Productivity Addiction and the Flawed Search for Mentorship
š Roundup // 031
š Welcome to the latest issue of The Jungle Gym ā the newsletter that helps you build a more fulfilling career by integrating your work and life.
⨠If youāre a new reader, thanks for stopping by. Feel free to check out this introductory post, which explains what The Jungle Gym is all about.
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Friends,
Itās been two months since I strapped on a jetpack and went independent, so I thought Iād share a quick update about what Iāve been doing and how itās going.
What Iāve been doing:
Incubating a company to solve skilled labor shortages
Helping with the marketing launch of an online enrichment program for kids
Launching a web3 education project
Managing the talent collective
Angel investing & advising
Writing this newsletter
What needs improvement
While Iām enjoying each of these projects, and they are all going well, this doesnāt feel like a sustainable way to operate. Iām working a ton of hours and always have a nagging feeling that Iām dropping a ball somewhere.
Iāve noticed that I tend to give top priority on my time to consulting work out of a drive to deliver value to clients. While I think thatās the right mindset to be a good consultant, itās probably not the best strategy if I want to build something of my own or maximize my day-to-day energy.
Since this web3 education project is giving me tons of energy, Iād like to free up more time to focus on it. That probably means trimming down to one main consulting engagement at some point.
Whatās going well
With all that said, Iāve been loving this new way of working.
Every project Iām on is intellectually engaging. That seems to be a function of the:
Subject matter of each domain
Skills Iām exercising
People Iām engaging with on a daily basis
While the cognitive load of switching projects can sometimes feel taxing, the variety is really energizing. I think that no matter what allocation I settle on, I will keep taking a portfolio approach to my career.
Okay, letās get into it. In this issue of the Roundup, Iāll be riffing on:
āļø Productivity addiction
𤫠The gifts of awkward silence
š The flawed search for mentorship
š How to find friends online
š What writerās block actually means
Riffs & Recommendations
Reflections on some of the best content Iāve been consuming lately.
āļø Breaking Free From Productivity Addiction
6-minute read by Alex Olshonsky
One challenge of independence is that youāre under constant surveillance from your boss (a.k.a yourself). My boss not only knows how productive Iām being, he actually knows how productive I could have been if I had stuck to my schedule. He sees the inefficient way I do certain tasks and judges me without offering any advice for improvement.
Ultimately, my goal isnāt to play the productivity game. Iām not trying to maximize the output of each hour. Instead, Iām aiming to do high-leverage work that generates a lot of value so that I can use the rest of my time as I see fit.
Turns out, itās still hard to break the habits of productivity theater, even when youāre only performing for yourself.
𤫠The many gifts of awkward SILENCE.
3-minute read by Jessica Hagy
Loved these ten gifts of awkward silence:
Itās the ideal deflect for verbal attacks
You say nothing that can be used against you
You seem smarter than you are
It exposes the absurdity of a bad question
Helps you avoid dumb arguments
Gives you time to think
Itās more memorable than anything you could say
The discomfort reveals a lot about the other person
Gives you the position of power
You get to choose your own fate
š Stop Looking For Mentors
2-minute read by Stay SaaSy
Looking for a mentor is a lot like looking for a husband or wife while youāre single. Eventually, someone you date may become a suitable candidate, but the people you meet on Tinder rarely start out that way.
Rather than trying to find someone who will agree to mentor you:
Just find somebody who can answer some questions you have. Then, if you think they can answer some more, ask them again. In reality, a mentor is mostly just somebody that answers questions more than once. Thatās it. Itās not cinematic.
š The 1/10/100/1000 rule of finding friends online
6-minute read by Lesley
Over the past couple of years, Iāve gotten pretty good at making friends online. As evidence, I talk to a bunch of people on a monthly basis who Iāve never actually met in person.
In reality, itās a numbers game. By spending time in the right online communities you surround yourself with lots of potential friends. By direct messaging a portion of those people, youāll end up taking some friendly Zoom calls. While most of those calls will be one-time events, a few may build the foundation for a relationship. Pretty soon one of those people will start looking a lot like a friend.
š If You Have Writer's Block, Maybe You Should Stop Lying
5-minute read by Sasha Chapin
Perhaps youāve complained before that you donāt have anything to write about. That your āmind has gone blank,ā that you donāt have any ideas.
I donāt believe you. I know that you have mental contents, right? Your mind is constantly moving. Youāre always producing judgments, attitudes, opinions, emotions, melancholy, malaise, anger, and so on. You have things to write about. What you do is just put the things in your head on the page, in basically the order they naturally occur. Flip over the rock in your mind, type about the beetles.
If you donāt want to do that, itās because youāre not comfortable with the notion that these are the things that you actually think.
Friends of the Newsletter
Some of the exciting work from friends of the Jungle Gym:
Web3, Crypto & Learning (by Mercedes Bent) identifies ways that web3 could impact the future of learning.
Valuing Possibility on the Creator Journey (by Paul Millerd and Kris Abdelmessih) features a conversation about how to apply an option traderās mindset to the emerging creator ecosystem.
How I Got My Brain Back (by Brie Wolfson) discusses how Brie got to the bottom of what was causing her depression.
7 Years on the Road (by Tom Critchlow) reflects on Tomās career as an independent consultant.
DAOs: Absorbing the Internet (by Mario Gabriele) is the guide you need if you want to understand what DAOs are all about.
The Costly Signal of Skill (by Joey DeBruin) discusses how web3 will help us prove our credentials.
Pixar and the Myth of the Cornered Resource (by David Phelps) makes the case for why individual talent is overratedā even in creative fields.
Shameless Plugs
That web3 education project I mentioned is getting some early signs of traction. Weāre planning a couple of cool opportunities for our early believers. If youāre interested in jumping in before the public launch, sign up here.
The talent collective is accepting new candidates. If youāre tired of filling out applications and waiting for responses sign up here and get intro requests from fast-growing startups delivered to your inbox. (If youāre a company thatās looking for talent feel free to drop me a note as well.)
If you enjoyed this issue of the newsletter, I'd really appreciate it if you could forward it to a friend, family member, or colleague who you think might like it too.
Or, if you'd like to share it on one of your social networks, thatās always great as well.
Until next time,
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