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Hey — I’m Rick Foerster, recovering startup executive turned writer. Welcome to The Way of Work!

What we’ll talk about here

One of my favorite quotes comes from the designer, Don Norman:

“It is by questioning the obvious that we make great progress.”

Work is full of “obvious” ideas: success follows a playbook, ambition will guide you, and if you follow the right framework (or guru, or mindset) you’ll figure it all out.

Most of us learn the hard way: it doesn’t work like that.

So this newsletter is where I interrogate the parts of work we’re told not to question—meaning, identity, and reinvention—and what happens when the old ambition ends.

What we won’t talk about here

This newsletter isn’t about productivity hacks, passion porn or tidy, cliché career advice.

What to expect next

You will get: essays that challenge the default settings, honest stories from the other side of achievement, and occasional experiments (and sometimes fiction), because certain truths land better sideways.

If this is for you, you can start here:

1. What You Need is a Midlife Crisis

2. Why you probably have a low leverage career (and how to create more leverage)

3. Freedom is NOT the highest form of wealth

4. From early startup to $2B public company, what 12 years at Privia Health taught me

Thanks for joining me on this journey. It means a lot.