When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows: The Power of Spotting Narrative Shifts
October 21, 2025·0 comments·zg
Everybody knew Biden seemed too old. That's an apolitical statement, for the record. But - what can you do? What could you do?
When the debate happened (yes, THAT one), most of us let out a collective "ugh" in personal embarrassment for the guy, and then stuff surrounding his campaign started to change really fast.
Looking back on how we captured that moment and broke it all down on an old episode of Breaking News, where Ben Hunt explained to Jack Forehand and I “the Emperor's New Clothes moment” (and the game theory) behind what was playing out in real time, is a real moment of pride for me.
How before the debate everybody knew it, but nobody said it. After the debate, once people started saying it, everybody could admit to what they knew and - that was the end of Biden's bid.
That’s a powerful moment not just because we were part of calling out the shift, but because those moments happen across life. Headlines are useful teachers here. But the lessons run way deeper.
A few years before that, I was making a career move. I wrote about it. This quote still feels relevant too:
I had been living in the "Bring your whole self to work! Uh, except those parts. And those too, and yeah – maybe just this tiny piece of you works for us come to think of it, so file these TPS reports and see you Monday" world for too long.
This is what happened when I left my big (fancy!) financial firm job for a small, indie (hello employee owned) company in 2022. The corporate narratives I was hearing didn't match what I was seeing, and I wanted to be somewhere that embraced what made me different, not just a tiny, corporate approved “acceptable” piece of myself. I recognized the pattern easily enough, even if it took me a long time to accept it – when the stories institutions tell themselves no longer match reality, it's time to shift.
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