Hello Reader,

Today is the day the paperback version of my book is out and I cannot begin to explain fully what this feels like.

But before I say anything else about that, I want to tell you why I wrote it in the first place because the “why” is the whole point, and I think it might matter to you too.

I wrote this book because I got tired of watching people I care about carry a version of the same exhaustion.

• The exhaustion of relationships that never quite resolve.
• Of meetings that leave you drained without knowing exactly why.
• Of conversations you keep replaying at 3am, still building the case you did not make in the moment.

For years I assumed this was just what adult life felt like. That the low-grade tension of managing difficult people and difficult moments was the price of doing meaningful work with other humans.

Then I spent twenty-five years watching what actually produced it in boardrooms, leadership teams, negotiations across governments and industries, n my own company and, sometimes uncomfortably, in my own home.

And I came to believe something specific. The exhaustion is the cost of a single pattern of thinking that most of us are running without knowing we are running it. The quiet belief that in any difficult situation, someone has to win and someone has to lose.

The book is the specific work of interrupting that pattern.

It is built around a framework I call Me, Them, Us, where:

Me is the inner work of grounding yourself, so you stop bringing your reactive patterns into every difficult moment.

Them is the outer work of seeing the actual person on the other side, rather than the version of them you have quietly constructed over months or years.

Us is the collaborative work of building something between you that neither of you could build alone.

Alongside the framework, the book gives you a set of specific, tested practices for having difficult conversations without triggering the defensiveness that has kept them postponed.

The Zero-Sum Illusion is not a summary of the problem, but the specific work of coming out of it.

That is why I wrote this for individual leaders at home, at work and in society.

If it is something you would like to have on your desk, the link is here: https://amzn.eu/d/09qYGvBt - that’s on Amazon in the UK, but the book is available worldwide, and via your local booksellers (do please ask them to order it for you).

Alongside the paperback, I have put together a short PDF entitled, “The 10 Everyday Moments That Reveal Whether You Are Stuck in Zero-Sum Thinking.”

It walks through ten specific moments most of us live inside without ever naming them, and it stands on its own as something worth having, whether or not you pick up the book. If you would like a copy, just reply to this email with the word “guide” and I will send it to you.

I started writing this book six years ago and have been actively marketing it for the past couple of months. Today it is finally out into the world and I feel a mix of emotions within me.

I’m definitely proud of this whole journey and for putting something meaningful out into the world. There’s also a relief that is hard to describe. The release as a paperback also feels a bit nerve-wracking since even more people will have access to the book and I put so much of myself on display. Yes, I'm feeling exposed!

But one feeling I keep coming back to is curiosity. I’m genuinely curious about who will read it, what they will find in it, what conversations it will start in rooms I will never see.

If you read it and something lands for you, I would love to know. If nothing lands, I would love to know that too.

Thank you for being here.

Grant

PS. For those that supported me on the crowdfunding campaign some months ago, your signed print copies and other perks will be made available this month, after I work out all the logistics.