The TELOS Method: My Notes from Dan Miessler's Framework for Self-Knowledge | Podcast Notes

I just watched a two-hour podcast that broke my brain in the best way possible.

NetworkChuck had Dan Miessler on—security expert, creator of the Fabric framework, and someone who thinks about AI and human purpose more deeply than almost anyone I know. They talked about TELOS, Dan's framework for self-knowledge.

And honestly? I think this might be one of the most important concepts I've encountered for navigating the AI age.

This isn't my idea. This is Dan's framework.

But after watching this conversation, I need to capture my thoughts while they're fresh. Because if what he's saying is even half-right, we're all going to need something like this.

The Question That Started Everything

Dan has this thought experiment he uses. Imagine a friendly alien shows up with a clipboard, ready to catalog what humans are about.

They turn to you: "What are you about?"

Not what you do. Not your job title. Not your daily routine.

What. Are. You. About?

Most people—myself included until recently—would freeze.

"Um... I run a company. I make videos. I... what do you mean?"

And here's Dan's point: We're not trained to think this way.

We're trained to execute tasks. To be economically useful. To do our job and go home.

But we're entering an age where executing tasks is becoming worthless. AI can do that. What AI can't do (yet) is have unique perspectives, original ideas, and authentic purpose.

If you can't answer what you're about, you're going to get steamrolled.

The Problem Dan Sees Coming

Dan's been thinking about this for years, but here's his core observation that shook me:

The ideal number of employees for most companies is actually zero.

Think about it. Why do companies hire people? Because the founder had an idea but couldn't execute all the work alone. They needed humans with skills.

But what happens when AI agents can do that work?

When a founder in 2027 can build a $100M company with 50 people instead of 5,000?

Dan's concern: We've been told there will always be jobs. It's a fundamental assumption. But that assumption is crumbling.

And in the shorter term—before full AI automation—how do you differentiate yourself when everyone is just "executing tasks"?

His answer: You need to know yourself really, really well.

That's where TELOS comes in.

What Does TELOS Mean?

Dan explained that TELOS isn't an acronym—it's from the Greek word meaning "purpose" or "end goal."

In Aristotelian philosophy, your telos is the ultimate purpose or objective that something naturally aims toward. Your reason for existing.

Aristotle connected this to Eudaimonia—not happiness in the dopamine-hit sense, but deep, sustained flourishing that comes from living according to your purpose.

That's what Dan's framework is about. Not productivity for productivity's sake. Not collecting notes because it feels productive.

It's about articulating what you're actually for.

What Dan Built: The TELOS Framework

Here's what Dan explained in the podcast. TELOS is an open-source framework for creating "deep context" about what matters to humans. It's designed to work with AI, but even without AI, it forces you to think clearly about yourself.

The structure is elegant:

Problem → Mission → Goals → Challenges → Strategies → Projects

Each level connects to the next. When you have a project on your list, you know exactly why you're doing it—because it's part of a strategy for addressing a challenge, which is stopping you from reaching a goal, which helps you accomplish your mission, which solves the problem you identified.

What Dan calls "explainability all the way up and down the chain."

How Dan Breaks It Down

I'm going to walk through each component the way Dan explained it to me:

1. Problems What's broken in the world that you actually care about?

Not theoretical problems. Not what you think you're supposed to care about. What genuinely bothers you enough that you'd spend time trying to fix it?

Example: "Not enough people understand how to build secure open-source software."

2. Mission What are you building or creating to address that problem?

This is your primary mission. The thing that, if someone asks what you're about, you can point to and say: "I'm working on this."

Example: "Create and promote a standard for building secure open-source software."

3. Narratives This part was brilliant to me. Dan uses these as actual sentences you would use to explain yourself.

Think of them as conversation starters for when you blank at parties:

Short version: "I'm the author of a platform that helps people create secure software."

The Most Important Sentence: "I believe a really important problem in the world is [X], which is why I'm building [Y]."

Dan explained these aren't for AI. They're for you. For that low-energy moment when you're surrounded by smart people and suddenly can't remember any of your cool ideas.

You pull up your TELOS file and remember who you are.

I need this. Badly.

4. Goals Clear, measurable outcomes you're working toward.

Get on the Secure Code Warrior podcast

Reach 10,000 downloads on GitHub

Get married and have kids by 36

Mix personal and professional. This is your life, not just your work.

5. Challenges The specific things stopping you from making progress.

This is where it gets real:

"I'm having trouble building the UX for the product."

"A competitor has a similar product and it's freaking me out."

"I don't know how to meet potential partners."

"Sometimes I feel unmotivated and lazy. I don't work out. I don't get sun."

These aren't abstract. They're the actual friction in your life.

6. Strategies Dan has a super simple definition of strategy that I love: A strategy is a very specific way you're addressing a challenge.

Not vague aspirations. Concrete approaches.

His example: If your challenge is "They have 10,000 troops, we have 1,000, and it's flat open ground"—your strategy might be "Only attack at night" or "Use scary sounds to frighten them" or "Become ninjas."

Each strategy points directly at a challenge it's designed to overcome.

7. Projects The actual work you're doing.

These should all tie to strategies. If you have a project that doesn't connect to a strategy, you either need to drop the project or add a new goal.

Why Dan's Framework Hit Me So Hard

Here's what makes TELOS powerful, at least from what I'm seeing in this podcast: When you're massively stressed and have 14 projects going, you can do a gut check.

Dan explained this in the conversation. You look at those 14 projects and ask: How do these actually connect to my strategies? My goals? My mission?

Sometimes you'll find that yes, these are all critical.

But sometimes—and this is what happened when I started thinking about my own stuff while watching—you'll discover that half of them don't actually tie to any goal at all.

Which means either:

You need to drop those projects, or

You need to add a new goal because something you're doing reveals you care about something you haven't articulated yet

The file reveals what you actually value, not what you think you should value.

This is the part where I had to pause the video and just sit with that for a minute.

How Dan Uses His Journal with TELOS

This part blew my mind watching the podcast.

Dan explained that his TELOS file isn't static. It's fed by his daily journal.

He writes down what happened each day. What he learned. What frustrated him. What excited him. Just raw capture of his life.

And when he runs metrics analysis on his TELOS file, the AI reads his journal and identifies progress:

"Hey, we finally reached 1,000 downloads on our open-source software" → Goal achieved

"I'm feeling unmotivated again today" → Challenge C1 is recurring

"Met someone interesting at the conference" → Potential progress on personal goals

The journal is the source of truth for everything he's tracking in TELOS.

I'm already doing daily notes in Obsidian, but I've never connected them to a strategic framework like this. It's always felt like disconnected capture. Dan's approach shows me how to make it all meaningful.

The Fabric Patterns (This is Where It Gets Crazy)

In the podcast, Dan explained how he's integrated TELOS with his Fabric framework—the AI pattern library he built.

Once you have your TELOS file, you can run it through specialized AI prompts. These aren't generic ChatGPT queries. They're laser-focused for self-analysis.

Dan mentioned these examples:

extract_panel_topics - "What could you possibly speak about at a conference?"

create_opening_sentences - For when you're heading into that party and your brain goes blank

check_metrics - How are you progressing toward your goals?

give_encouragement - You're feeling down about yourself

find_neglected_goals - What are you forgetting about?

find_blind_spots - What aren't you seeing in your thinking?

threat_model_my_plans - What could go wrong?

red_team_thinking - Attack your own ideas

Each of these can run automatically. Dan mentioned he could have a dashboard that constantly shows him his current state, his lowest-hanging fruit, what he should be working on.

The TELOS file becomes a living system for understanding yourself.

Hearing him describe this, I immediately wanted this for myself.

Dan's Vision: The Augmentation Stack

This is where Dan really opened my eyes to what's possible.

He talked about building an "augmentation stack"—basically an AI agent that knows your entire TELOS file, has access to your journal, your captures, your voice notes.

And it has access to hundreds of services:

Web scrapers

Research tools

Content summarizers

Deep research assistants

Dan's example hit me hard: You're walking through life with a thousand people behind you, ready to execute on any thought you have.

Someone mentions a political scandal. You say to your AI: "Go see if that's true." Nineteen minutes later, while you're still having coffee, it comes back with evidence.

Someone suggests starting a conference together. Your AI is already creating PDFs, finding staff, researching venues—all in the background while you're having a real-life conversation.

This is the future Dan sees. And the people who have this will have an unfair advantage over the people who don't.

I'm not at this level yet. Not even close. But hearing Dan describe his setup—with Lambda functions, N8N workflows, Amazon Bedrock agents—it's clear this is possible. And probably necessary.

The gap between people who build this kind of system and people who don't? It's going to be massive.

How I'm Going to Start (My Plan After Watching This)

After watching this two-hour podcast, here's what I'm doing this week:

You don't need Dan's massive augmentation stack on day one. I sure as hell don't have it yet.

Start simple:

Step 1: Create the File

Open a markdown file. Title it "TELOS.md"

Step 2: Answer These Questions

Problems: What's one thing in the world that genuinely bothers you? Something you'd actually want to fix if you could?

Mission: What are you building/creating to address that? (Even if it's just an idea right now)

Narratives: Complete this sentence: "I believe a really important problem in the world is ______, which is why I'm building/creating ______."

Goals: What are 3-5 concrete outcomes you want in the next 1-3 years? Mix personal and professional.

Challenges: What are the specific things stopping you right now? Be honest. Be specific.

Strategies: For each challenge, what's one specific approach you could take to address it?

Projects: What are you actually working on right now?

Step 3: Review Monthly

Set a recurring calendar event. Once a month, read through your TELOS file and update it.

The evidence of your progress is in your journal, your work, your life. The TELOS file is just the structure that makes it all make sense.

Step 4: Use It

Before important conversations, review your narratives.

When you feel lost or unmotivated, check your mission.

When you're overwhelmed with projects, trace them back to see if they connect to your goals.

When someone asks what you're about—you'll actually have an answer.

How TELOS Is Different from What I'm Already Doing

After hearing Dan explain TELOS in the podcast, my first thought was: "Wait, isn't this just Building a Second Brain? Or Zettelkasten? I'm already doing PKM stuff in Obsidian."

Dan clarified the difference in his conversation with NetworkChuck, and it clicked for me.

There's overlap, but TELOS solves a fundamentally different problem.

TELOS vs. Building a Second Brain (BASB)

I use Building a Second Brain principles already. The CODE method (Capture, Organize, Distill, Express) is great for knowledge management.

But here's what I realized from listening to Dan:

Second Brain asks: "What information do I need to remember?"

TELOS asks: "What am I trying to accomplish and why does it matter?"

Second Brain is horizontal—I'm collecting diverse information across topics. Building a knowledge base to pull from when creating content or making decisions.

TELOS is vertical—everything traces back to core problems and mission. Not just collecting information. Building a map that shows why every project connects to purpose.

The way I'm thinking about it now:

Second Brain = My knowledge layer (What do I know? What have I learned?)

TELOS = My strategic layer (What am I about? Why does this matter?)

Journal = My execution layer (What actually happened today?)

They're complementary. I can keep using Obsidian for my Second Brain while maintaining a TELOS file that explains why I'm capturing that particular knowledge in the first place.

This was a lightbulb moment for me.

TELOS vs. Traditional PKM (Zettelkasten, Obsidian, etc.)

Traditional Personal Knowledge Management is about building a network of interconnected ideas. You create atomic notes, link them together, and let insights emerge from the connections.

It's beautiful. It works.

But here's the comparison:

Traditional PKM	TELOS
Bottom-up (atomic notes build knowledge)	Top-down (mission drives everything)
Focus: What do I know?	Focus: What am I about?
Links between ideas	Links between actions and purpose
Build a knowledge graph	Build a purpose map
Answer: "What have I learned?"	Answer: "Why am I doing this?"

With Zettelkasten, you might have 1,000 notes about psychology, philosophy, business strategy, and technology. They're all connected. You can traverse the graph and discover new insights.

With TELOS, you have a clear hierarchy:

Here's the problem I care about

Here's my mission to address it

Here are my goals

Here are the challenges stopping me

Here are my strategies to overcome them

Here are the projects I'm actually working on

If a project doesn't connect to a strategy, you either drop it or add a new goal. There's no ambiguity.

The Explainability Chain

This is what makes TELOS uniquely powerful.

Any project you're doing can be mapped all the way back up to the problem you're trying to solve.

Someone asks: "Why are you working on that?"

You can answer: "This project is part of my strategy to overcome this challenge, which is blocking me from this goal, which helps me accomplish my mission, which addresses this problem I see in the world."

Try doing that with your current note-taking system.

Most PKM systems help you remember what you've learned. TELOS helps you remember who you are and what you're for.

When to Use What

Use Second Brain/PKM when:

You consume a lot of content and want to retain it

You're doing research across multiple domains

You want to build a personal knowledge base

You're creating content and need to pull from past insights

Use TELOS when:

You feel busy but directionless

You have 14 projects but can't remember why you started them

Someone asks what you're about and you freeze

You want AI to help you make decisions aligned with your purpose

You need to explain yourself in job interviews, at conferences, at parties

Use both when:

You want knowledge management WITH purpose alignment

You want AI to analyze "Given my goals and what I'm learning, what should I focus on?"

You want to build a comprehensive system for becoming your best self

How I'm Planning to Integrate Everything

Here's my plan after watching this podcast:

TELOS file - Define my mission, goals, challenges, and strategies (starting with 100 lines, Dan's is 2,100+)

Second Brain (Obsidian) - Keep capturing highlights, ideas, and insights from books, articles, conversations (I'm already doing this)

Daily journal - Record what actually happened each day (also already doing this in daily notes)

AI - Analyze all three to answer: "Am I actually working on what matters? What should I do next?"

The power is in the connection. I might capture an insight from a book in my Second Brain. Then ask AI: "Given my TELOS file, how does this insight apply to my current challenges?"

Or I review my journal and realize I haven't made progress on a goal in three months. Time to either adjust the goal or change my strategy.

TELOS provides the "why." Second Brain provides the "what." Journal provides the "what actually happened."

Together, they create a complete system.

This is what I'm building over the next few months.

What I'm Taking Away from This

Here's what stuck with me most from watching Dan on NetworkChuck's podcast:

If you think about Monday on Saturday, do you smile or do you feel dread?

If you feel dread, something is fundamentally wrong. And the solution isn't finding a slightly better job or a slightly better boss.

The solution is knowing yourself well enough to build a life around what you're actually about.

Dan's point about task execution being worthless hit hard: Most people just do their tasks and leave when the tasks are done. Those tasks are the easiest things to capture and replicate with AI.

The things that can't be replicated are judgment, curiosity, perspective, and unique ideas.

But you have to know what your judgment, curiosity, and unique ideas actually are.

You have to be able to answer that alien with the clipboard.

My Action Steps (And Maybe Yours)

I'm starting my TELOS file this week. Not the full 2,100 lines like Dan's—just the basics:

What are you about?

Not what you do. Not your job title. Not your daily tasks.

What problems do you see that need solving? What are you building toward? What would you want to be remembered for?

If you can't answer those questions clearly, maybe it's time to start your own TELOS file.

Because Dan's right about one thing: the world is changing fast.

The people who know what they're about—who can articulate their mission, explain their strategies, and connect their daily work to something meaningful—those are the people who will thrive.

The rest will just be... replaceable.

And I don't want to be replaceable.

Resources:

TELOS Framework: GitHub - danielmiessler/telos

Fabric AI Patterns: GitHub - danielmiessler/fabric

Dan Miessler's Newsletter: Unsupervised Learning

Original Podcast: NetworkChuck - TELOS with Dan Miessler

Building a Second Brain (for knowledge management): Tiago Forte's method

Note: TELOS works great alongside Second Brain/PKM systems. Use BASB for knowledge capture, use TELOS for purpose articulation, use AI to connect them.

My Challenge to You (and Myself): Create a TELOS.md file this week. Start with just the Problems and Mission sections. Spend 30 minutes. See what comes out.

Then let me know what you discovered about yourself. I'm doing this too—we're figuring this out together.

This is my summary and interpretation of Dan Miessler's TELOS framework after watching his conversation with NetworkChuck. All credit for the framework goes to Dan Miessler. All credit for the excellent interview goes to NetworkChuck. All mistakes in understanding the framework are mine. You can find Dan's original work at the links above.

Watch the podcast here: