Hey everyone 👋. Greetings from Berlin this week!
Welcome to the 6 new people who signed up. This brings us to 194 creators. Here's the previous edition of the newsletter for those of you who missed it.
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Small update: you can now comment on this post directly. Public comments are available thanks to the latest updates to Ghost (the web hosting platform I use). For those of you who have been asking for this feature, the Gods of Ghost have finally listened 🙏.
Thanks for all your messages of encouragement last week. It sure wasn't easy to open up, but I've been overwhelmed by your support. I'm surrounded by great people. We move.
Line-up this week:
Exciting news! (the picture above might have given it away)
Quote of the week
The Disruptive Actuary Virtual Conference
Things you might like
1. Big news!
I've been selected to be a mentor for Write of Passage cohort 9 starting in October.
Write of Passage is one of the top online writing schools globally and has delivered big names like Packy McCormick, Ana Fabrega and Amanda Natividad to name a few. I attended cohort 7 last year, which set my life on a new trajectory.
There was life before writing online and life afterwards. I have moved from being stuck in a corporate job where I didn't have an avenue to express my creativity to publishing over 60 articles online, finding purpose, creating serendipity and meeting fascinating people. I have had a taste of freedom and I'm not turning back.
I like this summary of who the course is for:
Being selected as a mentor is a big win for sure. I'm still pinching myself. It's been fun to savour this moment, but now the hard work begins.
The 14 mentors will host their own 1-hour sessions once per week for 5 weeks to support David Perell's core course material. In addition to this, mentors are expected to review 10 essays per week, support other mentors and help out the nearly 400 students where and when they can.
It's going to be a blast!
Here are my initial thoughts on how I want to approach my mentor sessions:
Mindset
I want to teach those two steps behind me.
The lessons I've learned over the last 10 months of writing online are still fresh in my memory and I want to help other people who are starting their own journeys.
In addition to sending the elevator back down, I want to focus on the students' needs, moving from "what do I want to teach" to "what do I want them to learn".
Content
My aim is to help students get into the habit of writing and cultivate a creator's mindset.
I'm going to use my sessions to cover some of the topics I've written about before:
Strategies to get the most out of the course,
How to foster an attitude of idea generation and information capture,
My approach to giving and receiving feedback,
Finding your "Why",
Thoughts on increasing your luck surface area (distribution), and
I might even do a bonus session on creating visuals if there is time. Making sketches has been one of the best ways to communicate my ideas to my audience.
If you have any questions on the course, please reach out. I'd love to help.
2. Quote of the week
Brie Wolfson on her time working at Stripe:
What I’ve learned from having the privilege of working in a place that asks for my best and helps me get there is how much it can unlock in a life. The benefits extend far beyond the skills required to get great work done. The really, really good stuff comes from looking back on something you created and thinking, “I had no idea I could do that.”
Big mood after the WOP mentor kickoff session last Friday. This is a strong, talented team who will get the best out of each other.
3. The Disruptive Actuary Virtual Conference
As I mentioned a few editions ago, I'll be talking at an actuarial conference in September. The marketing for the event has gone live and I'm delighted to share more details now.
On day 1, I'll be speaking about tips to increase your luck surface area and advance your actuarial career.
On day 2, I'm interviewing Marc Glickman, a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries in the US and the CEO of BuddyIns (an insuretech company) on the latest trends in insurance distribution.
I had a great time recording my talk and chatting to Marc. The actuarial community is alive and well. If you are interested in attending, please register here. It's completely free to sign up.
4. Things you might like
🧵 Thread: apart from adding the Comment feature mentioned above, Ghost also added a Search function (so you can now go search sites for old content without having to scroll endlessly) and Explore (a community recommendation engine to boost discovery).
📚 Book: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck. Bit late to the party here. I enjoyed this book, but I would suggest reading a short-form summary to save you time. There was a lot of fluff (context and examples) after the main points were made early on. Main lessons: (1) People with a fixed mindset (those who believe our abilities are inherited) are less likely to succeed than those with a growth mindset (those who believe our abilities can be developed). (2) Intrinsic motivation always beats extrinsic motivation. When you find something you are passionate about, you can outwork anyone.
🖼️ Visual: I just love this graphic by Our World in Data.
Until next time. Have a great week and happy creating.
-- John
P.S. you can respond directly to this email or drop a comment below. I would love to hear from you.