The Correction: Entry 01 – I don’t have friends. I have collaborators.

The Correction: Entry 01 – I don’t have friends. I have collaborators.

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I don’t have friends. I have collaborators.

There. I said it.

I’ve been sitting with this thought for a while now, turning it over in my head like a song I can’t quite place. It came out of a session — one of those conversations where someone holds up a mirror and you have to decide whether to look or not. I looked.

Here’s what I saw.

For as long as I can remember, I have led with utility. What I mean by that is this — when I walk into a room, into a relationship, into someone’s life, my opening move is to be useful. What can I do for you? What do you need? How can I make myself indispensable? It’s not something I consciously decided. It’s just the operating system I’ve been running on, quietly, in the background, for most of my life.

And here’s the thing about leading with utility. It works. People love you for it. You become the guy who gets things done, who knows people, who can make things happen. Doors open. Opportunities flow. Your phone rings. And for a long time, I mistook all of that for connection.

It isn’t.

I’ve also noticed something else — and this one is harder to admit. I surround myself with projects. Not people. Projects. There’s always something being built, launched, recorded, planned. The Good Company. The Mics Are Open. The next event. The next season. The next idea. And if I’m being really honest with myself — which apparently is what we’re doing here — the projects serve a function beyond ambition. They fill the space where intimacy would otherwise be required.

Because projects don’t let you down the way people do. Projects don’t ask you how you’re really feeling. Projects don’t require you to show up without an agenda.

People do.

So where does that leave me? Genuinely, I don’t know yet. I’m not writing this from the other side of some breakthrough. I’m writing it from the middle of the mess, which is probably where it needed to come from.

What I do know is this — I’ve named it. And naming something, really naming it, is the first act of taking it seriously. I used to think self-awareness was the destination. Turns out it’s just the beginning.

I don’t have all the answers. But I’m asking the right questions now. And for a man who has spent most of his life providing answers for other people, that feels like something worth writing about.

This is the first entry in what I’m calling The Correction. More to come.