Write. ... Now? The Two-Year Edition

E105: Rest & Recap 15 - Eustress vs Distress, Write of Passage

This week (click straight through):

• Write of Passage - where it all started two years ago. And an invitation to join me in Cohort 11.

• Recap: Editions 99-104 Writing - communications - is an important 21st-century skill. We explore my writing journey to 100 editions.

• Rest element - Good stress vs Bad stress

Thank you for supporting my work, my curiosity, and our collective future.

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Revisiting my why at the two-year mark

• Publish (hit that button)

• Find a community that transforms the learning (class) into a continuous practice

• Write alongside people who challenge me to raise the bar on my writing

This was the draw. Here I was, signing up for yet another bright shiny class “Write of Passage” in September 2021. “Yup. A-N-other communications class,” my inner voice muttered. That last bullet point was important. I was here to learn how to make challenging topics palatable, and how to engage more people in the conversation on climate. With a task so large and urgent, I was determined to overcome my writer’s block and imposter syndrome. 

“I want conversations about climate to be sexy – intriguing, engaging, and appealing. “I want to write (about climate) in a way that inspires agency while addressing the urgency.”

I was already many hours and dollars deep into adding skills to improve my content: podcasting, information curation, story-telling, and procrastination classes among others! However, I still struggled with developing a sustainable process. I’d learned to write snack-size pieces to feed the algorithms on LinkedIn and Twitter, but I struggled with finding the energy and system to consistently write right-size newsletter essays. Could this help? Well, here we are two years later at edition 105!

I continued in my application: “As a futurist, I watch for patterns, signals, and anomalies that suggest change is in the air. I look for ways to keep my family future-ready. I concoct stories about how we survive and thrive in these various possibilities. The best part of my job is knowing that at least 50% of what I imagine will not happen - because we can bend that arc. Future of Work and Climate are cluster topics that the average parent worries about daily, so I write about these because I believe we can each tilt the future in our favour.”

It was September 15, 2021 - my finger hovered nervously over the publish button. The first issue, E1: Mother of Dragons, was more personal than I’d planned. The cohort community had edited and massaged my rhetoric. They knocked some of the stuffiness out of my “professional voice” elevating it a notch. They took my dry bullet list answer to the prompt “Frequently Asked Questions” (Why do you call yourself a Mother of Dragons), and re-scaffolded the flow. My simple piece was transformed as I incorporated more texture, colour and story. By editing the work of others, and having them return the favour, I’d discovered the value of self- and peer-editing. I was hooked!

I started small. I committed to 21 editions. This newsletter isn’t a vanity project - I’d only continue publishing if there was an appetite for a newsletter aimed at raising the leaders of 2050 and 2070 - discussing the changes in the Future of Work, Climate, and the 21st-century skills that we can pass along to emerging adults. It was a test - of my ability to stay the course, of building and exploring the topics with my audience. And here we stand, 105 editions later! [And still learning.]

That is how I got here. What about you? Are you toying with starting (or re-starting) a newsletter? Or exploring some writing?

Join me in Write of Passage

Come for the learning. Stay for the community.

Write of Passage joined Build a Second Brain and Writing in Community as cohort learning communities that revolutionized the way I communicate. And opened my access to an international collective of curious, “beautiful minds”.

Write of Passage Cohort 11 is officially open for enrollment.

If you’ve been thinking about taking this course, I’d love your company. I’ll be writing my own weekly essays alongside you. I’ve had the honour of being part of the WoP Cohort Crew in the past three cohorts - providing editing and community support during the intensive five-week course.

The community that gets bitten by this bug cannot resist supporting each other. There is a groundswell of collaboration, peer-editing and reinforcement that continues as your energy flags between cohorts, egging you on - to essay six, seven, and beyond! There ARE good people everywhere.

This course resurrects my hope for the future of humanity. It counters the doom-and-gloom headlines. You develop respect for the depth of concern, knowledge, and goodwill that your fellow students pour into their essays. And make new friends across generations, disciplines, and continents. Our common bond is words. People stay awake for live classes or join watch parties in the PAC/India or EU/Africa zones. You discover new customs and phrases as your essay gets edited by an artist in Hong Kong, a home-schooling mother in Pakistan, or you review an essay on ClimateTech. Collaboration. Respectful debate. Deep Thinking. This is what the Future of Education and Work could look like!

The 11th cohort runs from October 2 – November 8. Enrollment opened on September 12, and stays open for two weeks, or until all spaces have been filled. 

🐘Addressing the elephant in the room - it is an expensive class. But for many participants, it is “transformative”. Many workplaces allow you to expense the class.

You may wish to try out some of the techniques that move you from stuck to 80% of your way to published. Join me in a free class offered next week. Will it be new material? Not always. Sometimes the best learning is common-sense repackaged and told by Seinfeld so that it suddenly becomes obvious. “What’s obvious to you …”

So, carve out a spot on your calendar, and try out a free session at noon ET next Thursday, September 21, 2023

Test Drive Write of Passage

If you’ve been stuck and been thinking “I was made for more”, the Internet is waiting to hear your voice, and hundreds of Write of Passage students from dozens of countries are waiting to meet you. I can’t wait to see what you write.

Links:

• WOP11 enrollment is open Sep 12-25 https://bit.ly/TilttheFuture-WoP11cohort¹

• Trial class - Test Drive Write of Passage, September 21, noon ET

Questions? Please DM me and I can answer many of them.

And if you are suffering from imposter syndrome, remember:

The best idea can come from anyone, anywhere, at any time. You have permission.

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Rest edition 15: Good Stress and Bad Stress

Bad stress (distress) tires us. But there is also good stress (eustress) - and we can use that stress to motivate, energize and galvanize us.

Invest your emotional energy in good struggle — Wes Kao

Source: https://www.mentalhelp.net/stress/types-of-stressors-eustress-vs-distress/

For the eleven new Tribe Tilt members who recently joined us, our Rest editions are designed as shorter-read 🙃 recaps that provide us with

• an opportunity to catch up on editions we missed

• a retrospective on how the diverse set of six 2000-word essays tie together to give us agency and tilt our individual and collective futures in our favour

• suggest a spin on proactively scheduling rest - a crucial 21st-century skill in an always-on world

We value mental wellness and it is important to model these positive 21st-century skills for emerging adults. I found the conversation on Eustress and Distress to be a valuable distinction.² Steer away from things that sap our energy. Gravitate towards those that envigorate us and help us move through tasks faster.

We are learning (and giving ourselves permission) for active recovery - proactively scheduling rest. We talk about sleep, burnout, pacing, and more in the past 14 rest editions.

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Reflect: Digest of issues 99 - 104

21ST CENTURY SKILLS

The writing process was the focus for this cycle of seven centered as we celebrated the 100th edition and reflected on what is working to date. Effective communication is a key 21st-century skill. It supports Reasoning, Analytical Thinking, Team Dynamics, and Complex Problem Solving in particular.

In edition 100, we celebrated this new tribe Tilt that is evolving to support each other:

So what worked this time? On reflection, I got there by:

• Strategically building breaks into my publishing routines for rest and reflection E101: Burnout or Break? It’s a choice.
  Love the prompts to “preempt these failure points” in getting to 100 editions! Alexandra Allen writes

  Alexandra Allen's Substack

• Realizing I did not have to share everything I knew in one essay. I was building a slow and steady relationship with my readers. E102: The Pyramids Were Not Built In A Day

  Start with your one brick...” LOVE this, Karena. In all we do, keep it simple. And keep moving! Bill Tomoff writing

  #TwinzTalk

• Creating pacing to communicate bigger messages that needed to seep into existence E104: Warming Up The Neighbourhood The idea that our audience is first hearing our message when we feel exhausted from yelling resonated with many of you:
  ”Woah! I was JUST thinking today that I'm growing a bit tired of posting videos on YouTube (more like, I'm thinking "What's the point?"), but now I realize I just need to continue on because they are just starting to hear it. “ writes

  Becky Isjwara
  (Also check out her YouTube channel where she posts her lunchtime watercolour sketching around Hong Kong - travel+creator in one cool space)

• Leveraging technology. Aside from the auto-publish feature in Substack, I’ve been using the ‘rewrite a text note’ feature in AudioPen.ai as my first-level editor/summarization tool. It was developed by Tilt member Louis Pereira whose profile joins our list of Meet a Member. E99: Audiopen and Louis Pereira

  Thank you,

  James Bailey
  for buying AudioPen.

For all those suffering separation after dropping young adults off at college, this is a tribute to my Dad, now in another dimension, but still close at heart:

Which was your favourite edition in this cycle? Why?

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Our Tribe Tilt continues to grow! From down south - Australia, South Africa and Kenya - and as close home as my own town, 11 new members have joined us this cycle of seven.

Welcome! You join this rich community that believes in the best of humanity - connecting people, sharing ideas, and exploring thoughts respectfully. And we believe in possibility - that we can make a difference to the people and places that are precious to us.

Please do DM me and introduce yourself. Many essays start as conversations with Tilt members, so it helps to know you and your interests.

Remember: The Rest editions are a great way to share Tilt the Future with a friend as they get a six-edition bundle!

See you again next week, Tribe Tilt. Till then, stay safe and healthy. From there all else becomes possible.

Karena

1. These are affiliate links. If you choose to join us in the WoP class (no obligation) after attending the FREE workshop, I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support. Serendipity is positioning yourself, of being in the right place to hear the message you were destined to hear.

2. Check the comment from

Rick Lewis

below. He suggested adding Yerkes Dodson Law on the optimal amount of stress as a companion to this conversation on eustress and distress.