Hello friend,

How has your week been?

I hope this finds you well as it’s been a busy week wrapping up classrooms and assessing student work for me! You may have noticed I’m writing again, yes that’s right, I’m sticking to good habits and moving forward!

What is Business Coaching?

Dan Sullivan’s Coaching: The #1 Industry For The 21st Century explains what business coaching is.

I never understood business coaching, sports coaching makes sense though! Teams need someone to align their goals and tactics, but a business owner? Why would a business owner need someone to help them run their business?

The role of a business coach is to make the business owner’s path clearer for them. What are some important goals, tasks, roles etc? So it is like a sporting coach after all.

He makes a great point that a business coach doesn’t need to know your business, you know your business. But they do need to challenge your thinking and your decisions to give you clarity.

This has made me reconsider the value business coaching brings to me as a business owner.

How to Trick Your Brain into Learning More?

Mark Rober gave this TED talk The Super Mario Effect – Tricking Your Brain into Learning More. He’s a YouTuber and he questions traditional learning methods by using game mechanics.

Rober says how to turn passing assessment, into passing game levels. Instead of a fear of failing, there’s a natural fight to overcome obstacles to improve one’s skill.

Many universities and schools around the world are using this style of learning. It’s gone beyond gamification, due to video games like Minecraft: Education Edition.

The mind-shift is to focus on the end goal NOT the failures along the way. I hear students say “I can’t do this, I don’t know what I’m doing”. I try to reassure them it’s okay not to know,it’s why they’re here to learn.

So as Mark puts it, focus on the princess, not the pits, i.e. stick with a task and learn more.

Maker or Manager Schedule, What’s Yours?

Tim Ferris and Daniel Ek, shared an article by Paul Graham called Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule. It’s a short read which explains the thinking behind two types of workers, makers and managers.

Makers are creators like programmers or product designers. Their focus is on the project in front of them, meetings are often distractions and can create worry.

Managers are, well, managers – the higher-ups or bosses of the world. Their schedule is people-focused and meetings are variables throughout their entire day.

This struck a chord with me as my team and I are all makers. As teachers, our focus or project is our classroom of students in front of us. Meetings breakup our workflow and generally create stress as it pulls us out of our purpose.

Even as a freelance web designer, client meetings can bother me. I’m more interested in the client’s project than the project meetings.

Meetings are important, makers see that. It’s making everyone aware that meetings impact us in different ways. If we can be aware of each other’s schedules, we create better working environments.

You Need 1000 True Fans, That’s It?

Kevin Kelly author of The Inevitable published 1000 True Fans on his website. It’s an article arguing content creators don’t need millions of followers, but 1000. I couldn’t agree more.

Kelly explains today’s technology is connecting creators to fans like never before. Using simple math, $100 profit for 1000 fans equals $100,000, his argument becomes sound.

There’s no free ride in life, building an audience worth of 1000 fans takes effort and energy.

There’s no free ride in life, building an audience worth 1000 fans takes effort and energy. But if you love what you do then do it!

Hence why I’m writing my letters to you, blog posts for searchers and videos for watchers. I want to find my 1000 true fans, don’t you?

More Found Goodness

🎧 #484: Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify — Habits, Systems and Mental Models for Top Performance. Here’s my notion notes if you’d like them.

📽 The #1 Best Book for Your 20s, also my notion notes.

📝 How to Start a Blog That Changes Your Life, my notion notes.

📝 FreeCodeCamp.org via Victoria Drake Article – What is TCP/IP? Layers and Protocols Explained. If you like computer networking and cake, this is your holy grail.

📝 Elementor Cloud Beta – If you’re an Elementor fan, they’re revealing the next step for Elementor.

📝 Elementor Yoast – Also Elementor related, Yoast SEO Plugin is now integrated, cool!

Thank You For Reading

It’s been a busy week, full of productive tasks and distracting meetings!

My wife and I have been hitting the gym again this week, I’m so proud of her! I’m grateful we can share the time and enjoy each other’s company. I’m returning to Mehdi’s 5×5 routine, which I discovered years ago. It’s always my favourite workout to do in the gym.

One of my students said I’d make a great dad one day. We were talking about how un-productive she was being with her work so I made the joke “this is why I don’t have kids”. It was a pretty touching response, to be honest, I’m grateful I can have nice moments with my students like that.

Here’s an article: Hiring a Freelance Web Designer – A Guide for Small Business Owners, and a video: Beginners Guide to Chat Plugins WordPress. If you’d like to read last week’s letter, here it is for you: Measuring Success. I’m building my first course called, Website In A Week; sign up for early access. And finally, if you’d like to work with me on a web design project, please follow the prompts linked.