Hi Reader,

I spent this week at a mastermind in New York City. Twelve people in a living room. Flip charts. Strong coffee. Real talk.

I went there to both to learn and to contribute. I came back with a phrase I can’t stop thinking about:

Too busy drowning to learn how to swim.

The Room

Here’s what I noticed. Practically every person at that room teaches something they occasionally fail to do themselves. The mindset coach who’s struggling with confidence. The boundaries expert who said yes to three things he should’ve declined. The productivity guy — that would be me — who hasn’t done a proper weekly review in a month.

We all knew the theory. We all teach the theory. And we were all, in some quiet corner of our work, too busy drowning to learn how to swim.

Mini Insight

There’s a specific trap that hits people who know things. You mistake knowing for doing. You’ve internalized the framework so deeply that it feels like you’re running it — even when you’re not.

It’s the most educated form of self-deception. You literally wrote the lesson. So surely you’re living it, right?

Not always. Sometimes especially not.

But here’s the part I didn’t expect. The fix wasn’t another framework. It wasn’t a new system. The fix was the room.

The Human Part

Twelve people. Eye contact. Someone saying “wait, you don’t do that either?” and the whole table exhaling.

We are deep into the age of AI. I build with AI every day. I’m a believer. And yet — the thing that shifted something in me this week wasn’t a model or a tool. It was a person across a table saying something I needed to hear, in a tone I couldn’t have prompted.

There’s a quality to human presence that I can’t fully articulate. Especially for introverts — and I say this as one — being in a room with people who see you is not just “networking.” It’s recalibration. Your assumptions get tested by faces, not just feedback.

The Two Rules

For the drowning:

1. Audit yourself with your own material. Take the thing you teach, advise, or believe — and check. Are you actually doing it? Not “do you know it.” Do you do it? The gap between knowing and doing is where drowning lives.
2. Get in a room. Not a Zoom. Not a Slack channel. A room. With people who will look at you and say “really?” when you claim everything’s fine. The cost of that room — time, money, discomfort — is cheaper than another year of teaching what you’re not practicing.

Try-This-Now (≤5 minutes)

1. Pick the one thing you most often advise others to do. (Your go-to recommendation. The thing you’d tell a friend.)
2. Ask honestly: when did I last do this myself?
3. If the answer is “recently” — good. You’re swimming.
4. If the answer makes you wince — that’s your drowning spot. Not a failure. A signal.
5. Do the smallest version of it today. Not because you should. Because you already know it works — you just forgot to aim it at yourself.

Stop — this counts.

Your Pattern Tweak

Each type has a version of this trap:

• Architect: Built the system, forgot to enter it. Open your own program and do Step 1.
• Surfer: Rides other people’s waves. The wave you described to someone else last week? Ride that one yourself.
• Keeper: Routine runs for everyone but you. Put yourself back in the schedule.
• Pilot: Coaching from your own sideline. The advice is still right. Now take it.

(Don’t know your type? Reply “quiz” and I’ll send you the link.)

Living Profit (why this matters)

• Energy: Teaching what you don’t practice is exhausting in a way that’s hard to name. It’s the cognitive load of maintaining a gap you’re pretending isn’t there. Close the gap and something lightens.
• Relationships: The mastermind reminded me — being with people is not a productivity hack. It’s a human need. Especially if you’re an introvert who’s convinced yourself that deep work replaces deep connection. It doesn’t. Both matter. Schedule the room.
• Income & Opportunities: The people who last in any field aren’t the ones with the best systems. They’re the ones who keep checking whether they’re actually using them. Self-audit is a career skill. And the connections you make in person compound in ways that DMs and emails never will.

Excelsior,

Pierre/
​Founder, Curio Chat Academy

P.S.: I almost didn’t go to New York. Too busy. Too much to do. Too many reasons to stay at my desk and be productive. I went anyway. And the most productive thing I did all week was sit in a room with eleven people and admit I wasn’t practicing what I preach. Sometimes the swim lesson is just showing up.