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Joe Pulizzi's The Tilt

For content creators and entrepreneurs who want more meaning, freedom and wealth. Sent to 60k+ every Friday morning.

Identify the Matrix and You Win
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You're Not Lost. You're Inside the Matrix.

Sometimes, The Problem Isn't You Most of us move through life assuming the rules we’re following are just “how things work.” Education. Careers. Retirement. Only later do we realize the unease wasn’t personal. It was structural. I’ve been spending more time looking at systems lately. What I keep noticing is that you can’t succeed inside one until you recognize that it exists and understand the rules that shape it. Those who identify the most systems have a better chance at winning...

The Problem with Certainty

"I Know that I Know Nothing" - Socrates First off, a big thank you for all the replies last week. Outside of my predictions issue, it was the most replies I've ever received. It took me a few days, but hopefully I responded to all of you. Know that I appreciate you more than you'll ever know. And now for today's topic... The older I get, the less impressed I am by people who are 100% sure about anything. Not because they’re wrong, but because certainty has a way of shutting down curiosity....

What chapter are you in your story?

A Year of Change Happy New Year. I expect big things from you in 2026. 2025 was a year of real change for me. As you know, I took over this newsletter so it could be 100 percent me. I started work on my next novel. I changed how I eat, how I work out, and how I think about my time. A lot shifted, intentionally. But I have a feeling that 2026 will be an even bigger year of change. I don’t have all of it figured out yet, and I’m not rushing to define it. What I do know is that I’m paying closer...

2026 content creation marketing predictions

Crystal Ball Time My wife loves it when I do my predictions every year because she says being wrong about something is good for my ego. In this case, she's probably right. Still, I do this exercise for a reason. The goal isn’t to predict technology. It’s to think through how people behave once the technology becomes unavoidable. This year, my predictions are different. Instead of “more, more, more,” the word I keep coming back to for 2026 is constraint. Just go with me here. And I’d love to...

You Have a Choice

I'm the Problem, It's Me I've been thinking about that line a lot lately. Not in a dramatic way. In a quiet, uncomfortable way. My wife and I have been talking about a few things we keep doing that we no longer want to do. Things that have been with us long enough to feel permanent. What got me was a comment I made. I said "I have to go do this" when I was leaving the house.First...the wording was all wrong. I "get" to do it. And if I don't "get" to do it, why am I doing this in the first...

Gratitude as Business Advantage

It's Thanksliving, right? Like you, I saw many friends and family last week over the Thanksgiving holiday in the US. I kept noticing two very different kinds of people. One group carried a quiet sense of gratitude, even while dealing with real challenges. The other moved through the world convinced everything was falling apart. Same circumstances. Two very different mindsets. It made me think about the role gratitude plays in how we show up, what we build, and how far we go. Well, I did some...

90-Day Misogi Challenge

A different kind of talk... For those of you in the US, I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. While traveling last week, I gave a keynote that was very different from my usual marketing talks. It was more personal and, in many ways, more important than anything else we are facing right now as creators. I go through that speech in detail...but the core is about dealing with change. Seems like a lot of that is going around. I'm approaching it as an opportunity. I hope you go into the holidays...

A Two-Part Belief System for Creators

If only it were enough to believe... I wrote two other articles for this week's newsletter issue, but you won't see them today. Why you ask? I just watched Eddie Murphy's documentary. I was interesting. And funny. But a very PRO Eddie version. Seemed like it needed more conflict. But I digress. I was taking notes (as I usually do while watching documentaries) and was fascinated by Eddie's blind belief in himself. My notes, combined with cleaning up some old content on the JoePulizzi.com site,...

Strategic Text Strategy for AI Discovery

Text to the Rescue I can't believe we only have seven weeks until 2026. Feels like we've only just begun, right? Last week I wrote about a non-AI topic at the request of my wife. This week, back to AI (sorry, honey).I've been thinking a lot about how people will find us in the future. Not in a vague, philosophical way, but in a very real and unsettling way. The more I talk with smart friends in the AI space, the more convinced I am that our window for organic discovery is closing faster than...

Creators Build for January early.

We Don't Start in January Happy November! I started writing this week’s newsletter thinking it would be about resolutions. New year, new start, all that. But I stopped pretty fast, because the truth is, I do not believe in resolutions anymore. Resolutions sound inspiring. Systems create results. There is a moment in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone when Ollivander looks at Harry, hands him the wand, and says, “We can expect great things from you.” I love that line. It is a beautiful...