The Kitchen Cabinet
Summary: A deliberately assembled, informal personal board of advisors to lean on at career and life crossroads.
Sources: Handwritten.md; LinkedIn Posts.md (“The Kitchen Cabinet,” posted 2026-01-06); conversation with Paul (2026-07-08) (original content, authored by Paul)
Last updated: 2026-07-08
At major crossroads — a new job, a promotion, a tug-of-war between career and personal life — the weight of the decision often comes from facing something beyond one’s experience or comfort zone (source: Handwritten.md). Paul’s answer is what he calls a “Kitchen Cabinet” (also known as a Board of Directors or Privy Council in other traditions) — chosen because major decisions are so often made standing in a kitchen, surrounded by the people who love us most (source: Handwritten.md).
He recommends being intentional and purposeful about building this group, selecting people who (source: Handwritten.md):
- Authentically want you to succeed, out of genuine care
- Are different from you in experience, perspective, motivation, and ambition — diversity matters
- Are brave enough to tell you what you don’t want to hear, and will volunteer their perspective unprompted
Some Kitchen Cabinet members may overlap with Sponsors or Mentors, but the role is distinct: tactical, practical, sometimes raw support specifically at the moments that feel most consequential. Inviting someone into the Kitchen Cabinet is described as an act of vulnerability and courage, and “the highest form of respect you can show them” (source: Handwritten.md).
This connects to foundation-of-trust: both center on the idea that asking for help — and choosing carefully who you ask — is a form of strength, not weakness. The LinkedIn version makes that link explicit, tracing the Kitchen Cabinet directly back to the same bridge-watch lesson at the heart of foundation-of-trust: trust to stand a critical watch alone came from judgment, not proficiency — and that same principle “followed me into the C-Suite” (source: LinkedIn Posts.md).
Their job, per the LinkedIn version, “is not to make the call for me. Their job is to broaden my line of sight, sharpen my judgment, and keep me honest about what I am really optimizing for” (source: LinkedIn Posts.md).
Paul’s own content-planning notes list this piece as connected to bar-raiser (source: LinkedIn Post Concepts.md). Both are about deliberately inviting an outside, trusted voice into a decision before it’s made, one at the personal/career level, the other at the organizational/AI-governance level.
One path into a Kitchen Cabinet worth naming directly: a mentoring relationship that outlasts its original purpose. Paul notes a successful coaching or mentoring relationship will often naturally become a sustained Kitchen Cabinet one, the formal mentoring ends, but the trust built during it doesn’t, and the mentee keeps coming back (source: conversation with Paul, 2026-07-08).