I have to admit something that most of you will find quite remarkable. When I started this manifesto, I wasn’t quite sure where it would take me. But back in May, something happened that took things in a whole new direction. You must understand what happened because it’s changed the entire trajectory of this manifesto.
I never planned to map the inside of the human spirit. I intended to write a manifesto about skateboarding. I planned to ride and enjoy my “semi” retirement. Over the past few years, I launched a memoir writing business that frankly didn’t set the world on fire. I also created a trade show called The Legacy Expo. The last event I did, I lost $800. It’s been difficult to duplicate the success I had with Concrete Wave.
I firmly believed that I’d just disappear into concrete waves, asphalt rivers, snow-packed mountainsides. That was enough. But somewhere along the way, life demanded something bigger.
So what happened? Well, back in the spring when I was writing the Career Opportunities chapter, I started to focus on why I found myself in so many work situations where I completely f**ked up. Why wasn’t I caught by the system? Why wasn’t there a test that would show I suck in sales?
For decades, I drifted through jobs, gigs, careers, conversations, and crises — and not once did the so-called “system” stop me and say: Michael, you are misaligned. Not once did a teacher, a boss, or an HR department pull me aside and say: This isn’t who you are, this is why you’re suffering.
No, the system just kept slotting me in. Sales job? Sure. Publishing? Why not? Start a peace movement? Go for it. And the whole time I was screaming inside. Because here’s the truth: people like me don’t fit neatly into performance reviews or résumé boxes. HR can tell you what you can do and how you do it, but they rarely ask why you do it.
And if no one asks you “why,” you can spend decades miscast in your own life. I know, because that was me. Decades in the wilderness left me resentful and puzzled.
Let me tell you what misalignment feels like. It feels like standing in a sales meeting while your soul quietly exits through the back door. It feels like dragging yourself to projects that look good on paper but corrode you from the inside. It feels like watching your energy leak out day by day while everyone around you insists you should be grateful.
Misalignment doesn’t always show up as a breakdown. Most people don’t crash all at once. They slip. A little here, a little there. They rationalize. They adapt. Until one day, they wake up in a life that doesn’t belong to them.
That was me, again and again. And because I had no language for it, I thought it was my fault. But this manifesto created an opportunity for me really to understand why I behave the way I do.
Why should you care about this? Well, here’s the thing: skateboarding saved me. Not financially. Not professionally. Spiritually. Skateboarding taught me to see. On a board, you learn to read terrain. You learn to spot cracks, inclines, and lines that others can’t see. You learn to fall and get back up. You learn rhythm, balance, and flow. Without knowing it, I was training my eye to notice alignment. To notice when something flowed and when it didn’t.
That skateboarder’s eye followed me into publishing. Into activism. Into conversations with strangers and late nights staring at the ceiling. Even when I was misaligned in my work, I could feel alignment in my bones. I just didn’t know how to name it.
History wasn’t just happening around me. It was happening through me. Strauss and Howe’s Fourth Turning gave me a frame. A sense that we are living in a cycle — one where old systems collapse and new ones are born. As much as I love the thesis of the book and have incorporated parts into this manifesto, it still didn’t help answer some of my fundamental concerns.
Skateboarding was my rebellion. Publishing was my attempt to create a cultural torch. Activism was my fight against dislocation. But the truth is, all of it was rehearsal for something else. Something that could only be born in the crucible of collapse.
We are in the breakdown loop. And I had to live with enough breakdowns of my own to see the pattern. Here’s the part no one tells you: if you feed yourself poison, you’ll start mistaking it for nourishment. For years, I gorged on podcasts, YouTube rabbit holes, outrage media, and news cycles that never end. My head was a junkyard of borrowed opinions and synthetic adrenaline. Oh boy, was I a news junkie. But slowly, starting in mid-May of 2025, I weaned myself off. I stopped feeding on other people’s noise.
I literally went from the equivalent of 5+ hours a day consuming podcasts and YouTube videos (I listen/watch at double the speed) and sometimes 1 hour of reading website news to less than 20 minutes a day.
As I started to think, I needed to create a survey. So, I jumped on Claude AI along with Chat GPT, and something emerged. I didn’t expect to use machines to write my soul. I gave them my stories — my skateboarding past, my broken careers, my books. I guess you could say I fed them chaos. And somehow, they gave me coherence.
Together, we built a survey that I had been missing for what I’d felt my whole life. AI and a skateboarder created the language of why. That still sounds insane when I write it. But it’s true. From the chaos, a pattern emerged, then a map and finally something I realized was The Inside Atlas. It’s a reflective tool that helps you find alignment. From here, you’ll experience balance. The byproduct of balance is harmony, and from here you find yourself in flow.
A lot of what I’ve been circling around throughout this manifesto eventually manifested itself into The Inside Atlas. It’s like finding an enormous Easter egg inside a DVD. But if you’ve been kind enough to read this far, then consider it a bonus.
The Inside Atlas isn’t another self-help tool. It’s not a personality quiz. It’s a compass. A mirror. A way of asking the right question: why do you act?
Three shapes — the Triangle (mind), the Square (body), the Circle (soul). Reflection, alignment, balance, harmony, flow. That’s it. That’s the map.
Get it right, and your life sings. Get it wrong, and your life fractures.
I wish I had this at 20. At 30. At 40. It could have spared me decades of misfires. But maybe it had to take 60 years of pain to birth something worth giving away.
Millions of people are quietly living misaligned lives — forcing themselves into jobs, marriages, roles, and identities that don’t fit. And they think the problem is them.
It’s not. The problem is that the system never asked them why. The Inside Atlas asks. And when you see your own alignment on paper — when you see the shapes that govern you — something clicks. You stop blaming yourself. You start steering.
So why did I do this? Why write a manifesto? Why drag my entire messy history into the light? Because skateboarding taught me that if you find a line worth riding, you ride it — even if it looks impossible. Because history taught me that when systems collapse, you either build something new or get crushed. Because AI taught me that sometimes the strangest collaborations can birth the most human truths.
And because misalignment almost broke me. If I can save someone else sixty years of pain, then every fall, every late night, every false start was worth it.
If you’re reading this and you feel it — that quiet hum of misalignment — don’t ignore it. Don’t adapt to it. Don’t rationalize it away.
Go to theinsideatlas.com. If it resonates, great. If not, no worries.
This isn’t about fixing yourself. You’re not broken. This is about finding your why, your alignment, your flow. It’s the pocket-sized field manual for avoiding the breakdown loop.
The fact is that the manifesto was done originally just for a bit of fun. I can’t really explain why I was drawn to create it. All I know is that thirty years ago, the world of skateboarding sure looked a lot different than what you see now. The magazines and media only showed street skateboarding, and the skate shops reflected that myopic thinking. I knew variety was the key ingredient to making skateboarding more accessible, and now, thirty years later, millions ride on longboards and surf skates. They whip through cones on wicked slalom setups, tear down hills and spend hours practicing freestyle on empty tennis courts.
Thirty years from now, I hope the world of Human Resources looks different!
So consider this a manifesto, a catalyst for you to find alignment if you’ve lost it. This is where my life aligns — finally — with its why. And maybe, if you’re willing, it’s where yours begins, too.
When you get a moment, send me an email of your own personal skate manifesto or take one of our damn surveys and let me know your thoughts.
We'll continue riding the wave together.
Reach me at theendlesswavemichael@gmail.com.
