Every other candidate with money has a media adviser. You have a planning fight you care about, an interview that can make your campaign, and a community deciding whether to trust you. Ask Instead is the adviser you can afford — built on forty years inside the news, drawn faithfully from the book that's coming.
For forty years I have worked on both sides of the news — first as a journalist, then as the adviser in the room when the stakes were highest and the clock was running. Beyond the Art of War is that experience made into something you can reach for. Russell Kelly
Beyond the Art of War
A Media Playbook for Leaders and Journalists in the Age of AI
A field manual for anyone who suddenly finds themselves in the media's gaze. It names the moves being made in real-time right now — and hands you a better question than the one the conflict machine is offering.
Coming November 2026
Ask Instead
Your live situation, today
The book, applied to your interview, your issue, your actual words. Ask it what's coming, how to hold your ground, and the focus you need when you don't know what to say.
In early access now, for founding testers
Based on Sun Tzu's classic text on winning, the book builds the framework and goes beyond. The app applies it — right now, when you need it.
Every media encounter sits somewhere on four strategies. The book teaches you to read which one you're in — and the app points you toward the response that serves the public, not the fight.
Paste the issue. See the questions a journalist is likely to ask, before they ask them — and how to elevate beyond those questions.
Refocus on your strategy with discipline, so an honest answer builds your campaign instead of derailing it.
It tells you when not to speak, and how to decline confidently and ethically.
Ask Instead gives you strategic direction in your own words — never a script to read aloud. Your words stay yours. Which means your accuracy stays yours.
Before Beyond the Art of War launches, I'm opening a small number of seats to candidates who'll put Ask Instead to work in a real campaign.
You get the adviser you couldn't otherwise afford. I get to see it hold up under live conditions. Fair trade.
Limited to 200 candidatesEnter your details and I'll email your founding-tester code.
No cost. No obligation. I'll email your code and check in once to hear how it went and what suggestions you may have.
This book is about winning by escalating to a higher public purpose. The app is always on, always available, always ready to help when you need it the most.Claim your founding-tester seat →