You’re reading The Messy Middle: weekly deep dives on leadership, startups, identity, politics, and how to make high stakes decisions that are intentional and in-line with your values.
🤩 Are Celebrities Our New Moral Guidance?
The internet has been absolutely wilding out this week over Macklemore, Ed Sheeran, Pink, and a growing list of artists taking sides after Macklemore spoke about Palestine during Sheeran's tour. The very short version: Macklemore spoke up, venues pushed back, he was dropped from the tour, and several other artists subsequently pulled out in solidarity. If you want the full tea, catch up here.
I've written before about whether celebrities are leaders, and whether people with enormous platforms inherit some responsibility to use those platforms for something beyond whatever made them famous in the first place. But watching this unfold made me ask a question that's been top of mind for the past few years: is silence louder than words in today's political environment? And when did celebrities become such an important part of how we make sense of the world?
When something enormous happens, who are people waiting to hear from? Their elected representatives? Religious leaders? Journalists? Universities? Or are they refreshing Instagram to see what their favorite musician, creator, athlete, or founder has to say?
📱 When Attention Becomes Authority
There’s something fascinating about watching artists become central characters in conversations about war, justice, identity, inequality, climate change, immigration, and almost every other major social issue of our time. Artists have always engaged with politics and social movements, of course, but our relationship to cultural figures has changed over the last few decades.
Thanks to social media, we don’t just encounter their work anymore; we encounter them, constantly. We know what they ate for breakfast, what books they’re reading, what causes they donate to, what brands they refuse to work with, and increasingly, what they think about the same issues we're trying to make sense of ourselves. (Some of my absolute favorites in this realm: Amanda Seales, Zach Woods, Mark Ruffalo, Cynthia Nixon, and Javier Bardem.)
But attention alone isn't authority. What seems to happen over time is that familiarity becomes trust, and trust gives certain people an enormous ability to shape the stories we tell ourselves about what's happening in the world. When institutions struggle to provide that same sense of trust, clarity, or shared values, it's not particularly surprising that people start looking elsewhere.
I don’t know what that means for the future of governance, but I do think it tells us something important about how power works right now: authority doesn’t only come from a title. Increasingly, it comes from earning people's attention, building their trust, articulating a point of view, and being willing to act in accordance with it.
And that's where this stops being just a story about Macklemore or Ed Sheeran for me. As a Founder Coach & Storytelling Expert, I see this same relationship between attention, trust, and point of view playing out in business all the time.
🎙️ What Happens Once People Are Listening?
We’re living through the golden age of the “founder brand.” Every entrepreneur (and aspiring entrepreneur, for that matter) is being told to post more, build an audience, start a Substack, get on podcasts, become a thought leader, and tell their story. But so much personal branding advice focuses on the mechanics of being visible while ignoring the harder questions underneath it: once people are paying attention, what do you actually have to say? And why do you want to say it?
Because people are piecing together a story about you from what you talk about in person and online, the problems you choose to work on, the stories you tell about why you started, and sometimes, the opportunities you're willing to walk away from. Your POV isn't something you manufacture for content; it's already there in the choices you make.
So here's the question I've been thinking about in my work with founders lately: if someone followed your work for six months, would they know anything about you beyond what you sell? Is there more to public perception around you outside of buzz words? Would they understand what frustrates you about your industry, what values guide your choices, what made you notice the problem you're solving, or what you actually want to change?
Whether you're performing in front of 80,000 people or trying to convince your first 80 customers to believe in what you're building, storytelling is how you help people understand your perspective and why they should care. And maybe that's the bigger question underneath all of this: once you have people's attention, what are you choosing to do with it?
Because whether you're a celebrity, a founder, or simply a person with something to say, people aren't only listening to your words, they're making meaning from your choices. What do your stories, your decisions, and even your silences tell people about the world you're trying to build?
📍 Where To Find Me
September is BUSY!! Here's where you can find me (and what I'm getting into) over the next couple of weeks:
🌴 Thursday, 9/17: The Generalists Meetup in Santa Monica. I’ll be hanging out with fellow multi-hyphenates, founders, and people whose careers don’t fit neatly into one little box. If you’re going to be there, come say hi!
☕ Friday, 9/18: Kismet Coffee Hour. Our monthly open office hours for senior leaders to bring the questions burning a hole in their minds at 2 AM. It's also basically free access to two coaches who usually charge good money for these conversations. No free lunches in 2026...except apparently this one. Come take advantage!!
🧠 School of Radical Imagination. In my current moment of saying yes to good people doing good things, I recently joined the School of Radical Imagination as Fractional Head of Growth & Partnerships. If you're fed up with the status quo and want to spend a semester learning alongside people imagining how our systems, communities, and futures could work differently, this might be your kind of place. There are some truly fascinating classes on the fall calendar, plus an annual pass for my fellow “I want to take everything” people. Scholarship applications close this week, and fall enrollment closes September 30th.
✈️ Sept. 28–29: Riyadh! I’m heading to Saudi Arabia for the Women Shaping Wealth Summit, where I’ll be moderating a panel called Backing The Bold, a conversation about what it takes to back ambitious ideas and the people building them. Given how much I've been thinking lately about who gets funded, whose ideas get believed, and how we help people see what we see, this one feels especially timely. If you'll be there (or have Riyadh recommendations!), please reply!
🥨 Snacks
🎯 Stay On Message: A 75-second masterclass in how to stay on-message, no matter what question you're asked.
🫠 AI Brain Rot: Are our brains turning into mush now that we can outsource so much of our thinking to AI?
💬 Read For Fun : Want to be successful? Read a book for pleasure. (red light masks optional...)
📚 A Thought Piece: I loved this little ode to the group chat, and the tiny neighborhoods we've built inside our phones. Worth finding your way around the paywall for a little nostalgia and appreciation for your own group chats.
See you in next week's mess,
Arshiya
