The Journey to Phronesis: A Look Inside
A guided tour of the book's structure, philosophy, and purpose
Before I dive in, I’d like to thank everyone for the incredible and humbling response to last month's announcement about my book, The Journey to Phronesis. The notes, DMs, and thoughtful replies from friends, longtime readers, and new subscribers were greatly appreciated. Sharing my project publicly was a big step after a long stretch of heads-down work on the manuscript. The encouragement I received has been a powerful source of fuel as I transition to the next phase of bringing this idea to life.
Now that the secret is out, I want to pull back the curtain and take you on a guided tour of what’s currently inside the book.
Here’s the core of it: our ability to think is what makes us human. It’s the engine of our development and evolution — the thing that lets us learn, adapt, and create. And yet, we’re getting worse at it. We increasingly outsource our cognition and attention to technology. Tools are powerful, but they’re not a substitute for judgment. Offloading everything dulls the very faculty that makes us special.
The Journey to Phronesis is my attempt to push back on this trend with a practical guide to rebuild how we think. The book combines two proven lenses: systems thinking (a structured approach to understanding complexity) and Stoicism (ancient, lived wisdom on how to act). Together, they offer a path to recapture a distinctly human skill: clear thinking in a messy world. Embracing these concepts leads us back on the path to acquiring practical wisdom. And with this form of wisdom, we can better live with purpose by working within the systems of our lives.
The Map for the Journey
The Table of Contents is a book’s map. The structure of mine is deliberate. It traces a logical path: first, build a foundation for seeing the world; next, assemble a toolkit to help you navigate it; finally, apply both where it matters most — inside the systems of your life. It’s a comprehensive guide for the journey ahead, showing you the terrain we will cover, the skills we will build, and the destinations we will explore together.
Breaking Down the Journey
The journey we’re about to take is grounded in a simple idea: much of what we now call “systems thinking” was intuited by the Stoics and other ancient philosophers two thousand years ago. Ideas advanced by modern thinkers such as Donella Meadows, Peter Senge, and Derek and Laura Cabrera are rooted in the same principles that Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus wrote about in their works. These were not abstract concepts for them; they were practical frameworks for navigating the complex and unpredictable world in which they lived. They used these ideas to live meaningful and purposeful lives. This book aims to bridge these two worlds, providing a practical guide for our own times.
Part 1: Fundamentals — Seeing the Patterns of Life
Part 1 upgrades how we see the world: from events to structure. Once you notice the patterns driving outcomes, better decisions follow.
Here, I explore the fundamentals of systems thinking concepts: interconnectedness, feedback loops, emergence, and leverage. The goal is to learn how to spot these powerful patterns playing out in all aspects of life, from your career to your health to your relationships. You may discover that you likely already possess an intuitive grasp of this way of thinking; we all live within and develop simple systems every day when we do things like follow a recipe or plan a trip. Part 1 makes this innate skill conscious and deliberate. It provides a new vocabulary for describing reality, moving you from simply reacting to surface-level events to understanding the hidden structures that create them in the first place. It will teach readers to see the world not as a series of disconnected things, but instead as an integrated whole.
Part 2: Tools — Thinking Skills for a Complex World
Part 2 is about equipping your mental toolkit with the skills needed to explore the world as a systems thinker. This is a deeply practical section that focuses on how to engage with reality more effectively, moving from a passive observer to an active participant.
I cover how to acquire information by asking better, more powerful questions that get to the heart of an issue. I’ll then outline how to interpret and evaluate the flood of information we consume daily, building a mental filter that can help us account for the cognitive biases and misinformation that can easily cloud our judgment. I tap into my data science background to share ways to visualize complexity, and, just as importantly, to better interpret the visualizations of others. Finally, I’ll explore how to organize your thinking through a versatile set of frameworks and mental models that can provide structure to help with challenges you may face.
Part 3: Applications — Designing the Systems of Your Life
Part 3 brings everything together. While the ideas from the first two parts can be used to analyze mechanical, business, or political systems, I instead choose to focus on those that hit closer to home. As such, I can think of no more important systems to analyze than the ones that make up our own lives. In this section, I move from theory to practice, showing you how to design these systems yourself using the ones I’ve built and tested in my own life as a practical guide.
I start with life planning systems, moving beyond simple goals or checklists to design an integrated approach that works backwards from our ideal lifestyle. I then move on to knowledge management systems, examining ways to capture and organize the vast amount of information we consume regularly, so that we can transform it into knowledge and retrieve it more easily later. I help provide a framework for prioritization, helping share insights into how to determine what to work on within the constraints of our limited time. Finally, I conclude this section by presenting an integrated system for living a life of purpose, offering a simple framework that keeps nudging you toward the person you intend to become.
Interludes: Humility & Control — Essential Virtues for the Journey
Between the parts, I pause for two essential interludes. The thread of Stoicism is woven throughout the book. In these two sessions, I lean further into two universal competencies that are deeply rooted within Stoic ideas and essential for our ongoing growth and evolution as thinkers: humility and control.
True learning is impossible without the humility to admit what we don’t know. Without an understanding that there is always more to learn, we’re destined to hit limits. It’s only when we acknowledge this fact that we can continue our journey as students of life. Understanding that we can only affect the things within our control is the second core learning. When you can distinguish what’s influenceable from what isn’t, you redirect energy toward the levers that move your life.
These interludes provide the mindset needed to transform the book’s ideas from interesting concepts into a durable and practical philosophy for living. Humility keeps us grounded; control focuses our output. Together, they help the practice stick when reality doesn’t cooperate.
The Road Ahead
Today’s guided tour of the book is just the beginning. Preorders for The Journey to Phronesis go live in October. In the lead-up to the launch and through the preorder period, I’ll be writing to you weekly, sharing more insights, excerpts, and core ideas from the book.
To kick things off, next week I’ll dive into the book’s problem statement from Chapter 1: “Our Thinking Crisis.” I’ll explore the widening gap between the world’s complexity and our ability to handle it. I’ll argue why learning to think in systems is no longer a skill limited to engineers and scientists, but a necessity for navigating life effectively. I look forward to exploring these ideas with you.
A Special Invitation for Beta Readers
In parallel, I’m continuing to work on shaping the final text. As I do so, I still have a few more open spots for dedicated beta readers to provide feedback on an early version of the manuscript. This invitation is for serious inquiries only, as it requires a commitment to read the book and provide thoughtful feedback over the next 6 weeks. As a thank you for your invaluable contribution, all beta readers will be recognized by name in the book’s acknowledgments section when it goes to print.
If that sounds like you — and you enjoy engaging with ideas that are still being workshopped — I’d love your help pressure-testing the work before it goes out more broadly. You can sign up using this form.
Conclusion
The Journey to Phronesis doesn’t aim to tell you what to think; it shows you how to think more effectively. It’s designed to provide a durable foundation so we can all become better, clearer thinkers in our own lives. This isn’t about reaching a final destination of “perfect” thought — that’s an impossible goal that we’ll never achieve. Instead, it’s about embracing a lifelong journey of learning and improvement — a journey toward a horizon of wisdom that we can continuously strive for but never fully reach. It’s in this journey itself that we find our purpose.
Thank you for letting me share this with you. I’m incredibly excited for the road ahead. If you’d like to learn the latest news about the book, check out its dedicated page here.
All the best,
Michael