The Pronoia Effect
The Single Shift That Changes Everything | Coming Fall 2026
BY BROOKE HALL
A bold new lens on ambition, success, and the unexpected gift of losing it all.
I founded a citywide festival that drew 400,000 people, generated $33.8 million in economic impact, and was broadcast around the world. Then I lost it.
The Pronoia Effect is the story I carried out of the fire. The building, the breaking, and the single shift in perception that turned the collapse into the awakening.
Part memoir, part spiritual reckoning. The book culminates in a practical framework for living with pronoia, the radical belief that life is unfolding for your greatest growth, even when it doesn't look that way. It closes with an original practice to begin your own transformation.
This book is for anyone who has been broken open by loss and suspects there might be something on the other side of it.
A Vision Brought to Life
Co-founded by Brooke Hall and Justin Allen, Light City transformed Baltimore's waterfront into a celebration of light, music, and innovation. America's first large-scale light festival, it drew over 400,000 attendees in its inaugural year and generated $33.8 million in economic impact. Over three years, it attracted more than 1.3 million visitors and delivered $111.6 million in total impact, establishing it as one of the most significant recurring events in Baltimore's history.
BROOKE HALL
CEO | Author | Speaker
Brooke Hall builds things at the intersection of creativity, community, and emerging technology. Over two decades, that work has taken the shape of a citywide festival, innovation conferences, cultural campaigns, an arts magazine, a creative agency, and a book.
As Founder and CEO of What Works Studio, she leads a creative agency that helps ambitious organizations sharpen their vision, move faster, and create work that matters. The studio's campaigns have shaped culture on a national scale, from viral environmental storytelling to pandemic-era brand strategy to a historic giving campaign now part of a permanent Smithsonian exhibition.
She co-founded What Weekly, an arts and innovation magazine that cultivated a new spirit of possibility in Baltimore, and Light City, America's first international light and music festival, which drew over 400,000 visitors and generated $33.8 million in economic impact in its inaugural year.
Her work has been featured by CNN, The Guardian, New York Magazine, Fast Company, and National Geographic. She is a Salzburg Global Fellow, certified meditation teacher trained by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach, and has been recognized as Innovator of the Year and Top Female CEO, among others.
Her upcoming book, The Pronoia Effect (Fall 2026), tells the story of building something extraordinary, public collapse, and the single shift that changes everything.
Awards
“I have never seen, anywhere, a transformation of vision into reality that was such a stretch. And so fast.”
— Gary Vikan, Director of The Walters Art Museum