You’re still here. That means something.

Every week, I try to make sense of this strange industry—and the even stranger world we live in. Sometimes it’s a rant. Sometimes it’s a reflection. Sometimes, it’s just me trying to hold onto what still feels true.

This week marks the end of Season Four—and the beginning of something more personal.

Season Five starts tomorrow, and it opens with a story that shook me. Not as a marketer. As a human being.

Let’s begin.

We officially closed out Season Four of The ADOTAT Show—our little unruly experiment in truth-telling—and tomorrow, Season Five kicks off. You’d think by now this would feel routine. But no. This one hit me in the kishkes.

Because the first episode of this season didn’t just break format—it broke me.

It’s a conversation with Kevin Krim, the CEO of EDO. A brilliant guy. A data whisperer. The rare adtech exec who can talk CTV metrics without putting people into a spreadsheet-induced coma. But this episode? It wasn’t about media. Or marketing. It was about memory. It was about grief. About what happens after your world collapses—and how, impossibly, you rebuild.

If you’ve followed me for a while, you know this isn’t just content. It’s personal.

I’ve lived through more than my fair share of trauma.
I worked in the World Trade Center.
I lost my brother—suddenly, horribly—right before my first child, Temmi Lattin, was born.
I’ve been through the kind of pain that doesn’t post well on LinkedIn.

And now I’m almost 50. Yeah. That number that makes you look in the mirror and ask:
What have I built? What have I broken? Where am I actually going?
(It’s like a midlife crisis, but with less sports cars and more existential spreadsheets.)

Two weeks ago, I published a piece about sexual harassment in our industry. Some folks were furious. Said I “threw people under the bus.” That I was a hammer looking for nails.

Listen, maybe I am. But I’ve seen too many people stay silent because it’s easier. More professional. More “on brand.”

I’d rather be difficult than dishonest.

And I know I’m not alone in that struggle.

This week, I watched Noa Argamani—one of the Israeli hostages rescued after months of brutal captivity by Hamas—stand in front of an audience and speak. With clarity. With courage. With tears that didn’t ask for permission.

She spoke about the torture, the beatings, the psychological horror of being held by monsters who don’t just deny her freedom—but her humanity.

Noa didn’t just survive. She came back with something even harder to carry: the truth.

And watching her, I couldn’t help but think—this is the kind of leadership we never talk about. Not the boardroom kind. The gut-wrenching, soul-tearing, get-up-anyway kind.

Kevin Krim is that kind of leader, too.

He and Marina didn’t just survive the unthinkable—the murder of their children Lulu and Leo—they created something out of the ashes. A foundation. A framework. A new kind of hope. It’s called Choose Creativity, and it’s built on 10 principles—resilience, courage, curiosity among them—that aren’t just slogans. They’re scaffolding. For surviving. For parenting. For leading.

When Kevin told me, “We wanted to keep Lulu and Leo’s spirits alive—not in stone, but in motion,” I lost it.

Not in stone. In motion.

That’s the line I can’t get out of my head. It’s the line that should live in every strategy deck, every boardroom, every campaign that pretends to understand what “purpose” actually means.

Because this episode? It’s not about grief.
It’s about grace.
It’s about what we choose to do with the pain we carry.

In a world that seems increasingly unhinged—where fanatics scream louder than thinkers, where kindness is seen as weakness, and where "truth" is more branding than belief—we need these stories like oxygen.

So yeah. Tomorrow we launch Season Five. And we’re doing it with a story that broke me wide open, made me reflect on everything I’ve lost, and reminded me that being human is still the only real KPI that matters.

To everyone who’s still choosing truth in a world built on denial...
To the whistleblowers, the survivors, the unpolished, the angry, the grieving, the creators who are still building even when it all feels broken:
This one’s for you.

🎧 Episode drops Monday. You’ll cry. You’ll think. And if I did my job—you’ll walk away changed.

📬 Subscribe here: https://new.adotat.com/subscribe
🙏 Thank you to our launch sponsors: Troutman Amin LLP and Incremental
Stay Bold. Stay Curious. And Know More Than You Did Yesterday.

—Pesach Lattin
Founder, ADOTAT
Host, The ADOTAT Show
Still standing. Still telling the truth.