> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.chearis.org/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # What You Got Coming - URL: https://www.chearis.org/what-you-got-coming/ - Published: 2026-08-17T12:00:09.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-17T12:00:08.000Z - Description: In the Black community, "what you got coming" is usually a threat. In the household of faith, it's a treasure. - Author: Karsten Chearis - Tags: #essay I introduced the concept of **Intentional Compound Creativity** in [Essay 04](https://www.chearis.org/what-you-got/) and expounded on it in [Essay 05](https://www.chearis.org/what-you-got-left/). Now I want to give you something practical to use. Let's start with a reminder of what it is. **Intentional Compound Creativity** is the practice of putting everything you've made back to work, so its value increases instead of expiring. Consider the two most common portfolios: a financial portfolio and a career portfolio. A financial portfolio keeps working whether or not you put anything into it today. What you invested years ago has the potential to continue earning while you sleep. A career portfolio, built the way most of us build one, does the opposite. It records work that already stopped. Company, title, project, receipts. It becomes a shoe box proving that you once earned. Intentional Compound Creativity brings the two together. You move beyond the work without moving beyond the lesson, and what you learned at one stop becomes material for the next one. It's intentional because using what is in your creative portfolio never happens automatically. It's compounded because the value of what you *have* created and what you *are* creating increases over time. Intentional is the requirement placed on the maker. Compound is the return the maker collects. No one drifts toward being deliberate with their time and distinguished in their creativity. Getting there means you give attention to your intention. ## The job Don't settle for understanding this theoretically. Decide to use this purposefully. I'll give you two ways to use it, starting with your job. Let me show you how I used it. I work in cybersecurity in an area called Managed Detection and Response (MDR), which is a subset of Security Operations, or SecOps for short. I started my career in Information Technology Operations, often shortened to ITOps. Those two fields are related in that SecOps secures what ITOps maintains. Before jumping into SecOps, I made it to ITOps leadership. Here's the process that helped me grow. Project → Program → Product. Part of ITOps is onboarding new employees, which means provisioning the accounts, granting the access, and deploying the software and hardware that a new employee will need for their job. I did different parts of that at various jobs, but I made it to a point where I was responsible for the entire life cycle. I realized that this process is more complicated than it sounds. My employer had a hiring spree, and I had to do this repeatedly with one problem: I received the requests in multiple disparate ways. Sometimes a senior vice president would tell me in passing in the break room. Other times the hiring manager would walk to my desk to tell me. Other senior directors would email me, and some executive assistants would send me a direct message. Those different channels meant more ways for my team and me to get it wrong. So I stopped the work to build a plan. I began a project where I created a New Hire Onboarding Document. That document had to be completed by the hiring manager (or their assistant), and I included drop-down menus, radio buttons, and checkboxes to make it easier for them to make requests. That allowed my team to script and automate the provisioning. It worked, and the project ended. But I used the knowledge to move to phase II: the program. The program took that project and added another one: the off-boarding process. Just as people were hired, they would also eventually leave the department or the company. Ensuring access is removed is often more important than granting the access, because access to systems that are no longer needed becomes an attack surface (a place where cyber criminals can attack). Adding a few more projects meant that I built a full employee lifecycle program: every step of an employee joining a department in the company, moving around in the company, and eventually leaving it was documented. That meant that I could move to phase III: the product. When I eventually left the company, my previous team and their next leader could continue to use what I built. But I also took what I learned to the next employer, which meant I could implement the same system in less time and add improvements sooner. That didn't just help me provide value sooner, get promoted earlier, and earn raises faster. It also gave me better stories to tell in interviews. You can do the same. Steal my process: A project is a thing you finish. A program is a thing you run. A product is a thing people use. A project usually helps you solve your problem. A program is the result of you solving the problem in a way where it can be repeated. But a product requires someone else's problem. For your next interview or discussion around promotion, think about how you solved a problem you or your team faced. Consider how you made it repeatable and scalable, and then how you were able to implement it in a way that can be used by the team even after you've left. If you don't have one yet, start working on it today. That's the job, but the joy example is more rewarding. ## The joy I was bullied as a kid. I used to stutter and my voice was high-pitched. I was also the opposite of cool: having low self-esteem and being intimidated by others meant I lacked the one thing swagger needs: confidence. While I was too timid to speak up and defend myself, I learned that my mom was a lioness to her cub. She didn't play about me, and she refused to let anyone harm me, even if it was me. Bullies at school eventually grew tired of verbal assaults and it escalated to physical ones. I was punched, but I didn't fight back. I came home and told my mom, whom I called Muh. She told me that I needed to defend myself. My granddaddy told me the same. The next day, the same thing happened: the bullies struck and I took the blows. I came home, told Muh, and she told me the same thing: I needed to defend myself. The third day repeated the same cycle: I was punched, I was pitiful, and I had to confess to Muh. This time she said if I didn't defend myself she wouldn't use words to correct me anymore. My granddaddy told me the same. If you're not familiar with Black culture, that meant that I should expect a whooping, which is a different type of spanking. I would rather face an arrogant bully than an upset Muh. Guess what happened the next time the bullies punched me? The pacifist became the punisher. They didn't attack again. But bullies came in all sizes, and that also meant grown ones, namely, teachers. They didn't put their hands on me, but they found a way to pick on me nonetheless. Racism was alive and well in the South, and some teachers and administrators found a way to make life harder for all kids, but Black kids felt it more. Those I couldn't fight; I was taught to respect adults, even if they didn't deserve it. I came home to tell Muh. I couldn't address the teachers, but she could. The next day, Muh was late for work so that she could have a talk with the offending teachers and staff. Guess what happened after she left? The bullying staff knew not to bully me. They would sometimes slip up, and each new year of school meant I would encounter new bullies. Each time I told Muh, and she addressed it. Muh knew how to use her words, and she only got better with it as I grew older. What Muh ultimately taught me was the program of the ferocious fight of faith: use what I had to protect what I have, and escalate when it became too big for me. Muh was a representative of Messiah. I told you that bullies come in all sizes, and I still face them. Bullies are present in politics. They're meticulous in management. They're persistent in police forces. They're sanctioned in schools. They're hidden in hospitals. They're laboring in legal firms. They pass laws and judgment in the same breath. They're charismatic in cults, and they're covered in churches. I have to defend not just myself, but now I'm charged with doing that and more for my household. I have to protect my teams in my career. I share the responsibility of helping my pastor protect the congregation. As a Foundational Black American, I am my brothers' and sisters' keeper. As a Believer, I'm a part of Christ's Church, and the Body should protect the Body. For much of this, God has equipped me. But for even more, God calls me to bring my concerns to Him. > Hebrews 4:14-16 CSB > Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens—Jesus the Son of God—let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need. I'm not gon' lie to you, reader. Seeing my mom defend her son to adults who knew better put a grin on my face. But I quickly learned that Muh didn't play, and if these teachers didn't stop picking on her son, it would **not** be pretty. So I learned to pray for the bullying teachers, because if I had to tell Muh one more time… sheesh. But do you not know the joy I have as a son of God to know that when things get too big that I can go to a God Who is bigger? Do you not understand the confidence that I have when I fall on my knees, knowing that Jesus walked this earth, too, and He knows how people can be? He does not play about His kids. Jesus said it is better for someone to have a heavy stone tied to their neck and drown in the sea than for that person to cause one of His children to stumble (Luke 17:2). The project of defending myself became the program of going to my Defender when the fight got too big for me. Running that program is what a faithful Christian life is, and it gives me a product I can hand you: the Gospel. Repent of your sins, trust your Maker, and your Maker will protect you. Implementing Intentional Compound Creativity means that you will have a process of repeated success. That process becomes a map, and the map hands you a compass. When you use what you've got, even when part of it is stolen and you have to be faithful over what you've got left, you obtain joy knowing what you've got coming: protection on this side of Glory and paradise on the other side. In the Black community, hearing "what you got coming" is usually a threat. You don't want to know what you've got coming, because it's usually something bad. But in the household of faith, it becomes a treasure. You look forward *to* it because you're being kept *by* it. Maps point to treasure. Compasses show you direction. Christ is both. --- **Receipts** 1. [Desegregating Fayette County Schools](https://www.memphis.edu/tentcity/issues/desegregating-schools.php?ref=chearis.org) — University of Memphis — Tent City: Stories of Civil Rights in Fayette County, Tennessee, accessed 2026-08-16. 2. [Some fear that Fayette County's schools could resegregate without a court order](https://www.chalkbeat.org/tennessee/2024/05/17/some-fear-fayette-county-schools-could-resegregate-sans-a-1965-court-order/?ref=chearis.org) — Chalkbeat Tennessee, published 2024-05-17, accessed 2026-08-16. 3. [The Color of Discipline: Sources of Racial and Gender Disproportionality in School Punishment](https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ663870&ref=chearis.org) — Russell J. Skiba, Robert S. Michael, Abra Carroll Nardo, Reece L. Peterson — The Urban Review, vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 317–342, published December 2002, accessed 2026-08-16.