Redraw your map

ISLANDIA, A MAP BY ABRAHAM ORTELIUS, CA. 1590.

In university, while my friends were getting slammed at house parties, drowning in enough bass to rattle their ribcage, I spent my evenings in the eery quiet of the business building, preparing for an interview at Burgundy Asset Management. 

Burgundy is an investment firm in the bustling heart of downtown Toronto. Founded in the 90s, they have two marble floors overlooking the silent city skyline with a regal, leather and oak laden library, and a bronze bust of Warren Buffett. While tech startups allow pullovers and track pants, Burgundy kept a buttoned-up, suit-and-tie policy.

They never posted their summer internship on my school’s job board. 

Burgundy hired a year in advance, strictly from the prestigious universities, months before students at my school were even allowed to apply for jobs. Our co-op advisors were still recovering from their summer sunburns. 

No one from my school had ever been hired. No one knew it was possible¹. 

Against the advice of their recruiter, I submitted an application. To my surprise, I got a first-round interview over the phone. Then, out of hundreds of applicants, I was one of twelve invited to a “super day” in their office. 

Eight hours of intense interviews, punctuated by periods of waiting. Sweating under my collar in a small stuffy room. Scuffed slip-on Rockports and Calvin Klein suit I borrowed from my brother. Surrounded by a platoon of business bros who somehow all looked like they played lacrosse—feathered 70’s-style haircuts, leather Gucci loafers, blazers worth more than my textbooks—anxiously anticipating my name being called into another interview.

I didn’t get the job. 

There were three spots. I was ranked fourth.

But, next year a student from my school did get a summer internship at Burgundy, and another one the year after. 

The map was redrawn.

~~~

Maps are aggregators. 

In the act of compression, for general accessibility, cracks emerge. These cracks create hidden pathways that few explore. These cracks contain crumbs that few discover. These cracks, really, are the home of secrets.

The message is not to seek these things, although that could be promising, but rather to question whether the map you’re using is all there is. Whether the map is reality. 

There are jobs not posted on any board, apartments not listed on any realtor page, single girls not seeking love on any dating site.

Much of the world is hidden from sight. 

Where is no one else looking? 

Most often, these opportunities are not found, but made. Perhaps a company doesn’t know they need to hire until you explain what product feature is missing. Perhaps a retired couple doesn’t think of renting their Victorian skylit loft until you strike up a conversation at a coffee shop. Perhaps a girl is the perfect amount of stubborn to refuse to use an app. 

Since pivoting from my path to Wall Street, every job opportunity has come through word of mouth, social media, and writing online. Not once did I need a resume. Last year, I was hired to lead the marketing of a NYT bestselling book (with zero marketing experience) off of a Google Form I saw on Twitter and filled out in thirty seconds².

Of course, LinkedIn, Remax, and Hinge are helpful aggregators. But they don’t show all that’s out there. It’s a mistake to forget that distinction.

The best opportunities are almost always unlisted. They don’t exist on any map. Partly because you participate in the co-creation and partly because maps create accessibility which creates crowds. If you look closely, perhaps you could find some crumb that you’d normally be outcompeted for if everyone else could see it too. 

With each map, there’s a script attached. When you use the map, whether you know it or not, you’re accepting its script. Doomscrolling LinkedIn Jobs, you’re assuming (i) you need a traditional job, (ii) this is where the jobs are available, and (iii) applying here is how you get the job.

All of those assumptions could be untrue. 

Scripts are more subtle, harder to detect. But anytime you hear, “This is just what you have to do,” it merits suspicion.

~~~

I think it can be worthwhile to look for secrets. To choose a few things you refuse to use a map for, that are worth the patience and effort to search. Perhaps where you’re unsatisfied with what options are available on the current map you’re using.

And I hope you see how this applies to more than jobs, apartments, and girls. 

But the general lesson is simply to leave some room for what you don’t yet know. For surprise. For small bets, small detours, small discoveries. To wander and see what pathways emerge. To open to the possibility you’re operating on a map with boundaries you drew yourself and could redraw at a moment’s notice. To look where you haven’t looked before.

The map of our world is mostly water³.

As always,

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👋 what i’ve been up to:

• I spent a few days in Toronto with my Dad. On Thursday, I flew East to Newfoundland, arguably Canada’s most beautiful province and certainly its friendliest.

• This summer, I’ll be working on a small, off-grid eco-farm on ten acres overlooking the Atlantic. My host is a professor of philosophy at a Canadian university, with PhDs in both philosophy and theology and has written six books, focusing on the philosophy of religion. He runs an NPO promoting ecological conversion. (Plus a bunch of other impressive things.) We’ll be expanding the pasture to welcome new lambs, winterizing the cabin, and building a barn.

• In an effort to be more embodied in my living this summer, my cell phone will be shut off every day except Saturdays. I can be reached via email, Substack, or smoke signals.

✍️ quote i’m pondering:

American writer Joan Didion on commitment:

"You have to pick the places you don't walk away from."

📸 photos i took:

1. No one had even been hired for a summer internship, which are the most prestigious and competitive. Burgundy sometimes hired students from my school in the "off-cycle" Fall or Winter semesters, when there's much less competition or fewer opportunities to go full-time.

2. I've heard some people adopt the rule of never applying to things. While I think this is a bit extreme, there is a seed of truth. That the right things will seek you out, if you remain in the field of action.

There is generic availability (anyone can "apply") in application processes. This is bad for you, due to competition but mostly since you can just waste time applying to anything and everything without barriers to hurdle.

3. "The map is mostly water" is a phrase coined by writer and programmer Simon Sarris.

Asked what it meant, he replied:

"The world is mostly unknown. There are still secrets. The world is mostly empty. People think there are forces or reasons behind all kinds of things but they simply do not exist. We are always more alone than we think."

And later:

"While the map is mostly water, and at the edges out of date, if you look closely you will find islands that you could never discover on your own."