The Becoming Code

The Becoming Code If success feels hollow, this page is for you. Identity work for leaders ready to stop performing and start becoming. May 24 cohort → link below.

There were seven seconds of silence in a meeting yesterday.I know this because I became extremely aware of approximately...
09/07/2026

There were seven seconds of silence in a meeting yesterday.

I know this because I became extremely aware of approximately six of them.

Someone had finished speaking.

Nobody immediately responded.

And almost automatically, I started assembling something to say.

Not because I disagreed.

Not because the meeting was stuck.

There was just…

silence.

I’ve spent enough years in meetings to have developed a fairly reliable set of tools for this.

Ask the question.

Summarize what you’ve heard.

Move the conversation forward.

Bring someone else in.

Make the slightly inappropriate joke that gets everyone breathing again.

Useful skills.

Except yesterday, nobody needed rescuing.

So I didn’t say anything.

Three seconds passed.

Then four.

By five, seven seconds had somehow become a significant portion of my adult life.

At six, someone across the table shifted in his chair.

Then said:

“I think we’re avoiding the actual question.”

And suddenly the conversation became much more interesting.

I’ve been thinking about that.

Because I don’t believe my instinct to contribute is fake.

I like contributing.

I like helping rooms move.

I like making things clearer.

But usefulness can become so familiar that you stop noticing when you’ve volunteered for it.

A question hangs in the air.

Answer it.

Someone looks uncertain.

Help.

Conversation stalls.

Move it.

Yesterday there was an empty space in a room.

For seven seconds, I didn’t make it mine.

Someone else did.

Turns out they were there too.

Someone misunderstood me yesterday.And I didn’t correct him.This sounds much more dramatic than it was.We were standing ...
09/05/2026

Someone misunderstood me yesterday.

And I didn’t correct him.

This sounds much more dramatic than it was.

We were standing around talking when he mentioned a decision I’d made and casually explained why he thought I’d made it.

His explanation was reasonable.

Kind, even.

It was also wrong.

Immediately, I had the missing context ready.

There had been another conversation.

Something had happened earlier.

I’d considered something he didn’t know about.

Give me ninety seconds and I could have made the whole thing make sense.

I nearly did.

Then someone else spoke.

The conversation moved on.

And for a few minutes, I noticed myself waiting for an opportunity to bring it back.

Not because his misunderstanding mattered.

Because it existed.

Somewhere in the world there was now a slightly inaccurate version of me walking around in another person’s head.

Apparently, I wanted to edit it.

I didn’t.

We kept talking.

Later I found myself wondering whether he’d left still believing what he’d said.

Probably.

Nothing happened.

This isn’t an argument for allowing important misunderstandings to stand.

There are moments when clarity matters enormously.

Yesterday wasn’t one of them.

It was one person having an incomplete explanation for one decision I had made.

Which, when I say it like that, sounds remarkably survivable.

Maybe the interesting part wasn’t that he misunderstood me.

It was discovering how accustomed I am to being my own publicist.

I deliberately made my drive to work longer this morning.There was no traffic on my usual route.No road closure.I hadn’t...
08/31/2026

I deliberately made my drive to work longer this morning.

There was no traffic on my usual route.

No road closure.

I hadn’t missed a turn.

I simply got to the intersection where I normally turn right…

and went straight.

There’s another route to work that takes about twelve minutes longer.

It’s not particularly scenic.

There’s a stretch beside the river.

Some older houses.

Too many traffic lights.

A bakery I’ve driven past dozens of times and still haven’t visited.

I like it.

And apparently that wasn’t enough information for my brain.

Within about a minute, I was already constructing reasons for the decision.

It would give me time to think.

Maybe the slower drive would make the morning less rushed.

Perhaps there was something useful about changing routine.

All very respectable.

Also invented after I’d already made the turn.

The actual reason was much smaller.

I wanted to go that way.

That’s it.

I arrived at work twelve minutes later than I normally would.

Nobody noticed.

Nothing was lost.

And the drive didn’t teach me anything.

Which feels important to mention.

I didn’t discover the importance of slowing down.

I didn’t suddenly see my life differently.

I drove past a man walking a small dog.

Stopped at four red lights.

Listened to half a song twice because I restarted it.

Then went to work.

I just liked that road better this morning.

Maybe preference doesn’t always need to become a principle.

I had two completely free hours yesterday.No plans.No work that needed finishing.Nobody expecting me anywhere.And almost...
08/30/2026

I had two completely free hours yesterday.

No plans.

No work that needed finishing.

Nobody expecting me anywhere.

And almost immediately, I started trying to make the time worthwhile.

Maybe I’d read.

Go for a walk.

Get something done around the house.

Call someone I hadn’t spoken to recently.

There were plenty of respectable options.

Instead, I made a sandwich and put on an old film.

I’d already seen it.

Which somehow made the decision even less defensible.

About halfway through, I fell asleep.

Not intentionally.

I woke up twenty minutes later and kept watching.

Then at 4:37, I went into the kitchen to make tea and caught myself thinking:

I haven’t done anything with the afternoon.

Which was accurate.

It was also strange.

Nobody had given those two hours a job.

I had.

I’d taken an empty piece of Sunday and quietly introduced expectations.

Rest properly.

Enjoy it properly.

Use it well.

Make a memory.

Come back better.

Apparently even doing nothing can become something to succeed at.

I didn’t make the most of yesterday afternoon.

I made a sandwich.

Watched most of a film.

Slept through some of it.

Made tea.

By dinner, the two hours were gone.

Nothing to show for them.

I’m not sure they owed me anything.

I put my phone in a drawer yesterday.That sounds considerably more intentional than it was.I was waiting for a reply to ...
08/29/2026

I put my phone in a drawer yesterday.

That sounds considerably more intentional than it was.

I was waiting for a reply to something important.

I’d sent it Friday afternoon.

Saturday morning, I checked.

Nothing.

Eleven minutes later, I caught myself checking again.

Still nothing.

This was useful information because apparently I’d begun operating a highly inefficient personal delivery service in which repeatedly opening my inbox might help the other person type faster.

So I put the phone in the kitchen drawer.

Not for the day.

Not because phones are ruining civilization.

I just wanted the next check to require an extra movement.

Then I went out.

I needed something from the hardware store.

A few hours later, I found myself standing in an aisle comparing two screws that appeared, to me, to be exactly the same screw.

And somewhere around there I realized I hadn’t thought about the reply for a while.

That interested me.

Because waiting has a strange way of making something that is happening elsewhere feel like it is happening to you continuously.

But it wasn’t.

Someone, somewhere, had either replied or hadn’t.

Meanwhile I was buying the wrong screw.

I checked my phone later.

Still nothing.

The answer hadn’t arrived.

Saturday had.

08/29/2026

I had already said yes.

Then the answer changed.

What surprised me wasn't changing my mind. It was how quickly I started searching for a more acceptable explanation.

A busy week. An early morning. Too much work.

All true. None of them the reason.

For people who value reliability, achievement and keeping their word, changing an answer can feel strangely close to breaking one. This is about the difference, and the explanations we construct when a simple truth doesn't feel defensible enough.

The Becoming Code™ explores identity beneath achievement, especially the patterns successful people rarely question because those patterns helped make them successful.

I'm Alistair Tweedie.

Still becoming.

I had already said yes.That’s what made it interesting.If I’d never agreed to go, there wouldn’t have been much to think...
08/29/2026

I had already said yes.

That’s what made it interesting.

If I’d never agreed to go, there wouldn’t have been much to think about.

But it was in the calendar.

I’d said I’d be there.

Then yesterday afternoon I realized I didn’t want to go anymore.

There was no dramatic reason.

I wasn’t unwell.

I wasn’t overwhelmed.

Nobody had done anything wrong.

I had simply changed my mind.

Apparently, my mind regarded this as unacceptable evidence.

So it went looking for something more respectable.

A long week.

An early morning.

Too much work.

A headache would have been particularly convenient.

Eventually I noticed what I was doing.

I wasn’t deciding whether to go.

I’d already done that.

I was trying to construct a version of the decision that would be easier to defend.

So I sent a message.

“I’m going to sit this one out tonight. I changed my mind.”

Then waited.

A few minutes later:

“No worries. Next time.”

At 7:30, I was standing in my kitchen wondering what to make for dinner.

No liberation.

No great act of courage.

I didn’t even have particularly good plans instead.

I’d changed my mind.

Then behaved as though I was allowed to know that.

08/28/2026

Comparison quietly changed my scoreboard, but now I ask: Does this life truly fit me? 💫

I had the answer.A friend was telling me about a problem yesterday.Not asking for advice.Just telling me what had happen...
08/28/2026

I had the answer.

A friend was telling me about a problem yesterday.

Not asking for advice.

Just telling me what had happened.

Within about thirty seconds, I’d worked it out.

The conversation he needed to have.

The thing he wasn’t seeing.

Probably the three steps after that too.

I could feel myself waiting for the gap where I could give it to him.

Then he finished and said:

“I don’t know. I think I just needed to say it out loud.”

And there it was.

He hadn’t brought me a problem to solve.

He’d brought me something heavy enough that he didn’t want to carry it alone for twenty minutes.

So I didn’t give him my answer.

We sat there.

I asked if he wanted another coffee.

He said yes.

Later, I found myself wondering how many times I’ve mistaken being trusted with something for being placed in charge of it.

I still think my answer was pretty good.

He’ll never know.

08/27/2026

I left one thing unfinished.

It had the audacity to remain completely fine.

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Austin, TX
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