ManyThings Explored
Weekly essays on work, living, places, and experiments — what curiosity looks like when you take it seriously. Free, here and on Medium.
Start reading →A curiosity practice · Essays, a book, and advisory work
Curiosity isn't a distraction. It's a strategy.
ManyThings is built around one idea: that asking better questions — about your work, your life, and the places you go — is how what matters actually gets built. An essay every week. A book out November 16. Advisory work for teams with real decisions to make.
Our philosophy · The ManyThings Method
The Four C's that guide how we explore, build, and create.
01
Curiosity
Follow curiosity before convention. Ask the question nobody in the room has asked yet.
02
Connection
Look for intersections. The interesting answers usually live between two fields, not inside one.
03
Craft
Build things thoughtfully. Get good at the thing, not just interested in it.
04
Creation
Ship real things. An essay, a workshop, a decision, a print — curiosity should leave evidence.
One idea. Three ways in.
Read it, practice it in your own life, or bring it into how your organization decides.
Pretire
The book, and the coaching, workshops, and talks built around it — for accomplished people who want a life beyond the job title before they need one.
Explore Pretire →ManyThings Advisors
Business strategy, go-to-market strategy, and decision science for leadership teams — turning ambition into a short list of funded decisions with owners, measures, and next steps.
For organizations →
The book · Out November 16, 2026
Pretire Before You Retire
Learn to live intentionally before retirement forces you to.
Financial independence does not automatically create life independence. Retirement removes structure, removes expectations, and changes identity — and almost nobody practices for that. Pretire is how you start, while the system is still in place.
- Structure
- Expectations
- Identity
- Discipline
- Curiosity
ManyThings Explored
Latest from the journal
The Permission to Be Someone Else
Sometimes a little pretending gives us room to discover something real.
What Gets Lost When We Flatten the World
The less we can see and hear, the more we fill in ourselves.The less we can see and hear, the more we fill in ourselves.
The Surprisingly Difficult Art of Being Done
Sometimes finishing something is the best way to make room for what’s next.
About
Jeff A. Ilseman, Founder
Jeff A. Ilseman works full-time in enterprise data and analytics software sales and is Chief Curiosity Officer of ManyThings Group. A conversation with a friend sparked the exploration of his own readiness for life beyond work that became Pretire Before You Retire. He brings a lifelong curiosity to the question of how to build a meaningful life while still working. Jeff and his wife, Sharon, have three children and live in Wildwood, Missouri, with their two Bernese Mountain Dogs, Athena and Apollo.
He writes weekly at ManyThings Explored and advises leadership teams and organizations through ManyThings Advisors.
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