Remaining Relevant and Employable — The Original Book
The first book I ever wrote, at lunchtimes over eight months in 2015. Preserved in the library out of respect for its history, and because parts of it still hold up. Free to download.
The first book I ever wrote. Written at lunchtimes over eight months in 2015. Preserved in the library out of respect for its history — and because parts of it still hold up, even if the surface shows its age.
Free to download. Best read alongside the current essay that took its place.
A note on what this is
This is the original 2015 edition of Remaining Relevant and Employable, my first book. It was written in lunchtime sessions over about eight months, one chapter at a time, while I was working a day job and figuring out whether I could actually finish a book. It turned out I could. This is that book.
I am keeping it available, free, for two reasons.
The first is that it marked the beginning of what became Cultivated. Almost every theme the site returns to now — ownership, shipping, learning as a habit, communication as the multiplier underneath everything else — showed up in this book first, in rougher form. It is the foundation layer of a body of work that is still being built.
The second reason is that some of it still holds up. Not all of it. The tactical surface has aged — the references to Twitter as a learning tool, the coding site recommendations, the specific hiring-manager advice that assumes a pre-pandemic market — but the spine of the argument is durable. The twenty-three chapters take on standing out in a crowded market, managing your own career, learning continuously, and navigating the specific mechanics of job applications, interviews, and rejection. A lot of that is as true now as it was then.
What's inside
Twenty-three chapters, about 100 pages.
The durable arguments — the "sea of conformity," the certification trap, "ship stuff daily," personal retrospectives, the "what would you do for free" exercise, reaching hiring managers directly — are the bones of the book. The practical mechanics — CVs, online presence, networking, job adverts, applications, interviews, phone interviews, dealing with rejection, patience, persistence — are the flesh.
Some of the mechanics are dated. Some are timeless. A reader willing to read past the 2015 surface will find a genuinely complete guide to taking ownership of a career, from the philosophy of it through to the practical machinery of actually getting hired.
The current version of the argument
If you want the sharpened, 2026 version of the thinking — stripped of the dated surface and distilled into essay form — it lives here:
→ Remaining Relevant in a Changing Job Market — the current essay that took this book's place in the active Cultivated canon of work. Covers the same core arguments: the sea of conformity, career ownership, shipping visibly, learning as infrastructure, and communication as the multiplier underneath it all.
The book is the original long-form version of that argument, with all the practical mechanics still attached. The essay is the philosophical core, sharpened for the present day.
Read whichever fits — or both.
Download the book
A word on the history
I remember the feeling of finishing this book more than I remember any specific chapter of writing it. Eight months of lunchtimes in a quiet corner of the office, a thousand words at a time, not quite knowing whether anyone would read it when I was done.
The cover was designed by a friend who owed me a favour. The title took longer to settle on than several of the chapters. I self-published it in a single afternoon using a tool I don't think exists anymore. And then I went back to work on Monday, slightly disbelieving that the thing was actually finished.
Every book since — Workshop Mastery, Zero to Keynote, Take a Day Off, The Idea to Value Field Guide — came from the realisation that I could do this one. The writing got better. The voice got clearer. The thinking got sharper. But this one mattered because it was first.
Keeping it in the library, free, is less about selling it and more about preserving the trail.
If you find something in it that's useful, that's a bonus. If you find the thinking and want the current version, follow the link above. Either way, thank you for reading something that started at a lunchtime table a decade ago.