Field Notes on Unlearning

Lindsey Lerner
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Stories about the stories we carry, and what happens when we set them down. Hosted by Lindsey Lerner, an unlearning practitioner. fieldnotes.lindseylerner.com

  1. Nov 1

    Why Trying Harder Doesn’t Work | Field Note No. 43

    Milly Tamati on trusting a practice she kept failing at. Milly got a phone call telling her to name her own salary. Any number, start date open, flight booked for the following week. She had spent ten years becoming exactly the person who takes that call — waking at three in the morning to answer email nobody needed answered before breakfast, sixty-five countries, barely breathing through her twenties. She asked three people and then stopped on purpose. What decided it had already happened, in a van parked in New Zealand with the phones away, doing the one thing she had failed at for years. This Field Note is about conditions: what has to be true around you before a practice can take hold. And about the rule I caught myself defending on the drive home — that if it came easy, it wasn’t worth much. In this Field Note The call, and the two days that followed Ten years of three in the morning Every meditation app on the planet, and the van that finally worked Content and context, and which one she had wrong Why a calm nervous system is her number one KPI A farm that never once registered as nature The rule I inherited from somebody else and have never broken Run of show Name your own salary The woman who woke at three Day one: three calls, two hell nos The empty calendar Ten minutes in a van “The content could be perfect, but the context might be off” Day two: turning it down Calm as the KPI A farm, and thirty years of not seeing it The Rule, and the drive across Pennsylvania A Practice in Conditions From the conversation “My twenties, I barely breathed.” “I needed the world to stop. I needed my work to stop. I needed my busyness of all my usualness of every day to stop.” “The content could be perfect, but the context might be off.” About Milly Milly Tamati is the founder of Generalist World, a community for people who do a bit of everything. Field Notes on Unlearning Essays, radio, and gatherings about the things we learned too well. Subscribe at fieldnotes.lindseylerner.com. Become a patron. This work runs on patrons, not platforms. Patronage starts at $10,000 and every one of them began with a conversation. Reply to this email. Send it to one person. Somebody you know keeps starting the same practice and dropping it, and blames themselves every time. Forward this to them instead. Erase with care. Get full access to Field Notes on Unlearning at fieldnotes.lindseylerner.com/subscribe

  2. Oct 18

    You’re Not an Overachiever. You Just Need Someone to See You. | Field Note No. 42

    Matthew Dicks has won 65 Moth StorySLAMs and 10 GrandSLAMs. He taught elementary school for twenty-seven years and retired in June. He wrote Storyworthy, and companies pay him to tell their executives the truth about their keynotes. In August he cleared a whole day, brought two folding chairs to a lake in Connecticut, and answered everything I asked for hours. Everyone who knows him says he doesn’t care what anybody thinks. What I found was a man who has organized a remarkable life around being seen — and two people he still can’t say the important thing to. In this episode: — The stranger on the plane and what Matt actually needed from him— Homework for Life: five minutes a night, fourteen years, and what it does to how you notice— The report cards in the file cabinet, and the pole vault nobody watched— The gun on the McDonald’s floor, and why he turned down the cure— The sentence he couldn’t finish, and the four words I said out loud— The hard drive: what dies with the people who knew you first A Practice in Keeping the Record closes the episode — three steps for asking the questions while there’s still somebody to answer them. Find Matt at matthewdicks.com. Field Notes from the Work (and the Wild) is a documentary practice: one person, several hours, photographs and a story about the work beneath the work. Fifty-four people so far. It runs on patrons. Get full access to Field Notes on Unlearning at fieldnotes.lindseylerner.com/subscribe

  3. Oct 9

    Ep. 5 Busy Is a F*cking Disease — Field Notes Radio

    At a New York networking event, everyone says they're "slammed," and everyone's smiling about it. I used to be the sickest person in the room. This week I found the proof: fifty notes on my phone, one for every day I spent on Vans Warped Tour in 2017. Day one starts at 2:45 a.m., with me working out so I won't have to think. In this episode, I go back through those notes to find the work beneath the work, the part busy is designed to keep you from feeling. A hammock on St. Simons Island I couldn't relax in, a walk back from the showers that annoyed me, and a trampoline in a backyard where, for the first time all summer, my body stopped bracing. Then it's Friday night in the Bronx, and my grandmother's brass candlesticks, still covered in wax, finally explain what I couldn't hear on that tour bus. In this episode Why "nobody can see thinking, so we measure motion instead" How Frederick Taylor and his stopwatch taught us to brag about being tired What we were taught to do with our feelings, and how I did it to myself in writing Three invitations to stop, and the one I finally took Why Jewish women wave their hands over the Shabbat candles, and the private Yiddish prayers called tkhines Abraham Joshua Heschel's "palace in time" Mentioned Vans Warped Tour 2017, with George Watsky Frederick Winslow Taylor and scientific management The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel Voices of the Matriarchs by Chava Weissler, on the history of tkhines Your homeworkFind one hour this week you can't justify. Leave it empty, and see what shows up. Then tell me: what's been waiting for you to stop moving? Get full access to Field Notes on Unlearning at fieldnotes.lindseylerner.com/subscribe

  4. Oct 2

    A Pleasure to Have in Class

    A Pleasure to Have in Class And a big help, and a great kid, and available to everyone who ever asked. My parents dropped off my old yearbooks a few weeks ago. Five teachers, five years, and every one of them praised the same thing: how helpful I was. My tenth-grade English teacher wrote the longest note. He thanked me for not falling apart over a paper, and for never whining about it. He didn't mention the writing. This one goes from a classroom in Rhode Island to a Chelo's where I said no once, at ten, and found out what that costs. Then to my desk, where I almost cut myself out of someone else's story. Then to a subway platform with ten thousand dollars in my inbox and a repayment plan in my head by the time I got where I was going. Nobody ever sent me a bill. I kept paying anyway. Get full access to Field Notes on Unlearning at fieldnotes.lindseylerner.com/subscribe

    A Pleasure to Have in Class

  5. Sep 27

    Two Ways to Measure Your Work

    Thirty seconds after a man on the subway looks Lindsey in the eye instead of looking away, she's asking a bigger question: who's actually keeping track of what matters? This episode sits down with Caitlin Kawaguchi, who's spent six years inside a Brooklyn political club trying to unseat the same Democratic Party faction that's held power there for decades. Most of her candidates lost. She kept a list of what happened to them anyway — and it turned out to be the only accurate read on where things were actually headed, months before the official numbers caught up. In this episode: Why a volunteer club calling itself New Kings Democrats spent two election cycles losing on purpose The unpaid, unglamorous job of district leader — and why the people already holding those seats want you to never hear about it What Caitlin started keeping track of that nobody asked her to The two economies every one of us is running at the same time, and why only one of them gets recorded What happened in a Brooklyn auditorium eight hours into a meeting that was never supposed to take that long A practice to take with you: the off-plan practice — three steps for finding out what actually became of something you shut down and decided was a loss. Support the work that goes into finding these stories — become a patron of Field Notes. Know someone who needs to hear this one? Send it to the person who's still quietly keeping score on something everyone else called finished. Get full access to Field Notes on Unlearning at fieldnotes.lindseylerner.com/subscribe

  6. Sep 4

    The Practice Nobody Sees

    What do you have to trust before you have any proof it's warranted? In this episode of Field Notes from the Work and the Wild, documentary photographer and narrative strategist Lindsey Lerner puts two interview sessions side by side for the first time — a new composite format that braids two people around one shared pattern. Genevieve Smith runs GV Advisory, a facilitation practice that helps organizations navigate the gap between the values they name and the decisions they actually make. She rebuilds a 1978 Italian steel bicycle in her garage — apart and back together three times, badly at first. The garage is the one place the facilitator gets to stay outside. Nishi Patel is a product leader and a new mother. For years, her kindness at work was read as softness, until a layoff clarified the difference between being liked and being kept. Every apartment she's lived in has had an L-shaped couch, and the same corner has always been hers. Two objects. Two private practices. The same lesson underneath: self-trust gets built through repetition in low-stakes rooms, long before it's needed anywhere that counts. In this episode: Why invisible labor and personal practice shape identity more than job titles do How grief and inherited voices become internal standards (Genevieve's father, cycling, and get it right) The cost of leading with a credential instead of your actual skill Why being well-liked at work is separate from being valued at work Clarity is kindness — rethinking directness as a form of care Building a promise to your future self before you have evidence you'll keep it The five patterns that surface across 50+ documentary sessions on work and identity Key phrases from this episode: "First time you, first time me." — a phrase Genevieve and her best friend Josie use whenever neither of them knows what they're doing. "Faith in future Nishi." — a promise made to a version of herself she hasn't met yet. About Field Notes from the Work (and the Wild) Field Notes is a documentary practice by Lindsey Lerner that records the invisible labor beneath people's visible work. Each session begins with one question — where do you feel most like yourself? — and produces a portrait, a spoken record, and a written frame. More than 50 sessions completed to date. Subscribe and read the full archive: fieldnotesfromthework.substack.com Support the work: Field Notes runs on patronage — hello@lindseylerner.com Get full access to Field Notes on Unlearning at fieldnotes.lindseylerner.com/subscribe

  7. Aug 14

    Ep. 4 The Leadership Lie — Field Notes Radio

    Eight hours alone in the car coming home from a leadership conference. Which is about four hours too many to be thinking about leadership. I keep coming back to the quiet ones. The most regulated, most actually present people in that room — the ones who could hold a conversation, stay in the energy, take up exactly the right amount of space. They barely said a word. And they were the ones who made the whole room feel safe to be in. Nobody built an industry around that. We built one around telling people how to lead. In this episode I get into the contradiction nobody names out loud: you're told everything is about you — your brand, your vision, your path — and in the same breath, you're told to be responsible for other people. Show them where to go. I don't know how you hold both of those at once. I'm not sure I've ever seen it done cleanly. I also talk about my friend Milly, who lives on an island with 191 people and walks for hours every day, and who thinks nothing needs to be hard to be worth doing. Which I agree with completely. And also can argue against completely. Both at once. And I get into the specific tax on people who see things before other people see them — the visionaries, the ones a half step ahead of the room — and the choice between spending your life translating for everyone else or trusting the right people to catch up on their own. By the end I land somewhere I didn't expect to land, which is usually how I know an episode is done. What are you actually optimizing for. Proof that you worked hard. Or your life feeling like your life. Field Notes from the Work (and the Wild) is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Field Notes on Unlearning at fieldnotes.lindseylerner.com/subscribe

    Ep. 4 The Leadership Lie — Field Notes Radio

  8. Jul 31

    Caring This Much Was Never the Problem

    In this Field Note, documentary photographer and narrative strategist Lindsey Lerner sits down with Cat Addo — a social impact strategist who has spent nearly twenty years helping brands and nonprofits find their voice, from the music industry to her current role leading strategic partnerships at Comic Relief. The conversation surfaces a distinction that reframes how high-achieving, high-capacity people experience praise at work: the difference between being known — admired for your finished output — and being seen — recognized for the discipline and reaching it took to get there. Cat traces that distinction back to a ballet studio in San Diego, where she trained at eight years old under a demanding German teacher who called her good, period, long before the rest of the world started calling her work great. The episode also explores Cat's path through the music industry, seven years in strategy consulting, launching her own firm, and now nonprofit leadership — along with a quieter admission near the end of the conversation: the self-consciousness that can come with caring visibly about your work, and the privilege of even having the choice to care that much in the first place. This is a conversation about invisible labor, first-generation identity, imposter syndrome's less-discussed cousin (being praised for the wrong thing), and what it actually means to feel recognized — not just successful. What You'll Hear Why "this is so great" can feel hollow, even when it's sincere The ballet lesson that shaped how Cat approaches every project since Cat's first-generation upbringing and how it shaped her relationship to belonging The real story behind Cat's decision to leave her agency job while newly pregnant The stigma around caring "too much" about your work — and the privilege of being able to care at all Lindsey's own parallel: fifteen years learning to notice what other people miss About Cat Addo Cat Addo is a social impact strategist, brand and narrative consultant, and the founder of Issue Space, a content and event series for purpose-driven professionals. She currently serves as Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships at Comic Relief, working to end childhood poverty through the power of comedy. Her background spans nearly two decades across the music industry (Universal Music Group, Reservoir Media), strategy consulting (Purpose), and independent practice through Cat Addo LLC. About Field Notes from the Work (and the Wild) Field Notes is a documentary practice by Lindsey Lerner braiding portrait photography, oral storytelling, and anthropology — exploring the interior of a working life. New Field Notes publish weekly, alternating between full Field Notes (photo, essay, and audio story) and Field Notes Radio conversations. P.S. Save September 26th. A full day Field Notes workshop in NYC. Info and registration here. A room built to hold what usually stays invisible. Strangers meeting each other as people instead of titles. Enough of them in one place that something shifts by the end. Field Notes from the Work (and the Wild) is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Field Notes on Unlearning at fieldnotes.lindseylerner.com/subscribe

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Stories about the stories we carry, and what happens when we set them down. Hosted by Lindsey Lerner, an unlearning practitioner. fieldnotes.lindseylerner.com

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  • Creator
    Lindsey Lerner
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    41
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Lindsey Lerner
  • Show Website
    Field Notes on Unlearning