think Ben framed it perfectly:
“You’ll never feel smart or competent or good at things. Instead, you’ll just start feeling more and more like everyone else mysteriously sucks at them.”
That got an uncomfortable laugh out of me, because it’s true. I’ve felt that about writing. About storytelling. About lighting temperature irregularities. About relationships, even. What used to confuse me now feels like a kind of signal: when something bothers me that no one else seems to notice, that’s often where my taste is quietly doing its job.
And I’ve come to trust that. Because taste, I think, is the compass that points toward mastery, even before you’ve earned it.
What I’m Learning Now
Kuhn expertly reframes the idea of career-building. Instead of asking “Where can I make the biggest difference now?”, he suggests asking “Where can I grow the most deeply now?”
That lands. Because if I look back, the turning points in my work have come from depth, not shortcuts. From walking the long way around. From sharpening skills the world didn’t ask for, but that I knew I’d need eventually.
And if impact is a byproduct of who we become over time—then I want to become someone who’s known not for rushing to the stage, but for doing the kind of work that earns the mic.
Living the Question
So I’ve stopped asking, “Am I making an impact right now?”
Instead, I’ve started asking, “Am I becoming someone who can’t help but make an impact later?”
It’s a slower question. A quieter one. But it holds.
And it changes how I see my days. The meetings. The workouts. The one-on-ones. The drafts that don’t ship. The conversations with my kids where I try—truly try—to be fully present.
None of it is wasted.
A closing thought:
Maybe making an impact isn’t about being in the right room at the right time. Maybe it’s about becoming the kind of person the room waits for.
And maybe the real leverage isn’t being first, or fastest.
Maybe it’s being the one who listened well enough to know what needed to be said.
So here’s the question I’m sitting with:
What’s the skill I’m quietly mastering today—the one the world might not value yet, but the future will depend on?
For me, it’s creating a connection with another human, be it a small business owner, an Uber driver, or my family. And I’m finally proud of that.
Thanks for reading. If this stirred something, I’d love to hear! What is your “quiet craft”—the thing you’re slowly getting great at, even if the world hasn’t caught on yet? And please read Ben’s article (nerd alert warning).