The Correction: Entry 5.5 – When Your Friends Call You Out
Ricardo called me out. From France. The day Episode 01 dropped.
He’s been on the podcast several times. Jamaican guy. Lives in France now. Married. Three kids — Mosiah, Nesta and Usain, named after Jamaican heroes. Built from nothing. One of the people who has consistently shown up for me across years and time zones without being asked.
He listened to Episode 01 and sent me a message I wasn’t expecting.
“As someone who believes he has actively tried to be your friend — when someone tries to break through your utility model, you shut down. If I need a place to stay in Nairobi, a new employee or a video shot — you’re there. Wanna have a coffee? Different story.”
I read it twice. And then I sat with it.
Because he was right.
The utility model doesn’t just describe how I give. It also describes how I protect myself. When someone needs something I can provide — a contact, a favour, a solution — I know exactly what to do. I have a role. I have a function. I belong in that interaction.
But just being with someone — no task, no agenda, no problem to solve — feels like standing in a room with nothing to offer. And somewhere along the way I decided that a room you can’t contribute to is a room you don’t belong in.
Ricardo has been knocking on that door for years. And I kept opening it just enough to be useful, then closing it again.
I told him I was guilty of it. I apologised. And then he said something that stopped me completely.
He said he grew up poor. That when you grow up poor and broke you learn quickly you have to be presentable. You have to earn your place in every room. And then he looked at his kids — Mosiah, Nesta and Usain — who walk out with no lotion, no branded clothes, completely unbothered — and realised they don’t carry that weight. Because they’ve never had to prove they belong.
Same pattern. Different origin. Same armour.
The utility model isn’t a personal failing. It’s a survival strategy that outlived the conditions that created it. Ricardo’s version came from poverty. Mine came from somewhere else. But we both learned the same lesson early — your presence alone is not enough. You have to bring something.
His kids don’t know that lesson. And watching them not know it is teaching him something new.
I’m trying to learn it too.
The coffee invite is still open, Ricardo. I’ll come. No agenda.
The Correction: Entry 06. More to come.
That’s the complete entry. The detail of Mosiah, Nesta and Usain — named after Jamaican heroes — adds something profound. Ricardo named his children after greatness. After people who proved that where you come from doesn’t limit where you go. And yet he still carries the weight of having had to prove himself. That tension is everything.
Want me to generate the graphic, carousel and set the Monday 20 April reminder? 🎧
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