Not a Crisis. A Revival.

There are exactly 13 minutes in a Super Bowl halftime show.

Thirteen minutes to hold a stadium.
Thirteen minutes to hold a country.
Thirteen minutes to hold the internet’s attention - which, frankly, feels like a miracle.

And this year, those 13 minutes felt different.

Bad Bunny’s halftime show was magical.

I didn’t understand most of what he was singing - not fluently, anyway - but I understood the meaning. And that was enough.

BNY (Before New York), we spent over a decade in Central Florida. Long enough that there were seasons where I felt like an honorary Puerto Rican. My coworkers. My neighbors. My friends. Some of the warmest, most passionate, culture-rich people I’ve ever known.

So when Benito moved through those vignettes - the wedding, the small businesses, the elders, the island pride - I knew what I was watching. Even if you couldn’t see him clearly from the stadium seats (and let’s be honest, many couldn’t), this wasn’t a performance for the people at the game.

This was a performance for the people on the couch.

It was artistry. Production. Choreography. Camera discipline. 

It was a love letter to community. To marriage. To family. To heritage.

And in a year that has felt… heavy… it was 13 minutes of micro joy amid macro sadness.

I rewatched it the next day. Then again. And somewhere between the second and third viewing, I got emotional.

Which, to be fair, is not exactly unusual these days. I cry over practically everything now. Commercials. Toddler milestones. Halftime shows. Honestly, it’s a great release. I’ll unpack that another week.

There’s a moment toward the end where he says something in Spanish that I later translated:

Reader.

When I tell you that man pointed into the camera like he was speaking directly to me - a 39-year-old gay dad on a sectional sofa in Manhattan - I mean it.

Over the past nine months, something has been shifting in me. Slowly. Quietly. Like muscle memory returning after an injury.

Believing in myself more.

It sounds corny. It sounds like something printed on a TJ Maxx throw pillow. But when a global superstar looks into the lens and says you’re worth more than you think… you listen.

Cut to Monday morning.

I’m on the subway to work, AirPods in, listening to a podcast. My thumb usually hovers over the 15-second skip button like it’s a reflex. Ads? Deleted. Erased. Unheard.

But this time I couldn’t reach my phone fast enough.

So I was forced - forced - to endure an advertisement for Strawberry.me, an online career coaching service.

At some point the ad mentioned a “mid-career revival.”

And I froze.

Mid-career revival.

We live in New York City. Broadway runs on revivals. A new production of an old play. A refreshed cast. Updated staging. Same bones. New life.

But revival also means something else:
An improvement in condition.
A strengthening.
Something becoming important again.

And suddenly I realized - there is no better word to describe what I’m in right now than revival.

Not reinvention. Not meltdown. Not crisis.

Revival.

Is this it? Not a breakdown. Not a midlife spiral. But a revival?

And because the universe has a sense of humor, later this week I opened X and saw a viral blog post (50 million views in 24 hours) declaring that AI is a rising tide and that the water is now up to our chest.

Doomsday-adjacent. Existential. Very “learn to code or drown.”

It rattled me.

Because here I am talking about believing in myself while the internet screams that the robots are coming for our jobs, our creativity, our everything.

But here’s what hit me on that subway ride:

If this is a revival, it cannot be passive.

Broadway revivals don’t just happen. They are produced. Funded. Directed. Rehearsed. Marketed.

So why do we treat our own careers like they’re supposed to accidentally improve?

As my scroll journey migrated platforms - from existential spirals on X to polished optimism on LinkedIn - I landed on a post about a friend wrapping their company’s annual planning cycle.

Slide decks. OKRs. Resource allocation. Investment decisions.

And it made me think - we will exhaust ourselves planning the future of our companies.

But how often do we create a strategic plan for the most important asset on the balance sheet?

Ourselves.

If the AI revolution is a rising tide…

If Broadway runs on revivals…

If Bad Bunny is standing at midfield telling me I’m worth more than I think…

Then maybe the move is this:

Effective immediately, all strategic investments flow to me.

Not selfishly. Not recklessly.

But intentionally.

Skill building. 

Health.

Relationships.

Creative output.

Financial positioning.

Belief.

Especially belief.

Here’s the throughline I keep coming back to:

The halftime show was only 13 minutes. 

But those 13 minutes required decades of work.

You don’t accidentally land at midfield. You prepare for it.

And maybe that’s what revival actually is - not some dramatic, cinematic reinvention - but the quiet decision to invest in yourself before the spotlight ever hits.

The world feels loud right now. Politically. Economically. Technologically.

Macro uncertainty.

But maybe our job isn’t to solve the macro. Maybe our job is to tend to the micro.

Thirteen minutes of joy.

A translated quote.

A subway ad we didn’t skip.

A word that felt like it had been waiting for us.

Revival.

The weekly section where I will call out a fraction: something that felt like progress this week (like a fraction forward) and a fiction: something that turned out to be a distraction or illusion. 

🎯 Fraction: The Audio Revival

Talk about a revival.

You’d think I lived in a pre-television era with the amount of audio I consume lately. Because we have to wait until Spring 2027 for the next season of Heated Rivalry, I’ve pivoted to the audiobooks. And honestly? It’s been its own kind of magic.

Now I can put faces to the characters - sure - but what surprised me is how much creativity comes rushing back when you let your imagination do the staging. Listening while I exercise, I catch myself envisioning the mannerisms, the glances, the pauses. It’s like directing my own version in my head.

There’s something deeply satisfying about reclaiming the production. About not just sitting on the couch consuming someone else’s vision, but building the scenes yourself.

(That said, the second it drops in 2027, I will absolutely be back on that couch.)

🎭 Fiction: When the Tech Doesn’t Work

If revival is about things coming back stronger… what’s the opposite?

Because this story - the one I mentioned last week - keeps looping in my head like a broken record.

We live in a world of Ring cameras, surveillance grids, GPS pings, facial recognition, and nosey-ass neighbors who know when you take your trash out five minutes late. We’re told everything is trackable. Traceable. Solvable.

And yet an elderly woman with mobility issues can be taken from her bed in the middle of the night and still be missing 14 days later.

Make it make sense, law enforcement technology.

And bring home Nancy Guthrie.

All Investments Flow Here

If this hit, forward it to three friends and let them in on it. Share it. Spread the word. Because the revival is more fun when the theater is full.

Until next Friday,
Chris

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