Hi Reader,
You may notice things look a little different around here. Better This Week/Magnetic Leadership has become Just a Moment—bringing this newsletter under the same banner as the podcast and creating one home for the ideas, stories, and conversations worth carrying with us. Each week, I’ll gather relevant and timely stories from the previous seven days, give you a glimpse into what each one is about and why I think it matters, and provide direct links whenever you want to go deeper. The name and format may be new, but the purpose remains the same: helping you find greater clarity in your work, more perspective in your life, and the occasional moment that changes both. I’m grateful you’re here for what comes next.
ISSUE 01 | AUGUST 16, 2026
You weren’t hired to disappear.
There is a strange bargain many of us make when we join a company, enter a relationship, or become part of a community:
We trade a little bit of ourselves for the promise of belonging.
We learn what gets rewarded.
We notice what makes people uncomfortable.
We figure out which parts of ourselves fit neatly into the room.
And then, without ever consciously deciding to, we start sanding down our edges.
This week, I found myself thinking about the tension between two things we all want:
To belong. And to remain unmistakably ourselves.
The goal isn’t to choose one.
It’s to become secure enough in who you are that you can belong without disappearing.
Let’s get into it.
THE BIG MOMENT
Culture fit might be making your culture weaker.
A new Fast Company article explores the hidden science of “culture fit” and “culture misfit.”
For years, organizations have tried to hire people who fit their existing values, communication style, and way of working. On the surface, that makes perfect sense. Aligned people collaborate more easily and experience less friction.
But the research suggests that culture fit has only a modest relationship with actual performance.
That’s because too much fit creates something far more dangerous than conflict:
Sameness.
When everybody thinks alike, communicates alike, and sees the world through the same lens, work may feel easier. It rarely becomes more interesting.
The real advantage appears to live somewhere between complete conformity and complete rebellion. You need enough alignment to create trust and enough difference to create value.
Or, said another way:
Belong enough to be trusted. Stand out enough to matter.
This is where most companies get their values wrong.
Values shouldn’t tell people who they must become to belong. They should create the shared foundation that allows different kinds of people to do their best work together.
A strong culture doesn’t eliminate its misfits.
It gives them something meaningful to push against.
Read the culture-fit story →
MY TAKE
The opposite of culture fit isn’t culture chaos.
It’s values alignment.
Those are not the same thing.
Culture fit asks:
Are you like us?
Values alignment asks:
Can we trust one another when it matters?
One rewards familiarity. The other creates commitment.
You don’t need everyone on your team to have the same personality, background, politics, taste, working style, or approach. You need them to share a few non-negotiable beliefs about how the work gets done and how people are treated while doing it.
That leaves room for the black sheep, the challenger, the strange thinker, and the person willing to say:
“Are we sure this is the best we can do?”
Those people aren’t threats to a healthy culture.
They are often the reason it stays healthy.
WORTH A MOMENT
The world stopped and looked up.
On August 12, a total solar eclipse swept across parts of Greenland, Iceland, Portugal, and Spain. In some locations, daylight disappeared for more than two minutes while millions of people turned their attention toward the same sky.
There’s a name for the emotion produced by an experience so vast that it disrupts our normal sense of scale:
Awe.
Awe reminds us that we are small without making us feel insignificant. It interrupts the constant loop of deadlines, problems, notifications, and manufactured urgency.
For two minutes, nobody staring at the sky needed to be more productive.
They only needed to notice.
See the eclipse coverage →
Lauryn Hill turned heritage into something alive.
Lauryn Hill revived her Diaspora Calling! festival this month, gathering 35,000 people in England for music, art, dialogue, and community.
Hill reunited with Wyclef Jean to perform the Fugees’ The Score in recognition of its 30th anniversary. But the festival wasn’t simply an exercise in nostalgia.
It was an example of what happens when heritage becomes a foundation instead of a museum.
Hill described the intention as honoring cultural inheritance without treating culture as static. Even her clothing carried the idea forward. Designers reimagined traditional workwear to honor people whose labor often goes unseen.
That’s what meaningful reinvention looks like.
You don’t abandon where you came from.
You carry its most valuable parts into what comes next.
Explore Diaspora Calling! →
Seven songs. Seven hundred covers. One meaningful purpose.
Secret 7" invited 700 artists to create one-of-a-kind record sleeves for seven songs by musicians including John Lennon, Glass Animals, Bastille, and The Last Dinner Party.
Here’s the brilliant part:
The identity of each artist remains secret until someone buys the record.
A famous artist and an unknown artist occupy the same-sized canvas. The buyer has to choose the work based on what moves them, not the status of the person who made it.
All proceeds benefit War Child and its work supporting children affected by conflict. Across its previous nine editions, the project has raised more than £900,000.
Creativity becomes particularly powerful when it is attached to contribution.
Talent may get people’s attention.
Purpose gives that attention somewhere to go.
See the Secret 7" collection →
Managers are losing belief, too.
Gallup’s latest global workplace research found that employee engagement fell to 20%, its lowest level since 2020.
The most important part of the report may be what happened to managers.
Manager engagement fell from 31% in 2022 to 22% in 2025, accounting for most of the recent global decline. Managers are now only slightly more engaged than the people they are expected to lead.
We keep asking leaders to create energy they no longer possess.
That isn’t a motivation problem. It’s a belief problem.
You cannot sustainably inspire people toward a future you have quietly stopped believing in yourself.
Organizations need to stop treating managers like engagement-delivery systems and start rebuilding the conditions that allow them to believe again.
Read Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace →
TRY THIS
Conduct a one-week conformity audit.
At the end of each day this week, ask yourself:
Where did I edit myself to earn approval?
Maybe you withheld an idea.
Agreed when you didn’t agree.
Softened something that mattered.
Stayed quiet because speaking honestly felt inconvenient.
Don’t judge the answer. Just notice the pattern.
Then choose one moment this week when you will remain connected to the room without abandoning yourself inside it.
That is what authentic belonging looks like.
THE MOMENT I’M INTO
Looking up.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
Step outside one night this week without your phone. Look at the sky for five uninterrupted minutes.
No photo.
No app.
No attempt to turn it into content.
Just five minutes spent remembering that your current problem is real, but it is not the entire universe.
Sometimes perspective isn’t something you think your way into.
Sometimes you have to physically place yourself beneath it.
JUST ONE QUESTION
Where in your life do you feel most free to be fully yourself?
Hit reply and tell me.
I read every response, and your answer may help shape a future issue of Just a Moment.
Until next time,
Brant
Own your moment.
P.S. If someone came to mind while you were reading this, forward it to them. Maybe they need the reminder that belonging should never require becoming invisible.