Welcome to Sarcasm and Substance 2026
If you’re new here, welcome.
If you’ve been around for a while, thanks for sticking with us.
Either way, you’re in the right place.
Sarcasm and Substance exists because the world of work desperately needs both. The honesty to say when something is broken. And the substance to actually fix it.
Do Better was never meant to be a buzzword brand or a one-lane consulting shop. It started with a simple, uncomfortable belief: most workplace problems aren’t caused by a lack of effort. They’re caused by unclear judgment, bad incentives, and systems that quietly reward the wrong behavior.
That belief hasn’t changed.
What has changed is how we show up to solve it.
The evolution of Do Better (without the rebrand gymnastics)
Do Better began as DEI-informed work. And that lens still matters. But over time, it became clear that labeling the work was limiting the impact.
Because the real issues weren’t living in DEI decks.
They were showing up as:
Founders hiring too fast and too vaguely
Leaders promoted without support or clarity
Professionals with strong experience but weak narratives
Talent teams drowning in activity with very little influence
A job market that punishes honesty and rewards performance theater
So we evolved. Not into something trendier. Into something truer.
Today, Do Better operates as an advisory firm across three core areas:
Career Advisory
We help people make sense of their experience, not just market it.
Resumes don’t fail because people aren’t impressive enough. They fail because the story is unclear, diluted, or borrowed from job descriptions that were never meant to reflect real work.
Career advisory at Do Better is about:
Owning your narrative
Building a personal brand that reflects how you actually operate
Making intentional choices instead of panic moves
Finding alignment, not just employment
This isn’t about chasing titles.
It’s about designing a career you can stand behind.
Founder & Startup Advisory
Hiring is strategy. Whether founders like it or not.
We work with founders and early-stage leaders who are building while learning, scaling while guessing, and hiring under pressure.
Most startup pain doesn’t come from ambition. It comes from:
Undefined decision criteria
Roles that exist in theory, not practice
Hiring for speed without clarity
Culture being treated as a vibe instead of a system
We help founders slow down just enough to:
Make better hiring decisions
Design roles that actually match the business
Build teams that reduce drag instead of creating it
Avoid expensive mistakes that don’t show up until much later
Good hiring doesn’t make noise.
Bad hiring echoes for years.
Talent & People Leader Advisory
This is where systems meet reality.
Talent and People leaders are often asked to fix outcomes they didn’t design. They inherit processes, expectations, and incentives that actively work against good judgment.
Our advisory work here focuses on:
Clarifying decision-making, not adding more tools
Designing hiring systems that scale without breaking
Helping leaders move from execution to influence
Translating people data into business language that actually lands
We don’t optimize for activity.
We optimize for outcomes that hold up under pressure.
2026 is not a “reset year.” It’s a reckoning.
Let’s be honest about the job market.
It’s loud.
It’s confusing.
And it’s punishing people who do real work while rewarding those who perform certainty the best.
In this environment:
Personal brand isn’t optional
Hiring quality matters more than hiring speed
Clarity is leverage
Vibes don’t scale
And “figuring it out as we go” has real costs
Do Better exists to help people and organizations stop pretending that effort alone is enough.
It’s not.
Better outcomes come from:
Better judgment
Better systems
Better storytelling
And the courage to question what everyone else is normalizing
Why Sarcasm and Substance exists
This blog isn’t here to inspire you.
It’s here to challenge you.
To question the way work is designed.
To call out lazy thinking dressed up as leadership.
To give you language for the things you already feel but haven’t named yet.
We’ll talk about:
Hiring that actually works
Careers that don’t require self-betrayal
Leadership without the performance
Systems that make people better, not smaller
Sometimes we’ll be direct.
Sometimes we’ll be sarcastic.
We’ll always be honest.
If you’re here for:
Empty motivation
Five easy steps
Or advice that ignores power, context, and reality
This probably isn’t your place.
But if you want to do better in how you hire, lead, and show up at work?
Welcome.
We’ve been waiting for you.
